It Took Me a Long Time to Recover

“I’m just happy to be alive and sometimes eating soup,” is something I said after the trauma and abuse became so intolerable that I stopped being able to swallow.

After nine days of nothing but one IV, I started swallowing again thanks to process work, but only in the mornings. I looked like I was dying because I had been. My body, mind, and life were still a wreck, but I was genuinely happy to be alive and sometimes eating soup.

It took me a long time to recover.

Physically, it was a year before I could eat and drink normally throughout most of the day.

Emotionally, it was years until I started feeling like myself again and fully engaging in my life.

But I’m not here to relive that season (I wrote all about it in Unravel).

I’m here to tell you that not only is healing always possible, but things (life, relationships, work, finances, health) can become so much better than you could ever imagine.

Your rock bottom or challenging chapter can become the foundation and stepping stone to a life of true fulfillment, purpose, expansion, and connection. They can become a collection of lessons and gifts you’re grateful to integrate because they lead to so much beautiful growth, even if you’re never thankful that things happened the way they did. They can give way to true freedom and leverage, unlike anything you’ve known before.

Most importantly…

They can become a chapter you close and a book you set down completely, rather than a narrative that continues weaving a thread through everything that follows.

But you have to choose it.

And choosing it is more than wanting it.

You have to dig in and do the deeper work.

That’s exactly what I did. I chose healing and growth, again and again, as many times as it took to find myself and align with my truth. To heal my traumas and my body, and raise my self-worth and standards. It’s not easy work, you know I’ll never sugarcoat that fact. But it can be more easeful and accelerated when you have the right tools and support.

And, of course, the willingness to choose it wholeheartedly, as many times as it takes.