If I’ve realized anything, it is that I am brave. And you can be too.
– Rachelle Niemann

I realize that I go silent here, sometimes for long stretches of time, and I wanted to try and explain why that has happened. I am a work in progress; I always will be. I am still learning and growing and honestly I hope that continues forever. But sometimes during especially intense times of growth and discomfort, it’s all I can do is focus on the growth and lessons being learned and to process everything that is happening and transforming. This is evolution and sometimes the process takes a while; much longer than we’d like it to.

“When you are in the middle of a story it isn’t a story at all, but only a confusion; a dark roaring, a blindness, a wreckage of shattered glass and splintered wood; like a house in a whirlwind, or else a boat crushed by the icebergs or swept over the rapids, and all aboard powerless to stop it. It’s only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you are telling it, to yourself or to someone else.”
– Margaret Atwood

I realize that this is less than ideal for you, the reader, but I also have to respect the process. The good news is, I am growing, learning and transforming and see these periods reducing significantly if not completely. I will continue to share realizations and lessons because it is important that we talk about this stuff, and I'm finally ready to do that consistently. I've learned so much that needs to be shared.

The truth is, for the past 3 years I’ve been in the midst of Act 2. Brene Brown discusses this as starting with an inciting incident. For me, this was the idea of becoming a parent and passing down my pain, fear, and shame to children and not being able to fully show up for them. That idea, I could not fathom, and it created so much panic and pain within me that I literally thought I was dying. I could not move out of the idea that I was going to die from cardiac arrest if I continued on the same journey and passed on these traits to any children that I may have. My heart would not have it, and so my true journey of transformation began.

That was January 2015, and here three years later, I have made enough progress to create the transformation from fear to choosing love, and those three years of growth, learning, and processing was Act 2 of the story. Where you’re in the midst of winter, it’s cold, dark and ugly out, you’re in survival mode gathering supplies and just trying to stay warm. As you go through the winter searching, learning, and processing there is magic transformation happening underneath those layers of the cold and uninviting surroundings but it just can’t be seen yet.

It’s an uncomfortable place to be but a necessary one. When you can’t see or comprehend your  future because it is so unknown to your current self, that’s true transformation once you arrive. I’ve now worked through enough shame and fear that I am finally able to identify those elusive mean and evil voices in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough, like-able, or worthy. They continue to try and whisper their unwanted messages, but I’ve practiced enough that I can now recognize them and not give them the power they once had. Those voice are no longer my story and they will silence me no more.

Spring has arrived; I’ve come to understand self-compassion and self-love. I’m here and I’m ready to create something real, something meaningful. If I can push through the darkness anyone can, and I’m here to support in any way I can.