At a young age I learned not everyone had big dreams like me. I felt the sting of criticism at a young age, and wanting to avoid that pain, I quickly learned how to hide and deny my desires. I learned to blend in, stay quiet, and fit in. Life was easier that way. It was less satisfying, but I wanted to belong and be loved. 

I learned to choose safety over happiness. I learned to shrink myself and be small.

 
I bought into the idea that my personal desires were vulgar. That they meant I was selfish, high maintenance, and somehow bad. My desires were proof that there was something inherently wrong with me, so I snuffed my desires, and tried to be happy with less than what I longed for.

I pushed away my dreams. I became an expert at denying my needs, and the deep yearning in my heart. I became fiercely independent, needing nothing but the necessities, often going without even those. 

I practiced and felt proud of the ways I deprived myself. Numbness and denial became my norm.

I created a life based on trying to please others, fitting in, and being like everyone else.

I worked so hard to be deserving and worthy of love.

​​I did my best to be who and what everyone around me wanted me to be – not too bright, not too ravenous, not too much. I became masterful at ignoring the fire and truth that lived inside of me.

Over 40+ years, I successfully created a life that looked lovely, but felt exhausting, empty, and deeply disappointing. 

As much as I ached for something more, I felt like it wasn’t okay to want. I feared it was too late. There was so much momentum in this unsatisfying direction. I’d made so many agreements and promises to live my life that way. It felt too big to change. Far too much to overcome.

I almost stayed there – in this place of resignation, toleration, and resentment.

I was so deeply entrenched in a life-long pattern of silencing my wants, my needs, my truth. 

The pressure to smother my desires was enormous. I almost let that stress make my decisions for me.

But then life, or more accurately death, intervened. 

It was an impossible situation. To be dying while giving birth… is there a greater, more impossible conundrum?

No matter how much I willed it, no matter how much I focused and prayed and visualized, my body moved steadily in the direction of multiple organ failure, and stroke. It ballooned with water, trying its damnedest to save my life. Emergency surgery did the rest.

I lived, and so did my baby.

In the years of recovery that ensued, it became impossible for me to keep putting myself last. I was barely able to make it through the day. I required support, and a lot of it. And time. So much time to resurrect and heal.

Self-erasure and deprivation were no longer an option. I needed every form of nourishment, attention, and care. I became needy in the most primal and necessary ways. I had no choice but to make myself my own greatest priority. 

Unconscious self-neglect became a thing of the past.

As I began to take up more space in my own life, it became more and more apparent how little space I’d been occupying in the past. I’d contented myself with crumbs in every area of my life, and now I saw how long I’d been starving – far, far too long.

The truth of what needed to happen became crystal clear. It was time to wipe the slate clean, remove toxicity from every aspect of my life, and do the DEEP, deep work of shedding the life-long conditioning and denial that had silenced and suffocated me for too long.

Putting my body and life back together after something like this was a feat. Rare by anyone’s standards. 

Recreating myself from the foundation up has been grueling, revelatory, and ultimately, a gift. It has illuminated my courage and strength, highlighted my capacity and resilience, and stretched me far beyond what I thought was possible.

It has also reminded me that I am a powerful creator. And that my creations, from this point in my life forward, get to come from a very different place inside of me. 

No longer consumed by ambition or needing to prove my value, lovability, and worth, I am living my life on my terms. I keep asking myself, “What do I want?”, and listening to the replies. 

I’ve learned to face my inner critics, befriend my fears, tap into my inner wisdom, set new and higher standards, and trust myself and life more than ever before.

Today, I allow myself to be motivated from a very different place inside. I no longer contort and diminish myself to make other people more comfortable. I no longer allow myself to be controlled by fear – my own, or others’. 

I ask myself self-honoring questions to ensure I am in integrity with myself and my truth. I listen to my intuition, and I trust my ability to respond. I catch myself when I am living out of alignment with my values and priorities, and I recalibrate faster than ever before. 

I love myself more than I ever have. And I choose myself – my most vibrant, awake, and alive self – again, and again, and again.

Nothing about this journey has been easy. It took nearly dying, and years of debilitating health challenges thereafter, to force me into finding a new way of living, working, mothering, relating, creating, and more.

My journey continues, and I gratefully carry the wisdom I have gained with me. I share this same wisdom with you.

If you are on a path of accelerated change and growth, and all the messiness that can include, I want you to know you are not alone. 

There are so many who are here to support you and cheer you ever onward when you feel like your knees are going to buckle and you’re gasping for air.

I can share my wisdom and mastery with you, and help you find your way when you feel lost in the weeds, uncertain which way is forward.

More than anything, my life experience has shown me what becomes possible when you choose to honor and hold yourself in the highest regard. It is not always easy, but it is rewarding beyond your current knowing. 

If you are ready to live beyond the push and prove mindset that’s been sucking you dry, and you’re finally ready to choose and honor yourself, I can assure you that your life is about to change for the better.

Things may get quite messy first. It might seem like everything is falling apart, when everything is actually coming together in the way it was always meant to. For your most fulfilling life to emerge, all that was exhausting and depleting you must first fall away.

If you are ready, and scared, and unsure, and full of unfed desires, I am here to help.

I am here to help you find your way forward into the most gratifying life – the life you are meant to live.

Are you ready?