In one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, "Thumbing My Way," Eddie Vedder writes...

Taking on this principle, that I think of as everything is shades of gray, I have found a freedom from the heaviness placed upon my spirit by a society that values labeling everything so that constructs of conformity can be created to judge oneself, their social position, their righteousness, and their ability to succeed over the likelihood of failure.  In other words, a view of people and situations, being defined as "positive" or "negative" in nature by the stories and principles which precede them, and therefore the experience you have of them following suit.  So much of our lives are labeled along this dual spectrum before we even have the opportunity to fully experience it ourselves.  It equates to us being told what to experience, how to react to it, and what we should feel about it.  It can so muddy the way we access life, that many of us become dull or unsure of what we actually feel or enjoy.  How do we know, if everything comes to us prepackaged, label applied?

To experience things labeled as "negative" has become so unacceptable in our culture that a space to process our feelings around those experiences, we inevitably have, is hard to find.  To express feelings that are considered "negative" has become taboo.  Frustration, under these conditions, if expressed, can result in our own label as a "negative" person.  Our grief process suddenly has an arbitrary time limit, and it too is labeled "negative" as we're accused of dwelling and being unable to "just let go."  Yet, in this human experience, to deny the importance of the entire gamut is to drown the possibility of anything to have significant meaning -- for us to better understand ourselves or others.  How is a fullness to be experienced without access to the complete range of the spectrum?

There is no doubt that tragic life events mark us at times in irrevocable ways.  Not all of them can be said to be advantageous to our own well being or even, perhaps, to those our wounded self encounters.  For myself, multiple childhood traumas left me with reactionary patterns, physical and sexual shame, and social anxiety in particular situations that I've had to work very hard to accept or transform into something that gives me the space to have my fullest expression as an adult woman.  These traumas were reinforced, changed, or exacerbated by several additional traumas I have experienced as an adult.  Without going on about the details of those traumas, I want to express that to varying degrees, I understand trauma to be a universal experience.  How we process the trauma, while following certain tendencies identified by science, is largely individual.  What seems a minor occurrence to one individual may send another to the brink and vice versa.  Neither individual is wrong in their experience of the occurrence.  Many variables are at work, and it is unhelpful for us to classify another's reactions based upon our own or our analysis of what they should be, as we are outside players.

I am writing this during a pandemic where we have been asked to shelter in place, practicing physical distancing from non-household members as much as possible.  Those in positions and careers deemed non-essential have been restricted from work and providing for their families with no tangible timeline for a return to anything resembling normalcy.  Children are home from school and separated from friends.  Some parents are juggling attempts to earn income from home while also helping their children complete school work there.  This assumes every family has a laptop or other device that can be used and that there is enough time in the day for everyone to do their tasks on that device if there are not multiple of them.  Essential workers and healthcare professionals feel more at risk for contracting and spreading the virus so much so that some are choosing to house themselves away from their families, causing further isolation and financial burden.  Unemployment has been expanded to the self employed and small business owners, but computer systems have not caught up to the demand or new parameters, and some are being denied.  Again, no real timeline.  No idea of what we'll return to, and many unsure if the job they worked so hard to create for themselves will exist in our future.

I'm writing this at the hardest moment I've experienced in all this.  A tornado like storm has taken out power for thousands of people in my area.  Mine has been out for 3 days now. (It was out 5 total.) It's maybe 40 degrees Fahrenheit in my house.  I'm sitting on my couch in my winter coat, under quilts, my hand is almost too cold to move my pen across the paper.  I was once building my local yoga and movement clientele, living in a two income household - jobs which were built from the ground up so we could remain in our community where we were raised and contribute to creating whatever could be mustered in our economically struggling area.  My philosophy had always been not to sell my soul to money and a rat race when I was free to build some version of a dream and come home from my work more fulfilled.

Now, no one in my household is allowed to work outside of the home.  Our work, as it was known, may not exist for some time.  The task is, now, to try to obtain unemployment, and create income that's possible from home, trying to sale online classes, artwork, editing services... something.  Sales of anything in such an economically dire time is a shot in the dark.

In the last month, I have found myself needing to accept donations of food and money, worrying if I will need to relocate during a pandemic, concerned about the future for my children, distrusting information from most sources, playing out scenarios to earn money, unable to do anything aside from hours of yoga and physical movement, and now, being reminded of times when I was younger and entire days were spent trying to stay warm and find food.

There have been countless opinions written in the last weeks about how we should be spending this time.  People telling us how we should be feeling.  Most seem to be saying that we should be taking this time to replenish, reassess, and reevaluate.  Recommendations are given to get creative, play, explore new hobbies, and enjoy time with the family.  All of these things are worthy endeavors and may be accessible to some, but for others of us getting to a state where those things are mentally possible can feel rather impossible.  For many of us, including myself, this time is the ultimate test of our resiliency and the tools we have worked so hard to obtain for our personal wholeness and growth.  This is a trauma.  A collective trauma, and with everything we have we are battling reverting to old ways of coping, of simply hoping to survive while discarding the goal of thriving for the time being.  Keeping afloat is overwhelming enough.

It's April.  This morning, the temperature is cold for this far into spring.  I'm wearing a flight jacket with Navy patches that belonged to my Papaw Hansel who served in the Korean War as a frogman, which he explained to me was a precursor to the Navy Seals.  He once told me a story of standing on the deck of his ship in open ocean.  Enemy planes had been circling overhead for hours and they were sitting vulnerable.  He said that tension got so high many were locking themselves away below deck puking in fear.  He chose to be there, on deck, watching the enemy and flipping them the bird.  He told me sometimes they'd fly low enough that he could see the whites of their eyes and he smiled.  All they could take from him at that point was his life, and he wanted them to see his smiling face.  They eventually abandoned the intimidation tactics and flew away.  Papaw died of bone cancer an octogenarian.  No too long ago, but long enough.

Sometimes, though, smiling in the face of threat is not possible.  Perhaps a greater good is to be considered and no one can agree on an approach despite working toward the same goal.  My dad is a huge fan of the Webber and Rice rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar.  I grew up with it as a regular lullaby.  He can sing every word to every song from beginning to end.  Judas Iscariot opens the story and as much as it is the story of Jesus the Christ, I always felt more drawn to Judas.  The empath in me felt his worry and his desperate attempts to preserve his friends and their ideas when the world seemed to be falling apart.  What do you choose to save under those circumstances?  What do you trust?  Judas opens, "My mind is clearer now.  At last, all too well, I can see where we all soon will be."  He goes on to implore Jesus to listen, to remember they are the weaker underdog.  That if they make too much noise, they'll be crushed, and that he is a man and will die, perhaps taking out the rest of them too.  Judas asks his friend to remember his loyalty, saying, "Please remember that I want us to live, but its sad to see our chances weakening with every hour..."  Judas did not want to betray Jesus.  He wanted to live.  He wanted the principles they were teaching to live.  In his duress, the only way he saw to do this was to sale out his friend.  "Our ideals die around us all because of you.  And now, the saddest cut of all -- someone has to turn you in like a common criminal, like a wounded animal..."  I cannot help but see this very scenario playing out with everyone spouting the results of their fears on social media. 

My maternal grandmother, who I called Mimi, told me the story of the Judas Tree.  The Judas Tree is another name for the redbud tree common in the eastern Kentucky hills.  It blooms in early spring, right before the dogwood, heralding the coming relief of a break in the weather.  Mimi said that when Judas decided to end his own life after ushering in the death of his friend, he chose to hang himself from a sturdy, tall tree with white blooms.  The tree took the shame of Judas as he died, shriveling and gnarling.  Its blooms shrank and blushed with the guilt and embarrassment.  It became our beloved redbud tree.  It grows in our hills alongside the dogwood who's blooms are known to tell the story of Christ.  Judas still the dark harbinger of beauty and light.  I always found it hauntingly comforting that the leaves of the redbud are heart shaped.

In Hermetic philosophy, the Principle of Polarity/Duality, is stated as follows: Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has a pair of opposites; like and unalike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet, all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."  Everything existing on this plane that is experienced through individual perception is a spectrum, a double sided coin, no matter how seemingly concrete.  Our existence is multifaceted, double jointed, layered, and told back to us in stories.  In the bittersweet story of Judas and Jesus, the idea of duality is clearly illustrated.  Even in the sequencing of the blooming trees that carry their tale, it is clear.  Without Judas, Jesus is not possible.  Their story plays out in a full spectrum of continuous love.

During the last argument between Jesus and Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar,  Judas delivers the lines -- "To think I admired you, for now I despise you!"  Jesus answers, calling him a liar.  Judas understands that Jesus realizes the necessity.  Judas asks him what if he didn't betray his whereabouts, stayed, and ruined his ambitions.  Jesus screams at him to go.  Love and hate are the same in nature, only varying in degree.  One can quickly appear to be the other, as the energy applied toward the feeling of it shifts.

It seems then, that on this plane of existence, that duality is necessary for us to make sense of ourselves and the lives we are living.  Otherwise, would we even know we are alive?  Would it matter?  Have we become so adverse to the range of human experience that we are paralyzing ourselves to life until death stares us in the face and we have to pay attention?  Are we so appalled by and fearful of death, we forget to live?  How often does hardship become the impetus for the most beautiful growth?

I know, sometimes, within our awareness, nothing good comes of tragedy, especially that which we perceive as preventable.  One of the things that happened to me repeatedly over the course of a few years when I was a small girl can be described as nothing but atrocious.  I didn't ask for it.  I was powerless.  I didn't deserve it.  I still wear its physical and mental scars.  I cannot see anything good for me that has come of it.  Yet, because of the experience, I feel I am more open to being present for the story of others.  It has led me to a portion of my work, and perhaps, even the ability to write this piece.  I wouldn't be the me that I am without it, the wounded animal that I am.  Is that good?  Bad?  Does it matter? That event continues to impact me and those I encounter.  When I listen to another's story without judgement, is the thing that happened to me made new and good?

I know this current experience is marking me.  I know it is changing the story for all of us.  We didn't get the trigger warning, and here we are.  Dust made of many of our plans.  All we have is now and the opportunity to interpret the conditions we are actually in, and decide to do one of three things --   accept them, change them, or wait for more information.  The alternative is to wallow in the mire.  But, the time to hesitate is through.  Try now.  We can only lose, and our love become a funeral pyre.  Regardless, I am lighting my fire.

When was the last time you asked your body how you were feeling?  I don't mean doing a physical scan to notice aches and pains or other maladies, though that is good information.  I mean asking your body how you are feeling.  Feelings, those things that precede emotions and become emotions if they are not felt in totality.  Would you know your body's answer if you asked?  Do you still speak your body's language?

Some holding patterns become do deeply ingrained that you are no longer conscious of them.  It takes intense focus to notice they are there.  Sometimes it takes someone else's touch or eyes to see them and guide you to feel them again.  I noticed that I was holding a very heightened energy around my heart center.  A tight and anxious energy.  When I deepened my breath and I asked it to relax, I experienced the feeling of fear.  My ego did not want to feel the feeling of that release.  This told me it was a protective mechanism.  My body was storing a wound there and to release it would create a vulnerability.

Since injuring my SI joint and having to take a new approach to my yoga practice, I have been learning how most of us, including myself, walk around outside of our bodies as if we are a big giant brain.  Even those of us with physical practices do it.  Our bodies become a side note to our goals, an afterthought to our obligations, or at worst, that thing in our way. 

This relationship to our bodies is reinforced by our western culture.  Yes, people are praised for having a certain type of physique, but are we really allowed to celebrate any body?  Are we really allowed to experience the body as art?  If I wanted to make a video of me spiraling my hips and ribs to my favorite song while standing in goddess pose, could you celebrate movement with me?  Could I let go enough to make such a video?  Our bodies often times are either shamed, characterized, made into a commodity (in regards to athleticism or physical disciplines), or over sexualized.  You're not this or that enough, therefore you must be ___.  "Ooooh, I saw some side boob.  Damn, she might want some." (I'm not saying that having a biological physical response to someone's body is a bad thing if that person is an adult.  I could write a whole post on this topic alone, and I may someday.  It's how you process those sensations that matters.)  These aspects of our culture leave most of us unsure of how to safely inhabit our bodies.  Then, the microaggressions we meet on the day to day in regards to our bodies can cause us to begin to disassociate so that we are not so sensitive and raw all the time.  That person didn't mean anything by that after all. (ex. "Gosh, you're so skinny.")  Add to that the acute experiences of trauma that some of us will experience, and there is a whole other level of needing to leave our bodies to survive.

This pattern allowed me to continue to be functional despite a lot of daily physical pain.  It was useful in that sense.  Yet, when I began to place certain types of aspirations over the effects it was having on my body, I entered dangerous territory.  It resulted in my injury.

We often wonder things about our bodies like - Why doesn't sex feel as good to me as everyone else acts like it is?  Why do I want to eat the whole box of Little Debbie cakes and not just one?  Why in the world does my back hurt like this?  Why do I feel overwhelmed every time I am out in public?  Most of the time, we can't answer these questions.  Even our doctors, often, cannot answer them.  But, our bodies can, if we can learn to trust them again and listen.

As I laid there in savasana, I kept trying to get that stuck feeling energy to move out of my heart space.  I could feel it engulfing the entire area.  The tightness crept into my neck and shoulders.  My abdomen felt fluttery.  Every time I told myself it was ok to let go and I felt an inkling of release, my ego jumped in and said - NO!  When I asked myself why I couldn't let it go, ego told me that I didn't want to feel lonely.  What would my identity be if I actually allowed myself to experience the loneliness my body feels?  Could I continue along this beautiful path of discovery I am on undaunted?  Could I continue my work?  Or, would I be paralyzed with the emotion of it?  It was that I do not want to be interrupted by whatever it would mean to feel that feeling.  I will be doing the work around this topic in my life on my mat and through my means of sharing.  It is more uncomfortable and difficult to process the dis-ease that develops in our bodies when we ignore their cues. 

In July, I will have completed a certification program in Embodied Healing as credits for my Yoga Alliance certification.  I am continuously fascinated by what I am learning and that it was an injury that began to close the door on the body abuse I was inflicting upon myself and provided me with the tools, through what appeared to be a lost practice, to find a depth of practice I had never experienced.  My plans are to write, develop workshops, and possibly to begin podcasting and doing videos.  If you are interested in seeing some of these things from me, I'd love to know as I am feeling things out.

Blessed be!
​~Sat Nam~

I was going all out.  I was going to push to the point of dripping sweat, shaking muscles, the feeling of my entire body turning to jello.  That, in and of itself can be a great workout goal, but for me, it was a way to punish the anxiety beast.  It didn't matter that I was already tired.  I hadn't slept well for days.  Waking up nightly with adrenaline rushes was common.  It didn't matter that my body ached or that I was sore from my Buti Yoga practice the day before.  Chronic polyarthropathy means my body always hurts to some degree.  To find my capacity for strength and endurance in middle age would obviously be to do the work regardless.  I had even asked about fatigue and working with shaking muscles and was advised that both were goals to achieve when strength building from both yoga teachers, trainers, and online yoga groups.  They weren't wrong.  Pushing was not giving in or up.  It was refusing to let my rebellious body get beyond my ability to control.

I rolled out my mat.  I was already out of breath.  My heart was pounding.  I had the cliche overwhelming sense of dread that those of us who live with anxiety either choose to give in to or actively ignore.  I was practicing a familiar sequence.  I was practicing in my living room.  What the hell was wrong with me?  I was having a panic attack.  It felt like I was turning inside out.  I didn't understand.  Yoga is my passion.  It saves my life.  I tell my yoga clients all the time that if they are not with the breath that they are not doing yoga.  It was hard to breathe.  I ignored my own advice and went on with it anyway.  Yoga couldn't be the trigger.  Yoga was the tool.

I decided that what I was feeling was related to something I wasn't conscious of and I just needed to move.  I completed the practice.  My legs didn't want to lift, but I made them go.  Every time I felt I was about to reach my limit, I pushed harder.  Mind over matter.  If I didn't land a movement on beat or my balance was off on one side, I fought the urge to go back and repeat.  I tell my yoga classes that our bodies are different every time we get on our mats.  I took this advice, working on meeting myself there.  Except was I?  

It's been a struggle to let go of the blaze it took to keep up that level of commitment to a form of yoga that at times is very high intensity.  It gives new meaning to the term "ride the lightning," which normally means being put to death by the electric chair.  Instead, this is the scenario where you harness the lightning and use it to become what you thought was an impossibility.  I have been an athlete my whole life.  I played girls basketball, volleyball, and ran cross country.  I have always been active regardless of my weight.  Buti helped me reach plains of being that even as a high school student, I would never have dreamed I could access.  It was beautiful and addictive.  

This all came about during a time (the last five years) when my spiritual and personal path has taken a radical turn.  Everything I thought I knew about myself is in question.  Upheaval of the belief systems that have kept me afloat since childhood.  It was no coincidence that at the same time, I became terrible at asanas (yoga poses) that required any form of balance. I was ungrounded.  The driven fixer in me didn't understand why I seemed to be going backward in this area, and began to push for more strength, playing limits, and striving.  When I found and experienced the magic of Buti, I trusted that eventually I'd find my feet under me again. 

I have not yet.  In fact, the only improvement that I have seen in that area has been since I pulled back my practice.  This past Sunday, I took a mystic yoga class that was geared toward the root chakra.  The teacher created one of the most intriguing sequences I have ever experienced for the muladhara (Sanskrit name of the root chakra).  There on my mat, my still small voice from within asked, "Are you all in or does your effort reflect only the trying?  It always appears you are in the process, but you are afraid to arrive.  What do you fear?"  I used my breath to not cry.  I decided instead to forgive myself and be with what my body wanted then.  In those moments, I understood what had really been happening in my practice.  Afterward, the teacher gifted me the beautiful smoky quartz you see me holding in the picture above.  Another woman in the class looked at me and told me she had watched me practice and it inspired her.  There in my weakness, my strength was recognized.  I have been refusing to accept my strength for the pursuit of a body and mind that I think I should have.  And yet, I'm too afraid to become the thing I think I have the potential to be because it is completely different than any state of being I have ever known.

I had allowed maximum efforting to become my comfort zone. In the guise of self improvement, I was loathing myself into extreme fatigue and injury.  I wasn't giving myself time to celebrate my gains, but constantly pushing.  During these last two months of backing off of Buti, I am finally able to actually feel how strong I am!  I was keeping myself so weak from overdoing that I couldn't recognize where I was physically.  I was ignoring my body's cues in order to make it submit.  I was stagnant in the familiar places of pain, discomfort, illness, shame, and anxiety while to the outside it appeared I was doing great things for myself.  I didn't fully believe I could ever have another experience of life aside of that list of descriptive words because I had never known it before.  As they say, "Seeing is believing."  Therefore, it was true that discomfort and dis-ease had become my comfort zone.  I had taken it on to heal, but instead of nurturing myself there, I was browbeating myself into submission.  I had wondered why I sometimes felt states of panic when I rolled out my mat for practice.  I loved my yoga.  It made no sense.  I had made myself blind by hiding self destruction behind the mask of self care.

All yoga is about coming to know who and what you are, unifying all parts of your being through the breath and practices.  It is about coming in to santosha (yoga niyama meaning contentment.  It is about fullness right where you are as you also see beyond your limiting beliefs.  Even Buti Yoga has as one of its main mantras - Total body love.  Today, see yourself where you are and think about what it means to love yourself there.

I cannot positively think away my trauma, the events that make me lie awake at night with guilt… the inner complaints that threaten to make me a whiner.  No.  I can only make the decision to put it to work for or against my well-being.  I decide the narrative it creates in my life.  It’s still there in all its glory, but I am the one in charge of the story.

So, when I sit down on my yoga mat, write/journal, bring out my oracle cards, conduct a ritual, or assess my chakras, I’m guiding myself through those dark spaces that if left unconscious will direct my life with their own agenda every damn day.  Utter chaos.

No amount of affirmation, positive meme scrolling, gratitude, or loving your neighbor will process the energy of these places. 

It’s hard to love the neighbor who sexually abused you, the school mates who relentlessly called you names, or yourself after acting in unconscious and hurtful ways, and to be grateful for the lesson when it keeps interrupting your ability to focus on life now.  When it reaches out to you through expressions like night terrors, PTSD, anxiety, social phobias, and more, you can try to forgive and forget all you want.  Those dark places will keep surprising you by coming back up.  

​These events literally wired your brain.  It is through loving and accepting all of yourself that you can choose the gift that your darkness brings.  

Sometimes, darkness is so scary or alien an idea that we’re confused as to how to go there without getting lost in the despair.  That’s when we may need a guide.  Someone who has been there before with themselves and others. 

They aren’t a therapist, or a psychiatrist.  They are a peer, and can share tools to help light the way and dig through the rock to the coal seam.  That’s the work I do with clients.  The realest of real.

If you’ve ever been totally put off by the “happy hippie” aesthetic, the under explained law of positivity, or even counting your blessings, it could be time to face your shadow.

If you don’t want to go alone, find someone who’s gone before to guide you there.  Can you trust anyone who has never gone on the shaded path, but instead chose to “change their mindset” when the shit hits the fan?  How will they react to heavy emotion and events?  Where did their dark side go?

All this time, I had been avoiding my comfort in the shadows because I didn’t want to be constantly explaining myself to the #blessed crowd.  

I made myself palatable as often as I could, and reigned myself in when I wanted to take a conversation into the realm of what is seen as negative talk only because it makes people feel uncomfortable with me and their selves.  I didn’t want to be the person people avoid because she’s always talking about the bits that they want to push back into the dusty corners. 

Yet, part of facing my own truth is to accept that life has wired me for this work, people need a hand to hold, and I am rather content to offer mine.  It doesn’t look like rainbows, pumpkin spice lattes, and tropical paradise, but it is damn beautiful all the same.

Meet Kelli Hansel – The Shadow Guide.

The same three episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations played repeatedly at least three times that night.  One, he was somewhere in Spain eating in a local's home.  I thought of how Mimi always was the one cooking for us when we all lived together.  How would Bourdain feel about her food?

I had been watching Anthony Bourdain for years.  I was relieved that at least those three episodes was something of a distraction as opposed to infomercials and other random television bullshit that plays in the wee hours of the morning.  Through Bourdain, I saw parts of the world that this working class mountain girl will never get to see with her own eyes.  I would watch him have experiences as I would want to have them.  Ask the questions I was curious about.  See the parts of life that aren't just for show.  His jokes felt like they were coming from a friend who got my brand of humor.  Watching him felt real.  There was empathy in his eyes.  A knowing from somewhere deep.

I lost my Mimi not long after that night.  She had played the biggest role in raising the woman I am today.  Having watched her suffer, I stopped fearing death.  When I understood that miraculous healing is not what we are owed and that this life is but a blip in the whole scheme of things, I realized that death means freedom.  It's real freedom.  And, that when she passed on, she would no longer hurt, suffer, be cold, feel bodily pain, worry, fear, or anything like that.  She'd be transmuted.

I experienced the death of my grandfather, aunt, and uncle during that same period of time.  And, each time, while I was sad and wished they didn't have to go, I started feeling relieved for them. They each had to suffer so much before death.  Sure, you may think it morbid.  Heartless even.  But, freedom is boundlessness.  I only want freedom and boundless nature for my loved ones.

It was within this time frame that I began to not want to exist.  I wanted that boundlessness too.  I was done having to be at the doctor all the time, having entire days lost to physical pain and listlessness.  Done wondering if I was a good enough mother.  Done trying to juggle finances and being poor despite busting tail.  Done waiting to live because everything was consumed by timelines and priorities I didn't create.  There was nothing to make me want to stay aside from the pain that it would cause my daughters to know that I couldn't stay for them.  That was the only thing that kept me living.

You cannot judge someone for feeling this way.  Sure, you can say, look at all they have going for them.  Look at the life they have that I wish I had.  You can call them ungrateful, negative, thoughtless, selfish... but, unless you can understand the loss of emotional attachment to living coupled with a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion associated with going about the day in and out... in and out, then you cannot know how not wanting to exist feels.  You cannot judge what you cannot comprehend.  

It isn't that a person does not value or see their blessed life.  It isn't that they are negative or have stopped seeing beauty.  And, other than putting a higher priority on their own suffering than that of their loved ones, you can't even say it is selfish.  We make other similar life choices all the time.  Accepting or declining medical care, smoking cigarettes, walking a tightrope, doing drugs, eating crappy food, driving the car too fast, climbing Mt. Everest... things that we deem worth the risk despite the pain it might cause to us or others in the future.  In a way, that's actually living.  The thing to realize is that the people who decide they don't want to exist are too exhausted to keep trying.  They made the pros and cons list.  They did the risk vs. benefit analysis maybe 1,000 times.  And, in the moment they end it, the finality of not existing felt like freedom.  Boundlessness.  All else would go on.  Life, for all of us is a series of struggles as much as it is blessings.  We cannot save our loved ones from that experience because they are alive. 

I understand how "out there" this sounds.  Unless you've felt it, it's a hard thing to intellectually grasp.  We are born with the instinct to survive.  A newborn baby has the ability to wiggle, smell, root, and find it's mother's breast with no help when placed on her abdomen.  I watched my grandmother fight for her life even after she knew it was over.  We fear the unknown, naturally.  Until, through experiences and chemical configurations in the brain, loneliness, and lethargy from whatever cause, the unknown becomes more appealing than the experience we are having.  Suicide is NOT normal.  It is NOT an answer.  It's an avoidance of the problem all together. 

What we have to do though is make "suicide" a word we use.  We need to ask our friends about it in conversation.  We need to check on the friend that seems so very strong and courageous as often as the one who is having obvious struggles.  That doesn't mean a text (though that is good), it also means visits.  It means getting up in their business even if it gets on their nerves.  It means meeting them where they are - even when they decline invitations, finding something that they can say yes to and doing that.  It's about really seeing a person.  Not just a social media account.  It's about eye to eye conversations.  It's about belly laughs.  It's talking about the tough stuff.     

In a culture that puts so much value on "manifesting" and "postivity," we cannot neglect the experiences that allow us to understand what a "happy life" means.  We cannot stop giving space to our pain and hurt.  We cannot underappreciate sadness.

Stop avoiding your the topic of your friend's suffering.  Stop ignoring that funny look in their eyes that you kind of wanted to ask about, but didn't want to intrude or make things uncomfortable.  Be willing to get uncomfortable dammit!  It won't KILL you!

This past week, despite all the great things in my life, the feelings of not wanting to exist would well up from time to time.  It happens when I haven't had a break and get really tired.  Now, that I understand those feelings, I think I will always face them when things are especially tiring, hard, or the right combination of this or that brings them up.  I have attempted suicide twice in my younger years, before I truly grasped what it was I wanted to do in attempting such a thing.  Now, being a mother will keep me from attempting, because I know that I don't want to be a source of any suffering for my girls.  Yoga will give me reprieve.  I will be open about the thoughts and tell people that if I quit talking about it, that's when they need to pay attention most.  Being unmedicated now, I know I must diligently use my new coping tools.  I will teach yoga, and I will give myself and my gifts as a resource to humanity.  Anyone who wants to sit with me, I will, with honor, listen and I will share if you want to know.  Don't discredit me or the things I share with you because I have these feelings.  Don't label me negative.  Yet, I will still be ok with the thought of not waking up.  I have lost my attachment to living even in all its beauty and glory.  Time is only now and a long, happy life is never a guarantee.  No reason to be attached.

Then, today, while wishing I had more energy to face my day, I saw that Anthony Bourdain had made the choice to end his time here on earth.  I cried.  I've cried multiple times.  I feel like I have lost a good friend.  I've openly talked about him as my favorite of favorites.  His work opened the world up to me.  I'm devastated especially for his daughter, whom it was obvious he loved dearly.  I hope she has a good network surrounding her.  I hope Anthony is free.  Boundless.  He, if any of us, knew the beauty this world offers as well as the bad, and understood it twice as good.    

             I can’t help but share my story when I hear the struggles of others.  The year I became a mother, I learned the hard lesson that ignorance is not bliss.  More of us, especially women, should be sharing the truth of our stories.  We need to share it all, even the hard parts – the parts we’ve yet to fix or grow into, included.  It’s how we learn from our own mistakes and from one another.  It’s how we can prevent a little heartache and some aimless wandering.  You may be thinking, I don’t want people to think I’m a negative person.  Or, on the opposite end, I don’t want anyone to think I’m bragging.  I understand.  Totally.

                My story of healing sounds nearly impossible if I tell it in its entirety.  Pieces of it are scattered throughout this blog and my other writings.  I share bits of it on social media.  A lot of it isn’t easy to hear, but I try not to be shy about sharing those parts too.  I’m a warrior.  I battle depression, anxiety, Hashimotos Thyroiditis, polyarthropathy (chronic non-specific joint pain), chronic migraines, and chronic gastritis and colitis.  I have a little bit of stuff that likes to slap me in the face every morning.  But… I’ve lost over 100 pounds, and I have weaned myself off of all prescription medications aside from my daily thyroid hormone.

                I could say that the main factor in getting this far for me was consistent positivity, but that would be a HUGE lie.  It would not only be a lie, but it could even set others up for failures in their own journey if they think positivity alone can get them where they want to be.  Try remaining positive when in constant pain, worrying that something you said days ago was taken the wrong way, and all the while you don't want to exist anymore.  In that state of being, nothing is as simple as a positive attitude.  Worse than that is if that positivity is a distraction from the things we’re truly feeling, because it will keep coming up and asking for our attention.  For those of us born into a state of fairy like bliss, positivity may come naturally.  For others of us, life coupled with brain chemistry wired us differently.

                I don’t mean to sound derogatory toward people who naturally tend toward positivity.  In fact, there are aspects of that tendency that I can become envious of if I’m not careful.  Yet, we must point out, in the age of incessant out of context quoting and the popularity of memes, that positive thinking, as it is portrayed by that mostly online culture, is not accessible to many people who desire to make positive life changes.  At worst, those types of attitudes can bring shame, guilt, and alienation to those who feel like they must always keep a positive outward appearance to not seem like an ungrateful, sour person. 
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                There have been times when I personally have felt demeaned for sharing aspects of my story that others perceived as negative.  Other times, I’ve taken a deep personal look at this idea that a “change of attitude” is what it takes to bring happiness.  I saw a meme once that brought such a sick felt heartache to me that it shocked me to feel it.  It said:

​The person who posted the meme said they had no room for negative people in their life.  It felt as though because I was in a state of unhappiness, I was being accused of being ungrateful.  I am immensely grateful for my life and always have been.  I do go through periods of intense unhappiness without losing that gratitude.  Secondly, I felt rejected by this person for any possibility of friendship or working together because I openly share my struggles with depression and anxiety.  Our society sees these things as negative, therefore, did they perceive me as one of the negative people they were referring to in their posting?

                I took a long time to explore this idea for myself.  Was there something I was missing?  Is it really as simple as saying – hating my pain is negative, I need to stop whining and just accept my pain as a permanent part of my life.  Be positive.  It isn’t that simple.  For me to make positive changes in my life, I could not wait for myself to feel that positive attitude, I had to harness the energy of the emotions seen as negative to create my forward momentum.  I had to transform "negative" emotions into positive motion.
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                A fair number of people reach out to me who are also feeling sadness, depression, or intense struggle.  Often, these feelings are coupled with health problems, financial issues, or loneliness.  None of them want to remain in this state.  They want it to end or at the very least believe in the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  It is naïve to expect that someone (even yourself) can just choose not to feel the emotions our society have deemed “negative.”  To transform these emotions into forward, or healing momentum takes time, goals with a plan to reach them, and a willingness to be more flexible in your thinking.  Consistency in those three things is key.  Some things will be worked at hard with no results.  Some will make you feel worse before you get better.  Others will ask you to confront some really hard truths about yourself and your life.  The process will demand you use your intuition to guide your way forward.  

               ​A lot of language I hear from people as they share their story is self-limiting, such as: I have no motivation.  I can’t.  I won’t.  Others use blame shifting like: There’s no time.  The kids won’t let me.  I can’t afford it.  I have no support. 

             I’m not going to call those “just excuses.”  They’re not.  Many of these things are very real obstacles.  I am, however, going to call it “stagnant” or “stiff” thinking.  While some obstacles will be ever present, those things do not have to block us in other areas.  If a person I’m talking with doesn’t respond to my suggestions, or seems resistant, I know what I am offering isn’t something they are ready for at the present time.

          For example, diet can be pretty difficult to change, but you want to make yourself physically healthier overall.  Don’t start with diet.  Start with exercise.  You can exercise at any time.  You can exercise for free.  Research shows that exercise lifts the overall mood.  Exercise can look a lot of different ways.  Begin by setting a goal.  I will exercise 3-4 days a week.  Then, make a plan.  I will wake up 30 minutes early and do chair yoga.  I will always use the stairs at work.  After dinner the kids and I will walk the dog.  With that, you’ve begun.  As you reach goals, you’ll become motivated to create more. You may begin see some of your obstacles differently, turning them into opportunities. 

 If you’re wanting to begin a healing journey, but find yourself “stuck”, ask:

1. When is enough – ENOUGH?  When you find you’re truly fed up with something, you’ll be more motivated to change it despite the odds.
2. How long will I give this situation power over me?  Am I letting this circumstance dictate how I experience my life?  Does it deserve that much power over me?
3. What resources do I have that are in my favor and can I utilize those aspects of my life or personality to address the areas that aren’t working?

These questions aren’t easy to answer, especially if you’re being honest with yourself.  Often we become too comfortable in discomfort, and the very thought of changing our story brings up anxiety which tricks us into self-sabotage.  It isn’t easy or simple to shift toward an unknown even if it can create positive change.

             For those who carry some heaviness of heart or circumstances, it can sometimes be the things meant to guide us toward the light that add to our darkness.  No one sharing these memes or ideas means harm.  The most important thing to remember is that everything exists in shades of gray.  Nothing is completely black or white.  No one will be happy all the time.  You don’t have to accept your darkest days as a state of permanence. 

         According to the Buddha, there is suffering.  Suffering is common to all.  Everyone experiences the tears of birth, sickness, old age, and death.  Buddha said, 

Two days after my birthday in 2011, before I became a mother for the third time and that birth along with subsequent events sent me into this bizarre realm of simultaneous excited joy and the personal space of death (I've not maintained spaghetti arms - LOL.), I received my spiritual name from the 3HO organization.  I read the name - Hari Dass Kaur, but I felt disconnected from it, disappointed even.  The email read:

Hari Dass Kaur, the very essence of it's meaning is vague.  The names are translated from  Gurbani (in most cases) - sacred language of the Sikhs- using the Gurmukhi alphabet - sacred alphabet of the Sikhs.  However, there aren't literal translating capabilities using the English alphabet, so it is tranlated in order to achieve the nadh, or the sound current of the name, which is the most important part.  This means it is more important that the name be pronounced correctly than spelled a certain way.  The names are meant to lead us more fully into our destiny as we adopt them as our legal name, a name we use, a personal mantra, a prayer, a meditation, or any combination of these.  The more we speak or hear this spiritual name, the more this destiny becomes our reality.

"Hari" is one of the many names of God (Source, Creator, Universe).  It is the aspect of God that actively creates or takes away and in taking away creates a new thing, being, or situation.  And, as the email said simply, Dass means "to serve."  I couldn't help but think, why else is anyone here?  We are here on the whim of the Divine no matter how we understand what the source of our existence is.  I closed the email and had looked at it only one other time until a new virtual friend of mine reminded me of the 3HO spiritual names and I remembered I had one.  

About two weeks ago, I opened that email again.  After all that I have gone through beginning with the triumphant birth of my Gweneth, and the sweet bliss that entering into the realms of death gave me...  My midwife being arrested and charged with murder when the birth of a baby she attended directly after mine ended tragically.  The case being drawn out for three years without a trial.  Her being on house arrest and in a county jail for 10 months.  Me conversing with those working on setting her free.  Opening my life up to these strangers.  The emotions involved.  My PTSD being triggered which was still very real from the first time I became a mother.  My realizing I had no business being a doula, birth advocate, or childbirth educator anymore as my thoughts on all of it were drastically changing and I had a ton of inner work to do.  This thing which had become my identity falling away much to my relief.  This resulting in a constrained sense of freedom that wanted to be expressed.  Extreme ups and downs as I fought against accepting and expressing the emotions that would lead me to this freedom.  Excessive amounts of physical and emotional pain that made me wish for death.  Pain like I wouldn't wish on the people I consider my worst personal enemies.  Working to fight this disease (Hashimoto's) that keeps trying to put me in a place of weakness.  Finding a way to begin speaking my truth.  Asking my husband to see and hear me again and also be present.  Knowing that I was strong enough to expect that because I deserve that.  More emotional extremes that made me feel like a lunatic.  Becoming a public affairs director for WMMT - a small community radio station.  Sending my daughters to a cottage school.  Moving into town rather than living off grid.  Exposing myself in so many ways to more people than I ever wanted to...  I understood that name, Hari Dass Kaur, for the first time.

Regardless of what your belief is in a Divine Intelligence or even that of a seemingly miraculous, but very explainable science, I think we'd agree that if we aren't living in our Truth (not being true to ourselves), what's the damn point?  Why even live at all if we don't allow ourselves the freedom to be the fullest expression of who we are?  If we aren't allowing this quintessence to be expressed, this embodiment of life force that is uniquely ours from the moment we opened our eyes/third eye in this life, we aren't only short changing ourselves but everyone else in our life.  Hari Dass Kaur (the kind, creative and prosperous Princess who loves to serve God and who is God's Lioness) might be the hardest thing I have left to express in this world.  I've learned to express emotion.  I can complain with the best of them.  I love words.  I love writing words.  I love the radio and making stories for the radio.  I adore art and making art.  Music pervades my soul.  I enjoy feeling anger and expressing that to anyone ready to listen when the time is right.  Expression isn't hard for me.  Allowing my Truth to be the expression of my life no matter what that means for me, my friends, or my family, that feels scary.

I am realizing as I am getting answers from the medical end of my health and emotional issues, that what I have been experiencing over the last four years, but very intensely since Spring of 2015, is a kundalini awakening.  If anyone clicks on that link, I'm running the risk of being seen as a "nut".  That's ok though, I don't care.  I'm used to being seen as a nut in most ways.  I fly my freak flag with pride and have since I was very young.  However, I'm also a serious person and hope to be taken seriously, not made fun of.  I know that someone will see this as beyond eccentric and into the silly.  I run the risk of friends, family, and colleagues seeing me as someone lost.  Kundalini awakening is true though.  I'm in this process right now, and it isn't at all simple (though not everyone experiences it the same way).  I hurt on many levels.  I long for things to feel balanced.  Until I realized that kundalini awakening was what I was experiencing, I was perfectly fine with death as a solution to what I was feeling, though I didn't want to inflict it upon myself.  I was tired and didn't want to try to overcome anymore.  I didn't want to fight.  I didn't want to cry alone, or whine to my friends on Facebook and embarrass myself.  I didn't want to experience anything but nothingness.  

Now, I feel I have a plan.  I have a way to exist.  I work on seeing this awakening process through and I become the expression of life that I was meant to be.  Through all of my struggles, sadness, fighting, winning, feeling, joy, pain, learning, I can be of service to the Most High.  That Higher Power that is in us all.  That Truth.  I can be there for others.  I can use my gifts and experiences to reflect back this Truth to others so that they too can see it in themselves, knowing they aren't alone.  The thing is, I don't worry about what this means.  I don't worry about more pain.  I don't worry about loss of any thing or person.  I'm not concerned about suffering.  For what I know is, I am complete and this life is a brief moment in the expanse of time and all that is given me is purposeful to an end goal.  This isn't just some meaningless accident of tragic chaos, suffering, and pain.  I'm capable of working through all this with the help of those the Universe will send me who want to support me through each stage of this journey.  I know I will find that place of peace.  Now, hope has returned in the name, Hari Dass Kaur.      

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This past summer and early fall, I gave myself the space I needed to get in touch with my soul.  I found there a fire burning so bright and asking me to change my whole life to feed it.  I made some significant changes.  I went from homeschooling to working mother.  That was the biggest.  I decided to move on the grid.  I'm packing today.  I began teaching yoga, and I applied for and received a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to finish an essay collection I'm working on concerning events in my own life as a rural mountain woman. I feel the essays will illustrate the universal experience of being a woman.  My 3 year old goes to a babysitter 3 days a week now.  Between yoga work, driving, and my work as public affairs director at WMMT, I'm doing this thing 50-60 hours a week.

Another gift I gave myself during this time, was to be honest with me.  I searched my heart and let myself be free to experience things my heart longed to experience.  We don't have this freedom all the time, and when we do it is intoxicating.  I'm 37, so maybe what I experienced some would call a mid-life crisis.  I'll be a lucky person to get another 37 years, so maybe it is.  For me, it held real meaning.  For the first time in a long time, I gained the feeling that there was something to hope for, not just for my daughters, but for myself.  I felt like I woke up and had decided to come out of the shadows to live.

However, there were some moments for those who were attending to my needs that became frantic.  What I was experiencing while they were assessing my bleeding and getting it under control was bliss.  My body grew warm and fuzzy.  My ego retreated.  I felt whole.  I didn't care if I continued on in life in the physcial body.  I felt like I was completed.  It is very hard to describe, but I haven't felt anything as good before or since.  What makes it even stranger to talk about is, if I hadn't been tended to.  If I had been alone to care for myself, I likely would have bled too much and passed on.  In the moment where the veil between worlds grew very thin for me, I felt most at peace.  That makes people uncomfortable.  That makes it hard to share because there aren't many who understand.

This summer, I began finding a way to live and recreate those feelings of letting go completely.  It isn't as easy to replicate in life as it is when your body actually is letting go of its life blood.  Life is complicated.  I'm a realist.  I fought to keep that energy going, but it became just embers and I've had to accept that for now.  I couldn't control the death of it and I've taken that in a hard way.  I've sunk into a dark and grieving place.  I'm not a crier.  I've been crying a lot lately.  The hope I built has been put away.  I'd say it is gone, but there's always the possibility she will return.  She stayed in Pandora's box after all.  I just have to not wish for her anymore.  I find myself thinking more and more about those moments.  "Kelli, stay with me," she said.  I thought, why?  I decided I didn't care to stay and if it was meant that I go, I'd let it happen.  "Just a minute," I said.  Another minute in complete surrender.  I long to go back there.  I'd happily go back there unafraid.  

I was fighting tears Monday while driving the girls out of the holler.  Right as we were going into the creek, I noticed what appeared to be an old weathered bone on the flat rocks in the shallow part of the creek.  I collect bones, skulls, and other natural oddities, and I stopped to get a better look.  I opened the car door and discovered this very heavy statue.  It's been either buried or in the water a long time.  It was painted at least twice.  Once red and once black.  It had also been mounted to something.  Maybe a fence, entry way, or gate.  It looks like it is holding a staff or spear.  A resting warrior.  The Universe had sent me a gift with no explanation of how it made it there on that day for me to find.  Universe told me to rest.  To be patient.  It's ok.

Then, I get word from the artist Bonita Parsons that someone who wished to remain anonymous had bought this piece of art from her and asked her to send it to me!  I adore this piece and when I found out I cried.  I feel so unworthy of such a gift.  I socialize very little.  I don't talk on the phone even with family and friends I want to talk to.  I forget to answer some messages I get on Facebook.  Very few people really know me.  I am as a ghost and very alone.  I have no idea why someone was compelled to gift me this.  It makes me feel very thankful and at the same time sad.  When I write about my own life, I write it honest.  It isn't a bad kind of sad, but it is a type of sad.  I've cried several times over the receipt of this gift.  I simply don't feel worthy of it and would like to understand why it was given me.

The Universe has gifted me twice in a week when I just wanted to completely give up.  I don't want to stoke the embers.  I want a lobotomy.  Yet, Universe is telling me that my life is a gift.  Don't squander it.  It is ok to be sad, but it isn't ok to take yourself away from the collective before it is your time to go, whether you do it metaphorically or physically.  

 Today, I've decided to give up fighting.  I'm on day 3 of a another migraine.  I'm home alone with my girls who are getting much better from a bout of upper respiratory illness.  They are giggling and horse-playing.  I need to work on a radio piece for my new job, but this week has thrown so much at me, I need to clear my head first.  So, I come here to write.  I also took an Imitrex.  The medicine hasn't been helping.  I hate taking all this medicine. 

A good friend's mother and a regular in my yoga classes, my chiropractor, and some folks in my online support groups for Hashimotos urged me to get my thyroid scanned.  I'm on thyroid medicine and my thyroid had never been palpated nor had I had an ultrasound of the thyroid.  This last year I have had a few CT scans, 3 x-rays, 2 MRIs, and countless blood tests.  My main condition which I MUST have daily medicine for had never been evaluated by anything more than a thyroid panel blood test.  I could write a whole other post on my frustration with this fact, but I will just say this.  If you work in healthcare (medical, mental, alternative, or spiritual), listen to your patient/client.  Even if you believe what they are saying is a crock, listen with all your effort.  In their words, you will find the next appropriate steps regardless if their words are medically meaningful to you.

Last week, I had my first thyroid ultrasound.  I had been complaining of tightness in my neck, difficulty swallowing my medicine and some food, dizziness, hearing my pulse in my right ear, and the feeling of being in an airplane taking off in my right ear as well.  It's messed quite a bit with my hearing.  I was prescribed allergy medicine and had an MRI for that complaint.  I don't have seasonal allergies.  I never have.  I very rarely even get a cold.  The MRI showed normal blood flow in that region.  The symptoms didn't go away even when I gave the allergy medicine a chance despite feeling I didn't need it.  I didn't think these symptoms were something I should have to just ignore the rest of my life.  Sometimes the swooshing and pressure change in my head is impossible to ignore.  Being a yoga teacher, it affects my balance and impacts my practice.  It also makes it hard to talk on the phone and at times in person because I can't hear the other person.  That's not normal.  That's not ok.

I got a call Friday that my doctor wanted to review my ultrasound results with me in person.  I went in this past Monday.  These are the results.  Pardon my coffee stains.  I'm a little obsessive when it comes to reviewing my medical records and I had an accident.

I have multiple nodules that are small in the left side of the thyroid - "hypoechoic areas".  Lo and behold, I have a complex mass of a significant size (though apparently they can also be larger) in the right side of my thyroid.  The radiologist has recommended a fine needle biopsy guided by ultrasound to rule out cancer.  It will also need to be assessed if my thyroid needs to be removed even if the mass is benign.  If you look at the size of the mass in comparison to the size of the right side of my thyroid, you can see why it is something that needs further testing.

Many members of the population have nodules on their thyroid.  Not all of these people have been diagnosed with thyroid issues.  However, people with nodules measuring on the larger end and who have a history of thyroid issues, are the most likely to have a malignant nodule.  Malignancies occur in few cases compared with the commonality of thyroid nodules.  I'm supposed to get my appointment for the biopsy today, and at 3:16pm, I still haven't gotten the call.  I'll be traveling to Lexington for the biopsy.  It's a 3 hour trip.

I'm starting my first round of employment in a decade on Monday, and I am just now getting this news.  For almost a year, I have been having symptoms associated with these findings.  I can't begin to explain how angry I am that I am now going to have to deal with this at all.  My hormone numbers were improved in my last bloodwork.  I had several months of feeling better after adopting an autoimmune paleo diet and a no-holds-barred 7 days a week yoga/meditation regimen.  I've added herbs and supplements, cut many of my favorite foods, and tried my best to surround myself with people and activities that feed my soul.  I thought it was working.  I suppose it was a little.

To me that seemed like a reasonable option.  I was done with spending half of every month in pain with the headaches.  I told Creator that night that I would take on anything if it helped me move passed this pain.  I told Creator I'd accept cancer, brain tumor, craziness, aneurysm, all of it.  I'd accept it because it would be a diagnosis and with a diagnosis I could have a plan.  Whether I lived and got treatment or died, I'd have more freedom than I was currently having.  After seeing the neurologist, I got some improvement in my headaches with medication, but now I have had a headache 10 of the last 20 days.  Back to the headache from Hades (not that all of them aren't bad, but I literally would've downed a bottle of pills and died if I hadn't had the ER option that night).  I told Creator that I'd use whatever I was given to improve my life while I am here and to try to improve the lives of as many as I can reach through my experience.  I said, "Please, bring it on."  A diagnosis big or small was the only way out I could see aside from death.  Yes, it's a dark place to be, but it isn't a godless place.

I still don't know what I'm dealing with, but I'm closer to an answer.  I don't know what road lies ahead.  All I know is I am tired.  This year I have lost 2 grandparents, 1 grandparent-in-law, had 2 aunts and 1 uncle diagnosed and battling cancer, 1 sister with a cancer scare, a niece with blood clotting issues in the brain, and 1 sister under immense stress and battling Graves disease.  I am currently grieving another great loss that leaves me recognizing how alone I really am.  Surrounded but alone.  All my close friends live away from me and are busy people.  None of us enjoy phone calls.  My husband must work regular hours.  My parents are busy working and caring for the other kids in the family.  I've always preferred being a loner, but sometimes, I wish I could just sleep in someone's arms and not have to tend to anything. 

breath. Strength comes from the breath and if you become a witness to your inhales and exhales and your body's reaction to the breath, you will discover relaxation and the panic mode dissipates. It is always good to concentrate on basics, and just observe the breath connection from head to toe. Just lay on the floor, stretch and breath, and be a witness. Understand you are strengthenIng inside out. We all should do this on a regular basis, but, I think we view this as no effort towards our practice, when it is the most important part. You never lose a gain...it remains with you."

I stopped and realized that all the pushing, making myself keep going, and searching for answers beyond the medical is wearing me out.  I realized that I have not focused on one of the most fundamental aspects of yoga or spiritual practice - equanimity.  I have not found my balance.  In all the striving, I have built my willpower up so intensely that I do not know when to allow myself a break or to stop, celebrate, and live in my gains.  I just plow down the next row.  Start trying to fix the next biggest issue.  I want so badly to be a light to myself and others that I think I have let my ego get out of control.  I have overestimated the impact I can have on a life, including my own.  My efforting will only go so far, if it doesn't create space for me to also take the time to live what I have learned.  Sometimes, we can try to make up for the lack of self-esteem and self-worth in our lives by building other parts of the ego like self-confidence.  I have been relying on my own strength and my own mind to do everything for myself and others.  At this moment, I really just want to be loved and carried for awhile.  I'm done fighting.  I'm going to breathe instead.

I have to make a plan.  I have to hone my spiritual and yoga practice.  I have to re-think my self care.

1. Maintain a 7 day a week yoga practice along with sharing yoga with others.  Listen to the body and focus my personal practice more on maintaining breath and meditative movement than physical strength.  Try not to worry that because I didn't physically push myself a little harder that it means I have not made a great effort on my mat.  Remember that is not yoga.
2. Continue eating the autoimmune paleo diet.  Continue taking my supplements.  Focus on eating real meals and not snacky meals out of convenience.  I need more nutrition.
3. Focus on my real work.  The work I am called to do and the work I get paid for.  Aside from children and homelife, focus here more than maintaining or creating friendships.  Remember that I have friends.  The friends who care for me will make an effort to be present for me whether or not they feel I am resisting their efforts or overwhelmed by them. (An introvert's concerns.)  Those friends who truly appreciate me will be with me regardless of my moods or my ability to make an effort back.
4. Take up a more intentional meditation practice.  Try for a 40 day consecutive practice of a familiar meditation, but do not bruise myself if I have to miss a day.  Just start again when I can.  Start very simple.
5. Don't be afraid.  Creator doesn't give us anything beyond our abilities to learn and grow from.  I will find truth in this experience and I will find my truest allies and those who care for me most.  Above all keep writing.  Write more.  Learn and read more.  Hope that my words mean something beyond what they mean to me.

That's the plan, until there's another.  So, let me begin resting.  Let kindness carry me a little.  I cried out in pain.  Universe has answered as the crow flies.

"You can't fully appreciate the light until you understand the darkness." - Black Yoga Asanas Ritual Vol. 1

If you would like to read more about this particular aspect of thyroid disease, these links are where I have been doing my own research on what is to come for me.

Thyroid Nodules - Cedars-Sinai
Does the Risk of Malignancy Increase When a Thyroid Nodule is Larger than 2cm? 
Risk of Thyroid Cancer Based on Ultrasound Findings
Thyroid Nodules - AAFP