I would like to take some time to map out my path to knowledge and the lessons I learned; that I believe led me to where I am today, front and center on my aligned path. I will share a few brief notes that might help understand the transitions.
Let’s get started. I grew up in healthcare. My mother was a nurse, and we used to read her medical books with her, go to work with her, and volunteer at the nursing homes she worked in. I believed I was going to be a nurse, a trauma nurse who flies in the medevac to save people who otherwise may not make it. I have always felt a strong desire to help people, but a specific category of people. I wanted to help people who need immediate help to preserve and save their lives. Fast forward to record-breaking burnout in healthcare at the ripe age of 21, I radically joined the army and leave my two-year-old son behind. (that’s a whole story for a different time.) Because I was going to be a hero, I was going to save lives. I was going to be somebody my son could be proud of. Have a life with meaning. I needed to get away from the people, places, and things that have caused me so much heartbreak and hurt. I wanted to be in aviation because the recruiter said that was the easiest way in and fast track to a medevac pilot. And since I felt a calling to save the un-savable, and healthcare didn’t work out, surely that meant flying into combat and airlifting out my fellow brothers and sisters in arms was the clear best option. Right? Well… I joined the Army around Veterans’ Day of 2013, but my military career did not go the way I had hoped.
Note: I didn’t know this then, but everything makes so much sense now. I have some undifferentiated connective tissue disorder. This explains many of the injuries I sustained during my time in, and many of the chronic issues I started having, effectively ruining any hope I had of becoming a pilot.
Anyway, the culture was also wayyy off! I had been conditioned in a way that I didn’t understand the harm being done. But eventually, I learned… I had many traumatic events happen during my time on active duty, but I also went in with a lot of repressed and unhealed trauma. So, I was essentially compounding more trauma onto pre-existing undealt with trauma. I ran, plain and simple, from all my pain and trauma. I tried to escape it, and in case you were wondering. It didn’t work. Again, more on that later. Back to what I was saying. I learned a lot while in the military. I would say I grew some, but the real growth has been much more recent. But my time on active duty applies to my education because I wanted to be a nurse from the time I was young. So, guess what happened about a year and a half after I joined? Yup, you guessed it. I missed healthcare; I realized I was just burnt out at that specific job, not necessarily the entire field. But now that I was on active duty, I couldn’t do nursing school, because back then they did not have online nursing classes. Everything was in person. So, I took some classes I thought would be interesting to learn about and would benefit me as a nurse if I specialized in mental health.
(Note: the healthcare job I ran away from was a skilled psychiatric nursing facility, with varying diagnoses, care levels, and risk levels. I worked on the third-floor men’s section, which was the highest security level we had, with the most severe psychiatric needs)
Since I had prior experience in the field and now that pilot and medevac were out because of my injuries, I thought… maybe I would have to do something less physical. After weighing my options, I enrolled in a bachelor’s program in psychology. Now this would have been in the fall of 2015, and I continued with them until early 2017 while deployed. Then shortly after, they got shut down for fraud. So, I had to start over again.
We moved to NC for the first time in the summer of 2017, and we are back again as of last month. So, shortly after getting here, I started my associates in gen ed at a local community college, because I have always had my sights set on a bachelor’s degree. I figured while I am on active duty and unable to take nursing classes, I will take all the Gen Eds, and whatnot to prepare me for nursing school. At the same time, I began using herbs to regulate my cycle and get pregnant.
Note: My grandmother on my dad’s side had grown up with very strong Native American beliefs and traditions, Cherokee to be specific. Recent DNA tests have come back to show that I possess zero Indigenous DNA, but the beliefs, the respect, the knowledge, the love of nature, it was all there from the beginning. Some of my fondest memories of my grandmother involve learning something about plants and herbs as nature’s gift. Nature’s medicine, she called it., either the garden vegetables, fruit trees, edible wild things, cooking dandelions, making mint tea, chewing on clovers, learning where root beer comes from, and so many other things. She is the reason for my deep-rooted beliefs in nature.
Then, after I finished my associate degree in General Education. Then, I was a mom again, and life was hitting me a little differently. I decided I wasn’t sure nursing was a good fit for me after all. I was afraid to work as my mother did, to miss the important moments, or to be too tired or stressed to be present. My daughter was the catalyst for my healing journey. She was born in the fall of 2018, and I have been on my healing journey since because she deserves a whole and healed mommy. Her coming into the world resurfaced a lot of old traumas and deep, deep hurts that I couldn’t repress or ignore any longer. My physical health was taking a major hit. Aside from missing important milestones and moments, I wasn’t sure my body could withstand the demands of a nursing job, the countless hours on your feet, lack of time to eat, drink, and sleep. My mind and body were already going through so much. I suffered from post-partum depression that led to severe body image issues, which then led to plastic surgery & a brutal recovery. Additionally, I was having gastrointestinal issues, dizziness spells, major fatigue, joint and muscle pain, daily headaches, constipation, bloating, and just so much stuff. Some of it, I thought, had to be a physical manifestation of my mental state, and it was because of the way I felt in my body. I thought that if I could just be happy in my body, depression and stress would leave, and so too the physical symptoms I was having. I was thrilled with my new figure… for a while. Then I still felt like I was unfeminine and unattractive, and still unwilling to sacrifice what little quality life I had left by becoming a nurse and wrecking my body further.
Note: I recently learned about the role of connective tissue in healing, especially after major surgeries. Which sparked many of my future rabbit holes because of the connective tissue disorder. My surgery did not heal properly, and I did not comprehend the issues that come with adhesions and scar tissue. Had I known about the connective tissue disorder and likely complications that would arise because of improper functioning collagen, I may not have had the surgery after all. Who knows, I just know that 5 years later, I am still dealing with scar tissue, mobility issues, and muscular imbalances created or made worse by plastic surgery. But moving on.
So, I decided to do something else in healthcare besides nursing. I settled on an ultrasound technician- I could still help people and save lives that way, but it would not require the same physical demands of nursing. I decided I would be a cardiac sonographer though because I did not want to ultrasound babies. I was once a very young mother (17) who had to have an ultrasound to confirm my baby’s heart was no longer beating. Now that I knew what that felt like, I never wanted to be the one on the other side to discover that truth and relive that pain all over again every time I watch it happen to another woman. So, I thought what better organ to study than the life giver itself, and off to sonography school I went. There I took some physics classes and learned about frequency and resonance and the interaction of sound-waves on the human body, down to the cellular tissues. And the healing benefits ultrasound has to offer. I also learned about the electricity running through the body that powers the heart. I learned we are electromagnetic beings that exchange electricity as energy. Fast forward, I couldn’t find a clinical site. Either I moved to Michigan for a year to finish the in-person part of the class, or I yet again started all over. By the way, I should mention I couldn’t find a clinical site as I was in the middle of a move to Virginia. It was still during the height of COVID-19, and my husband was away at some school. So, I switched gears again and enrolled in a diploma in herbal studies, because I no longer had my wise grandmother to ask questions to or learn from, as she was sadly lost from COVID complications.
I wanted to learn more about where I came from, my ancestry, and my genes. I was still feeling unwell and not getting better. I thought maybe I could find some herbs to help heal me. I played yo-yo for a while, then after some time, my physical health improved more, but a perfectly timed nervous breakdown soon followed, rendering me once again down for the count. After trying to heal myself and unpack my trauma, my reactivity and anxiety were at an all-time high, so I decided to try ketamine therapy. This is where things get good. I woke up. I suddenly understood everything: myself, the universe, my parents, life, trauma, chronic health issues, neuroscience, ancient wisdom. Random downloads I like to call them, just kept happening. For example. One night, I was lying in bed trying to sleep, and I had a sudden realization that “I am a light”. I did not know what that meant, then immediately after telling myself “I don’t know what that even means”, another thought comes that says, “We are all energy, we are all connected. One source, one energy, one light. Energy can not be destroyed, only transferred” pulled through time and space by electromagnetism, completing circuits and finding and combining with like energy. I.e. the same wavelength. I remembered something in my physics class and ran to do some research.
A thought about the Planck-Einstein theory came screaming forward and so began my rabbit hole into energy, frequencies, light, law of attraction. A quick synopsis of how my train of thought traveled. Since my falling out with Christianity when I was 17, I didn’t believe in much. Then I learned what agnostic was and identified that way for many years. But over time, I found how important it is to believe in something. Spiritual health is a huge pillar of life. I started with Buddhism, as I felt most connected to it and like I could understand what it meant. But over time it evolved into a very broad range of subjects that I would hyper-fixate on and do a deep dive and read all I could manage in Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Hinduism, Christianity, Paganism, Reiki, Omnism, metaphysics, astrology, human design, spirituality, biopsychology, cognitive neuropsychology, connective tissue disorders, posture and muscular imbalances, genetic and epigenetic health issues, generational trauma, unresolved trauma, cellular dysfunction, metabolic dysfunction, more herbal medicine, massage, somatic healing, sound therapy, breathwork, and ultimately wholeness.
I never thought I would feel complete in my existence, to find my path, my purpose. I may never understand why I experienced each traumatic experience specifically, but I now know my reason for being on this earth, every dark moment, every silencing and suffocating experience. Because through all the darkness, I will remain a light. Especially now that I understand how my behaviors, my thoughts, my patterns, and my habits shape my reality.
I have experienced a great deal of pain and sadness in my short almost 32 years of life, but every one of my experiences gives me an insight into others who have experienced something similar. It gives me the ability to connect with others and to know what they might be feeling physically within their body, that they may not understand. It allows me to show up for people and support them through something hard, something painful. It allows me to be a beacon of light for others to feel safe to share and heal. Unlike a plant, our roots are not fixed in the soil. So, when a condition, environment, food source, activity, company, or any other thing limits your growth and strength, if it inhibits your path toward your purpose, it’s time to go beyond your comfort zone and make changes. It’s both wonderful and beautiful to be your authentic self, free from fear, grief, anger, loneliness, rejection, self-doubt, self-criticism, and self-sabotage. But it’s hard work. And I’m just here to say, you don’t have to do it alone. I created Living Lotus Holistics to connect with others, to start a community, to be a support and a resource of knowledge to those who need it. I’ve realized that what is meant to be will, and it’s not my responsibility to save others, just because I had nobody to save me. But I can and will help anyone who needs help to break free from limiting beliefs, challenge their inner critic, take back control of their life, and start making positive changes to live the life they desire through a range of disciplines, herbal remedies, garden therapy, reiki, individualized nutrition, intuitive eating, mindful movement, functional lab testing, sound therapy, and somatic experiencing. It’s time to Transcend your roots & Reclaim your Wholeness. Are you ready?