I can do hard things

I've been doing some hard things lately.
This subtle shift of empowerment happened at the beginning of this month. Last month was an emotional rollercoaster. I got sick, spent a few days in the hospital, started school for my second semester but really had no idea why I was here or if I even wanted to be here, and my relationship began to crumble on unstable ground. I needed something to make me feel strong, like myself again.
So in the beginning of February, I started a holy yoga challenge called #loveisourasana. I did a challenge in August, and fell in love. And this challenge was no different. I fell face first into my fearless tribe. I got heartbreakingly honest about the real life shit going on in my life. And I tested out some new postures.
It wasn't easy. 90% of the poses were ones I had looked at other people doing when I first started my yoga practice a few years ago and thought "I couldn't do that." Mid way through the challenge I faced some conflict that I thought could have been strong enough to break me. It brought me face down in my own brokenness. For a while it made me bitter and angry. But then something shifted.
I remember encountering this one pose - one that I looked at and laughed, sure that even now I wouldn't be able to execute it. And then I tried it. And it sucked. I didn't get the posture right and I fell flat on my face. But I posted the picture anyway, with a comment that posting this picture was my act of defiance against all the voices in my head that said I couldn't do it, and maybe I couldn't do this exact (insanely hard) pose yet but that didn't mean I would never be able to do it.
And the next time a hard pose came around, one that I was trying to argue my way out of doing, I tried it again, this time with more success. And the next time, and the next time, and by the end of the challenge I was doing poses I was sure I couldn't do. And maybe they didn't look perfect but I was showing up. Messy and scared and unsure and humbled every time I stepped foot on my mat and broken I was showing up and I was doing the poses and sometimes they looked horrible but in the doing of the poses, I found my brave.
I've been working on telling the truth. It started during the challenge, when I shared my struggle with codependency. It's something that's always been there for me, but something I never had a name for until a friend described her struggle with it and something clicked in my brain. Admitting that, admitting that there is this thing, this addiction that I have and its ruining my relationships and my life was terrifying. But it opened the door for new kinds of honesty. I finally shared the blog post I've been hiding away for months, never quite feeling brave enough to share my messy story with the world (still feeling a vulnerability hangover from that one.) I confronted some people in the name of love, people who didn't need me enabling them anymore. I got honest with myself, that I'm not as fine as I think I am, that most days I just walk around scared to death, and I shared that with some people that I love. And just today I was able to share a brutally honest post I wrote in a 2am fear induced insomnia episode on smartpatients.com, with a world of patients and doctors and med students, and to begin to change the way we look at medicine using the vessel of story telling (I could write a whole post about that though. Working with Roni and his team was such a dream come true. For now I say go read it. Go read my heart for the future of medicine).
I'm facing down the truth about what I believe and why and how what I've been taught fits into the whole story of my life and it is ripping me apart.
So why am I writing all this? Because through all this - the yoga challenge and the honesty and the writing - I learned I can do hard things. I have this incredible sense of bravery and power inside of me, flowing in me and through me. For the first time in a long time I believe I am brave, and I believe I am powerful, and I have a strong knowing that I can do hard things.
Tonight I went to the gym (working out is killing my abs but so good for my soul) and I did that pose, the one I was so afraid to attempt, the one that I did face flat on the floor through tears in the middle of brokenness that ended up looking terrible. I did it, and I did it with so much better than I ever thought I could do it.
I keep showing up. And things change. And things happen. And that, I think, is where real bravery and power lie.

The Creation of Space

I haven't been writing much lately. More savoring, more collecting. What I have been is personal, the delicate stories of others that I have been so honored to receive, and my own emotional stumbling as I begin to process what this last month has looked like for me. Then there are days when I feel like I need to write down the stories I'm collecting inside of me but they all feel so personal, so precious, so not mine and so mine but still needing the time to be rolled over inside of me and many times I end up sitting in front of a blank screen.
...
I'm sitting at my desk at 1pm, drinking peppermint tea out of my cup that proudly declares, "Good Morning, Gorgeous." It's not morning, but some days are like that. I'm bundled up in a big sweater belonging not to me, under a blanket and in front of the open window.
I'm in the process of reminding myself what matters. It seems selfish really, in a world full of people asking for my attention and homework that demands to be done and a life that demands to be lived to pull back, place my hand over my heart and whisper, "No, this is what matters."
I've been in a state of relative dis-ease health wise lately. Little blue pill bottles lined up on my shelf seem to stand in mockery, showing me again how I failed. I stare at them, willing them to work, willing my body to begin working on it's own and no longer need their assistance.
I read this week that it is foolish for someone to think that one sick body part will not effect all the others, but I kind of did think that. So this one nerve in my body isn't doing it's job, but I have been almost drill sergeant in my commands to my other body parts to do their job, and perhaps work overtime to compensate. Unfortunately that is not the case, and I'm feeling the fatigue in all parts of my body.
I routinely quote movies, and after watching Hotel Transylvania 2 my boyfriend and I regularly quote the line to each other, "I just need to feel loved." Last night, in all seriousness, I used that line.
I feel pulled by so many things, am working so hard to put up this façade and be the strong one and have it all together. Sometimes I don't even realize myself what I'm doing until it all comes crashing down around me and I'm left surrounded by the ruin of it all.
I've been working so hard and pushing myself that I don't acknowledge that I'm exhausted and frustrated and feeling empty.
My friend called last week, and challenged me to take care of myself. The goal was to practice yoga at least once that week, and to text her once I had completed my task.
I texted her yesterday morning, and in my text I included a simple line that I learned this summer, one I didn't realize the importance of until I said it.
Alisha has received medicine.
I have pill bottles lined up on the shelf, doctors working to treat my body, but I've been denying myself the medicine I really need. I slipped into my disguise of everything is alright and I just pushed on and did what needed to be done.
And I agree that there is a time for that.
But there is also a time for acknowledging the heaviness. The stories I've been hearing remind me of things in my own past, and I want to be there and help but I can't unless I take care of myself first. I need to acknowledge the ugly bits of my own story before I can help others with theirs. I am sick, and without acknowledging that ugly illness grief I can't begin healing.
I think there is great power in acknowledging our own stories, and sharing them.

We have to be able to name the chains, and then, I think, we have to be able to confess them. To openly admit, “This, right here, this pulls at me. This controls me. This makes me act a certain way. This distracts me from the Center, from the Core, from seeking first God.”

I'm on this journey of the heart, one that was made clear to me when I started this school year but I still resist so much. It's not easy naming your chains, and the process of becoming free is hard. I didn't know that when I started. But claiming that freedom, and taking back my ground is hard.
Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve to walk there, on that ground of freedom. Sometimes I feel like I'm swinging an ax at a big old tree and barely even making a dent. The negative tapes I hear in my head are too loud, there's too much pain, I can't even begin to tackle these things and have it really make a difference.
Right now, much of this practice is about creating space. I'm creating space for these stories, to tell the truth, to get brave again, to love myself, to be loved by others. Space to fight, to take back my heart and mind and soul and body and voice.
This practice, this daily creation of space, however that looks, is medicine. It's healing, and uncurling the ache and it's beautiful.
Dear you, whoever you are, however you got here, this is exactly where you're supposed to be

To Write Love On Her Arms

This story has been beautifully haunting me all day.
It has stirred up emotions in me which I try to write out, only to end up sitting in front of a blank piece of paper. It's been years and still I don't have the words to accurately reflect the world of mental illness, even though its a world I know personally.
I have a tendency to try and rush through uncomfortable places. So as I reflected on Renee's story, and sat with the emotions it brought up for me, I had a desire to try and wrap it all up neatly in words. There would be a beginning, a middle, an end, and everything would be complete when I finally put the words to paper.
I'm writing to you from the middle.
I've been saying for years now that I'm healing, that I'm a survivor, and I am. But I don't know if you ever truly stop the healing process.
I thought I had healed from my issues surrounding love and sexuality, only to find out when I fell in love that I didn't actually know as much as I thought I did.
I have moments where my issues around food are relatively non-existent, and then there are moments when every single bite of food is a victory.
Sometimes my head goes to dark places.
And I'm still learning to give myself grace in those moments. I'm in recovery, not recovered. I'm healing, not healed.
There's a saying in yoga that it's not about touching your toes, it's about what you learn on the way down. It's called a practice, not a perfection. And I think the same is through with addiction and recovery. It's not about being perfect, it's about growth. And if I know one thing for sure it's that I'm growing.
This week I've been doing a holy yoga video practice every day, and what I'm learning about myself continually blows my mind. Every day the practices (unintentionally) seem to follow a similar theme of keeping the heart open.
In today's practice, the challenge was to write down one small 't' truth you believe about yourself and your body.
I didn't realize until I'd already written it that I wrote my small 't' truth in all capital letters. My truth?
I AM BROKEN
In so many different ways, it's the story I've come to believe about myself. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, in so many different ways I've come to believe that there is something fundamentally flawed about who I am, something that makes me broken.
The second part of the challenge was to move through the practice as if that thing wasn't true. And at the end of the practice, the final part of the challenge was to write the big 'T' truth on the other side of the paper, to counteract what you believe about yourself.
The paper I picked up was one I had used for my practice the day before.
I had been writing about keeping my heart open, and this line I wrote on this page seemed so fitting to become my big 'T' truth.
I ask who I will be without it all and the whispered reply comes "Free." I will be free.
And underneath that truth telling statement I had written John 8:36
"So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free."
It became the statement to counteract the story I believe about myself.
I'm trading brokenness for freedom.
I wish I could say I'd figured it out. I wish I could say that recovery and healing and trading brokenness for freedom is a one time thing and I did it and now I'm good.
It's a process, a practice. And I'm somewhere in the middle, not where I was but not yet where I will end up. And I must continually offer up grace for the practice, for this beautiful ugly middle piece that I'm still making peace with.

"Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars. The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope."

I wrote words yesterday that surprised even me. They weren't profoundly brilliant or beautiful, weren't dripping with poetic prose, but something about their honesty and truth shocked me, forcing me to put down my blue ink pen and pause over what I had just written.
This place, I wrote, is so full of Him.
...
A few days ago I heard a woman I know mention blogging as talking to a friend. She painted it as sitting across from a dear friend with a cup of coffee and catching up on life. She said when she wasn't blogging, she missed it.
My approach to blogging has always been slightly different, and has changed over the years. I did, and do, have a really hard time drawing the line between that talking-over-coffee-with-a-friend kind of blogging and the artistic endeavor of writing. I've written myself through many tough life situations, from death to finally coming clean about my story of past trauma, a faith crisis, family and friend struggles, bad relationships and (now) my beautiful relationship. But whenever I wrote, I always kept a slight distance. My personal writings are for that loud, cursing, messy kind of writing where I hash out every problem and thought. My blog is the place where I write about the storm after it has passed, when I feel as though I have some sort of offering or lesson to share. But I think I was mistaken when I thought I could have this blog and write about my life without ever really personally writing about my life.
...
I remember the first time I ever cried in church. February 10, 2013. I remember exactly what song was playing, who was singing, who I was sitting beside. It was exactly 5 months after receiving my Dysautonomia diagnosis, 5 months that had been plagued with exhaustion, grief, anger and brokenness.
This day started an epidemic, and now it is not uncommon to find me crying in church (or anywhere else for that matter).
This Sunday, my crying in church started with my crying on the yoga mat. Up until Friday, I was the kind of girl who didn't understand when people said they started crying during yoga. I would feel things, sure, but it was more so a way to give my mind some rest.
When I did this amazing practice led by Morgan Day Cecil her words spoke to my heart. I've always been hesitant to use the term "God spoke to me" because I am very much resistant about that stereotypical Christianity aspect to my relationship with God, but as I sat on my mat, I heard these words spoken over me and it was enough to make me begin to cry.
"The work you are doing is hard and holy"
I try so hard to resist the hard. I say things are good, because they are. My life is beautiful and full and I can never deserve all of these amazing blessings.
But it's also hard.
Moving houses means changes, and the shift from school life to summer working is a big one, and family always has a way of getting on every nerve and the boy is spending his summer at camp, meaning our time together is squished into small snippets of moments, and while I am so blessed to have a house, and the freedom to work like this this summer and my family and my amazing boyfriend, it doesn't mean its all butterflies and rose petals.
It is hard, and sometimes just acknowledging that and realizing that this too is a battle, and part of a bigger warfare in which I am a participant is enough.
And then, on top of realizing that this work of loving and creating is hard, I realized it is also so very holy.
It is hard, but it is so full of Him. He has promised the victory, that He will guard my heart, that love will triumph and that He will go before me. He cares about these seemingly small and unimportant pieces of my heart, and writes love over all of them.
Not comfort, not human love, not ease, but the kind of love that sweeps itself over all and covers and says "I have such big plans for you. I have such big love for you."
And this place I'm in, this in between summer, this work of loving, it's not an accident. It's not bad, or a mistake. It is holy work. It is enough.

"We're not here to fight tooth and nail, to white knuckle our way through our day. Life will come at us as we deal with things that cause so much pain and suffering. These things are real. Childhood abuse, miscarriages, divorce, disease, death, disappointments of all kinds, unfulfilled longings, mean people, debt, betrayal, addiction. But through it all, friends, you are someone with honor, with character, with integrity, with hope... You will be victorious. Love will win. All things will be restored and redeemed."
...
This place, this hard and holy place, is so full of Him.
Jesus in the waiting.
Jesus in the longing.
Jesus in the hoping.
Jesus in the loving.
Jesus in the grieving.
It's Jesus in my yoga.
Jesus in my relationship.
Jesus in my family.
Jesus in my writing.
Jesus in my conversations.
Jesus in my desire.
Jesus in my wilderness.