A portal of rebirth: a One year reflection
Looking back to one year ago
August has been all about reflecting, resetting, and grounding into the places I have expanded into this summer (you can watch an instagram live I did about this here).
This week I felt deeply emotional multiple days thinking back to a year ago and how much has shifted since then. Late August through early October last year I hit some of my lowest grief moments. The shock of my mom’s death started wearing off more (I have learned to not underestimate shock in the grief & loss process - it lasts much much longer than we realize), we had just moved into our first 100yr old home that we were pouring love and energy into to make it our own, a place where my mom would never visit (physically), and a lot of other details of life were stirring the anxiety pot like never before. It was combination of deep joy, gratitude, pain and grief.
It took all of my energy to move through the day in as grounded of a way as I could without collapsing, which inevitably happened often too.
It wasn’t my last rock bottom grief moment, but it was yet again a point of surrender, or a million points of surrender of control, of my fears that that’s how it’d be forever, surrender of fears that I’d never have energy again or mental clarity or creativity again even though I new there was so much to experience and offer in life still. Surrender of all relationships, plans and hopes and dreams, because I only had capacity to move at an hour-by-hour pace. Surrender to the reactions my body was having to the level of stress hormones that had likely been circulating for so long.
I was still learning how to find the words to even talk to loved ones about what it felt like. I’m so grateful for the people that sat with me on the phone or in person while I spoke, or cried, or just sat in silence on numb days.
There were many more moments, easier and hard lived, before a bigger shift was ready to unfold and a lot more support along the way, but it’s pretty amazing to be here today feeling ALIVE, with a deep desire for life, inspired to share, create, and carry out pieces of the mission I came to offer, grounded into myself in a renewed and calm way, open to grief and also open to life. Surrender is still a daily piece of the puzzle, and I’ve leaned that there is grief in every layer of healing (which likely isn’t concluding anytime soon).
And this home has held us through so much, with so much love, light, coziness and expansiveness all at once. Supporting us with trees in every direction, a lush and breathtaking park just a few blocks away for daily conversations, tears or dance parties with the trees, birds, and flowers. It’s almost like this house’s soul smiled at us and opened its arms for a welcoming embrace, saying “it you love me and all of my quirks, I will abundantly love you and hold you in all of your moments”, and it has.
It has offered space for our Chileans to come for months at a time, enough stability for my nervous system and enough project opportunities for my visionary husband, space to rest, play, read in the hammock, introduce many new plant friends, our first holiday season without Mom, and so much more.
The unraveling is deeply painful, and learning to be with myself in love through it has been one of my biggest challenges to date, AND the magical portal of transformation and rebirth it offers never ceases to amaze and humble me.
Now to look forward to one year from now, knowing I could never even grasp the possibilities of all that may unfold, but I can look forward with love, excitement, openness, surrender, and freedom to trust I will be held and can hold myself and others beautifully through it all.
If you take a moment and a breath, what has this last year been like for you? How have life’s wild unfoldings transformed your being?