My Own Threshold Path: (aka how I finally stepped into my role as Medicine Woman)
I have rebuilt my life from scratch four times.
The first was after I moved from my tiny rural Oregon town, to Seattle on the day I graduated high school. I moved with my fiancé who I had been with since eighth grade. We lived in Seattle together for a year, and two months before our wedding, he met someone else. It was like someone ripped the sky off, and I was left alone to try to understand it. My primary attachment figure disappeared in an instant along with what I believed was my entire future and identity. It was my first experience with trauma and shock. I had to leave our shared apartment as he was moving to another state to be with a person he had met. I didn’t have any community outside of his family there, so slept in the spare room of the family I was nannying for for a while. It was my first experience with rock bottom. After a few weeks of not sleeping or eating and just trying to process what my brain couldn't, while I was sleeping in this unfamiliar room in this incredibly unfamiliar life, I felt like I physically couldn’t be in the pain for one moment longer. I then opened myself to the unfamiliar idea of asking for support from a higher power, and at 19, on the floor of this spare room, surrounded by toddler toys, I had the deeply mystical experience of being connected to and held and healed by the support of the unseen. I was given tremendous relief from the pain, and tremendous insight into my path. That moment changed me, and I started to form a relationship with Spirit.
The next morning I woke up living as a completely blank slate, in a good way. I was euphoric. I had seen and been one with everything. Everything looked new. I decided to dream big, bigger than my small town past, and the person I wanted to become was someone who lived in a big house with artists, and was the lead singer in a band. And that’s what happened. I opened the community newspaper to the classified section and made it happen. This was the teaching where I learned about widening my perspective of what’s possible. I watched myself decide that I wasn’t a broken, lost teenage girl anymore, I was a Seattle musician, the world was my stage, and I jumped on- with crowds cheering me on, and singing along. The community I gained in that time was epic, and who I watched myself become was mind blowing. I learned creation and my own power.
At 19, I didn’t understand that the original trauma would stay with me my whole life to be looked after with care, witness and understanding. And I’ve spent the last decade learning and practicing tools to understand how that sudden rupture from a primary attachment figure affected my beliefs about the world and myself, and how to rewire that belief system to lead my moments and relationships from a lens of authenticity, self-trust and love. Abandonment is a doozy, and needs to be tended to long-term on the mind, body and energetic levels. The decade's worth of tools that I learned to give the neccesary attention to this wound, are the tools that would be my light in the dark during future Thresholds.
Chronic illness has been teacher number two in the rebuilding from scratch game. In 2008 I started having unexplainable symptoms, (which I now believe were triggered by the house we were living in) which were making life a lot more challenging. As a deeply attuned mom of two young kids, not only were the symptoms hard, but the fact that no doctors could explain them, was terrifying. The stress compounded the symptoms in a brain numbing and body exhausting loop, and the close adults in my life were not supportive, assuming it was “just anxiety” because that was what they themselves experienced, so that’s what made sense to them. I spent 10 years being wrongfully diagnosed and wrongfully treated by every type of practioner imaginable. In that decade, I saw over 40 practioners, and at least 15 doctors misdiagnosed me with varying types of anxiety. (I now know that it takes an average of eight years for people with my condition to be diagnosed)
Still trying to manage the life altering symptoms, as a mom of 2 young kids, I spent years as a medical researcher, trying everything and every type of doctor and healer. In 2017, I went through the sudden breakup of a 5 year relationship, again with another woman involved, and my illness went into overdrive. My system went into a fight or flight mode that lasted 3 months. My mom had to come stay with me to care for both me and the kids, as my nervous system was in complete chaos, having moments of shaking, passing out, extreme dizziness, etc. Then I got extremely lucky. A woman I had gone on a date with years ago, posted about her diagnosis, and one of my naturopaths knew the only person in Portland specializing in Dysautonomia. In September of 2017, I had the truth. I had a condition called Dysautonomia, which affects all of the parts of autonomic nervous system. The systems that control breathing, heart rate, blood flow, digestion, etc. One of the aspects of the condition is called POTS, which many people are now developing post-Covid. Part of my diagnosis was looking at the bone structure of my arm. For the first time in 10 years, I could physically see that my body wasn’t “normal”. That I was living with a very challenging condition. It was then that I stopped trying to fix the problem, and instead, started living my life in ways that could conserve my energy for the things that really mattered to me. I had to start an extremely restrictive diet (I only eat 12 foods) and I stay in bed, or at least lying down, until noon. I had to rewire my ideas of productivity, contribution, being a “good mother” and a “good friend.” I’ve had to honor and be honest about what I can do, and how I can show up for myself and others. I had to surrender to the truth of my physical body.
That doesn’t mean I’m not open to my capabilities changing, but I’m no longer pushing my body to try to get it to act like other bodies or my old body. I’ve claimed my sovereignty in this regard. I can live in this body that needs extreme amounts of rest, etc, and still be on my path of being who I’m meant to be in the world. In fact, the slowness that my body needs leaves a lot of room for in-the-moment Presence. With others, with myself, with nature, with feelings, with the sacred. This forced slowness has allowed me to embody BEing rather than DOing. Every day. Sacred Pause.
This illness has also allowed me a front row seat into the idea that people can only see you with the lens that they’ve been given. The doctors could only diagnose me, with the frameworks they were taught. This teaching has allowed me to choose my community and practioners from a place of discernment, and resonance with the other’s lens.
The last tragic Threshold that I’ll share, was the year 2019. My mom, my biggest supporter and a giant source of exponential love and devotion in my life and in my kids’ life, passed away suddenly in her sleep. Once again the sky was ripped off, this time with my kids experiencing it too. Our world was gone. She was our rock. I allowed myself to grieve. In front of them and with them for months. I got real close with grief. I leaned in. I let grief be the dark heavy cloud and the razor sharp panic. I let myself walk through it all and learn how to BE. WITH. IT. All. I've learned that resisitance to it, adds suffering. I’ve considered changing my Facebook status to “In A Long Term Relationship With Grief.”
My kids ended up spending more time at their dad’s as I went through this grief journey. (We had always shared equal co-parenting time) Then, 7 months after my mom passed, their beloved dad died unexpectedly. And the BEing with, started all over again. It was the most horrific unimaginable tragedy. At this point, I had some practice, and although nothing could prepare me for what I watched my kids endure, I witnessed myself show up in that moment from my deeply connected sacred heart. Tending to them and him, and the situation with the grace and reverence it all deserved. Grace that can only come from walking so deeply with myself, my shattered heart and with spirit and knowingness- So. Many. Times.
I can look back at these moments, and see how each Threshold prepared me for the next one, but only because I leaned in HARD. I worked *with
the energy, the perspective, the somatics, the learning and freedom that can only be found when all seems to be lost. And I had life changing mentors and teachers that helped me walk this path in ways that catalyzed and fortified me in grace, love, self-awareness and expansiveness.
My Teachers:
Two decades of training and practice in: Positive Parenting Communication, Core and Celtic Shamanism, Solsara, Authentic Relating,
Intuitive Plant Medicine, Non-Violent Communication and Hypnotherapy
Intuitive Plant Medicine, Non-Violent Communication and Hypnotherapy
On my learning path, I've been extremely fortunate to work with incredible teachers and mentors. In hindsight, I can see what a gift and practice it was to find Jane Nelson and the Positive Parenting books, when I was a new mother at the age of 23. Before then, the reality was foreign to me that I could speak to my children in ways that honored both the feelings and needs of them and myself. Those early years with my kids, particulary my daughter, Hazel, who was an only child until she was 5, were a learning lab for me in how communication shapes a moment and a lifetime. How word choice directs energy. It felt like magic at the time. How differently she'd react as a toddler when I'd say "get your shoes on right now" vs "hey babe, we have to be out the door in 3 minutes, do you want to put on your blue or yellow shoes?" It's a direction of the flow of attention and energy, that many parents are never taught.
It was remarkably effective in creating empathy, respect and understanding, in both of us. I find myself using those same skills in my current relationships and in Hypnotherapy Sessions. It changed the way I saw the world entirely. From a place of expected struggle, to a place of agency and creativity in each moment. I still say Words Are Magic. I still approach every conversation with this magic in my pocket.
In 2010, I immersed myself for a year in in-person training in Non-Violent Communication. Marshall Rosenburg
Starting in 2012, I studied for over a year in person with two incredible Shamanic Practioners, Mary Courtis (Celtic Shamanism) and Christina Pratt. This was where I started gathering the tools to understand what I was experiencing spiritually, and merge the worlds of Nature, Spirit, Intention, Community and Healing.
In 2017, I spent over 100 hours with a next level self-awarness learning comunity called Solsara. It was here that I gained the self-acceptance and community processing experience, to start to feel truly embodied in what I had been learning those past decades. Asia
In 2018 all of that was put to the test, when I met a powerful intuitive who sent me out on the ultimate fear factor experience. Go on dates with 11 men over the period of a year. (I had never been on a date in my life!) But it was time to show myself what I was newly made of. The task was not just dating, it was *showing up*. As myself. Not who I assumed they wanted me to be. My work with Solsara has given me the tools and understanding of the power of gut wrenching emotional transparency- even with strangers, even on first dates. I’ve seen how it sets people free. I decided I didn’t really have anything to lose.
What I found and transformed in my self was nothing short of miraculous. I showed UP for myself by saying how I was feeling in every moment, even when it was awkward as hell, even when I was so triggered or enamored and couldn’t believe I was letting the words come out of my mouth. I found so much safety in this act, the act of just being true, just sharing my human-ness and letting the chips fall where they may. And a few amazing men let their REAL step up to meet me. (And a few of them are still soul allies) In this transparency of emotion, I healed old wounds, they healed old wounds, we released untrue stories about ourselves that we didn’t realize we were carrying. We pulled back the curtain on our deepest fears. We found clarity. We let go of our pasts. We greatly expanded our awareness of what was even possible in connection, and what we deserve. I found self love. I lost my fear of losing myself in love. I learned what my truth feels like. I set my heart free.
The last 5 years I have spent diving into the theory, science and mystery of romantic relationships, and becoming a Certified Hypnotherapist. Those experiences I had during that year of transparency practice in dating, fueled me to want to understand more of what I and others experienced in those relational containers we created so intentionally. Both the expansive and the challenging parts. I've been thrilled to find more life altering tools to share through the lenses of Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory (Deep Nervous System Understanding), and Relationship Psychology. Each of these relational tools, are extremely supportive to use in the all of the other Thresholds I walk with people through. Some of those authors are: John Welwood, Ram Dass, Sue Johnson, Deb Dana, Brene Brown, Gay Hendricks, Stan Tatkin, The Gottmans and Nicole LePera.
Each teacher/teaching, led me to the next, like a lantern lit path. In 2019, when Grief came into my world so intensely, I felt like I had the tools to be with it. It wasn't easy, it was excruciating, but I had what I needed to sit with the sacred loss.
And now I'm here on the other side, having woven together the threads of these teachers, and so honored to share the gifts that I've come here to give.
It was remarkably effective in creating empathy, respect and understanding, in both of us. I find myself using those same skills in my current relationships and in Hypnotherapy Sessions. It changed the way I saw the world entirely. From a place of expected struggle, to a place of agency and creativity in each moment. I still say Words Are Magic. I still approach every conversation with this magic in my pocket.
In 2010, I immersed myself for a year in in-person training in Non-Violent Communication. Marshall Rosenburg
Starting in 2012, I studied for over a year in person with two incredible Shamanic Practioners, Mary Courtis (Celtic Shamanism) and Christina Pratt. This was where I started gathering the tools to understand what I was experiencing spiritually, and merge the worlds of Nature, Spirit, Intention, Community and Healing.
In 2017, I spent over 100 hours with a next level self-awarness learning comunity called Solsara. It was here that I gained the self-acceptance and community processing experience, to start to feel truly embodied in what I had been learning those past decades. Asia
In 2018 all of that was put to the test, when I met a powerful intuitive who sent me out on the ultimate fear factor experience. Go on dates with 11 men over the period of a year. (I had never been on a date in my life!) But it was time to show myself what I was newly made of. The task was not just dating, it was *showing up*. As myself. Not who I assumed they wanted me to be. My work with Solsara has given me the tools and understanding of the power of gut wrenching emotional transparency- even with strangers, even on first dates. I’ve seen how it sets people free. I decided I didn’t really have anything to lose.
What I found and transformed in my self was nothing short of miraculous. I showed UP for myself by saying how I was feeling in every moment, even when it was awkward as hell, even when I was so triggered or enamored and couldn’t believe I was letting the words come out of my mouth. I found so much safety in this act, the act of just being true, just sharing my human-ness and letting the chips fall where they may. And a few amazing men let their REAL step up to meet me. (And a few of them are still soul allies) In this transparency of emotion, I healed old wounds, they healed old wounds, we released untrue stories about ourselves that we didn’t realize we were carrying. We pulled back the curtain on our deepest fears. We found clarity. We let go of our pasts. We greatly expanded our awareness of what was even possible in connection, and what we deserve. I found self love. I lost my fear of losing myself in love. I learned what my truth feels like. I set my heart free.
The last 5 years I have spent diving into the theory, science and mystery of romantic relationships, and becoming a Certified Hypnotherapist. Those experiences I had during that year of transparency practice in dating, fueled me to want to understand more of what I and others experienced in those relational containers we created so intentionally. Both the expansive and the challenging parts. I've been thrilled to find more life altering tools to share through the lenses of Attachment Theory, Polyvagal Theory (Deep Nervous System Understanding), and Relationship Psychology. Each of these relational tools, are extremely supportive to use in the all of the other Thresholds I walk with people through. Some of those authors are: John Welwood, Ram Dass, Sue Johnson, Deb Dana, Brene Brown, Gay Hendricks, Stan Tatkin, The Gottmans and Nicole LePera.
Each teacher/teaching, led me to the next, like a lantern lit path. In 2019, when Grief came into my world so intensely, I felt like I had the tools to be with it. It wasn't easy, it was excruciating, but I had what I needed to sit with the sacred loss.
And now I'm here on the other side, having woven together the threads of these teachers, and so honored to share the gifts that I've come here to give.