What’s Love Got to Do with It?

I am personally amazed at all the different ways people show up in life. How we self medicate. How we act. How we react. How we heal. It’s this weird conglomerate of things that mix up in our hearts and our heads that move us forward or hold us back.

Growing up, I never thought about healing other than putting a band-aid over a skinned knee or whatever I managed to scrape. And honestly, generationally, that’s what we are taught to do. Put a band-aid over whatever ails us and keep moving. It will eventually heal on its own and go away. And for small hurts, this is absolutely true. BUT what about those deep cuts? The wounds that pierce more than the skin? Those hurts, pains, and injuries need more attention.

In my experience, at the time we feel immense hurt and pain, it feels easier to stuff it down and not feel it. Hmm…how does one do that? Well, we ignore it. We pretend it doesn’t bother us. We pretend it’s not a big deal. We drink alcohol when it begins to rear it’s ugly head to us. We feed it. Eventually, we do whatever it takes to keep those scary, hurtful feelings at bay. Trust me, I know. I have done all of these things and more to keep from working through my own shit.

If I hadn’t had Jane in my life from my mid-20’s until she left this earth, I think I would still be trying to cover up, and stuff all the garbage I held onto for so long. Jane saw things in me that I didn’t see in myself. She taught me about energy. She taught me how to connect with my guides. She taught me how to pay attention to my intuition and to trust my gut. During the pandemic, she said to me, “I want to partner with you on our next project.” Even though she knew she was sick and dying.

During this time, I thought she was going to fully recover. She never told me she was not going to recover. Even when I was told it was “bad” I was still holding onto hope for a miracle. I found myself drawn to try new things. I started going to yoga class. I felt pulled to learn more and more about yoga and meditation. I received my RYT200 training. Then I began Reiki training and working with the energy that Jane had taught me so many years ago. 

During yoga teacher training, I began to have thoughts of old things come up. I’d be minding my own business in Savasana (the rest part at the end of the yoga class) and then I’d think about a time I felt unsafe. “What the hell was that,” I would think. Then I would remember Jenn would say, any thoughts you have, just acknowledge them and let them go. I didn’t realize I was healing this stuff.

Reiki became another modality that would allow me to let stuff go and realign my own energy. Every time I was on the table, I would “dream” about things that either seemed irrelevant or were simple breadcrumbs leading me down a path of enlightenment. I am so grateful for the journey to work on myself and to work to make the world a better place. And that vision begins within each of us to work for what’s right, for the greater good of not just ourselves, but for the planet.