Blood Bones & Tears

This year I lost 20% of my body weight in 6 short weeks.

Foreign parasites inside my belly robbed me every nutrient and calorie I put into my mouth.

Skin and bones, I made the humbling decision to leave a dream experience of working at an eco-yoga resort on the top of a mountain in Guatemala.

It’s been 11 months of slow, arduous healing.

I had to renounce aspects of my life that were fueled by passion, virtue, and what I thought made me “me.”

Yogi. Vegan. Raw foodie enthusiast.

I had to move into a softer form of movement that required less stamina and strength.

I had to completely change my diet.

I had to shift my perspective on what I deemed “right” and “wrong.”

and I resisted nearly every moment of it.

There was nothing graceful about the way I moved through what life was asking of me.

Healing demands a radical form of self-compassion, kindness, and patience.

I’ve experienced a threshold of self-judgment and criticism in the past year that forced me into a place of complete surrender.

It wasn’t easy… but I did it.

This year I had to deeply learn what it means to hold space for yourself.

To hold space while fatigue robs you of peace, hope, and balance.

To hold space while the body gets softer, rounder, puffier, and just… different.

To hold space while the brain relearns that it’s not in dire danger.

To hold space while the nervous system releases its constant gripping sympathetic response.

To hold space during the plethora of emotions that accompanies these bodily changes.

As a result of my weight loss, I entered into a state of hypothalamic amenorrhea.

And today, I healed.

Today…338 days late…I got my period back.

My heart feels a novel depth of stillness today.

A profound openness, saturated connection, and silent reverence for this body and this life.

It is powerfully tender and sweetly lonesome.

As if everyone and everything simply vanished.

And there’s just God… one vibrant, radiating flow of Life.

And the funny thing is…

Is that it took a holistic form of suffering

To come into this conscious harmony.