My Story
I’ve always had an untamable spirit with an incessant curiosity about life and a compelling reluctancy to follow normality. I grew up feeling misplaced in the midst of my family’s dynamic of traditional views. Being the unconventional freethinker of my family forged an evident disconnect between them and I. While everyone else followed suit, careful to not make waves, I disturbed the ebb and flow of an agreeable family system. My fathers domineering nature spotlighted the grave distinction of my inborn sensitivity and my parents’ inability to nurture it. It was early on in my life, in my alienation from my family, that I discovered my passion to create and a deft desire inside me to articulate my emotions another way— through my hands. Art was the solitary space where my expression was free of rules, restrictions, judgement or punishment.
Being prohibited from voicing my truth and not feeling acknowledged or understood by my family had its’ many influences on my life. It crippled my ability to trust my own inner decisiveness and wounded my sense of worthiness. Having my views overruled and discredited reinforced the idea that to be who I am, essentially, wasn’t acceptable. From my childhood years of not feeling love and acceptance from my family, I became an expert at conforming to who other people needed me to be in order to belong. I learned to persist by merely blending into my surroundings and virtually offsetting my entire existence.
I strayed from home in my teens and began living independently by the age of eighteen. With a love for learning but no aspiration to further my formal education, I went on to pursue a career that suited my artistic niche coloring hair. Even without the support of my family, I was determined to succeed as an artist. Being the youngest in my workplace, I achieved a decade of noteworthy success in the beauty industry and became one of the salons top performing operators. Even with growing professional success, I still felt a lurking sense of something missing. As it turned out, my chase for financial achievement and other physical attainments were only a temporary compensation for the emptiness I felt inside.
The dual life I was juggling was a painful tug of war between my overwhelming addiction to perfection and my dire fear of failure. In both my professional world and personal life, I traded in my authenticity for approval and bargained for my worth. My relationships were a direct depiction of my poor self concept and I settled easily into attachment with partners that perpetuated the abusive, codependent and negligent tendencies of both my parents. My desponding need for security and the failure to obtain it led to a rejection that instituted a profound turning point in my journey.
[Before I continue, I would like to be clear about one thing. I believe in the goodness of people and the notion that we are all doing the best here with what we know and were given. I believe that people can change at any time, if or when they decide for themselves to. My own reflective work and healing has allowed me to recognize my parents as people, like myself, with their own pain and past experiences and to witness them in their humanness. I also deeply believe that my parents had every right intention for me and the things they didn’t give me weren’t because they didn’t want to but rather, they didn’t know how. Developing the emotional skills that my parents didn’t have has helped me in realizing how difficult it is and has helped me in transforming my resentment towards them into compassion and empathy. Without the mistakes of what I believe to be, their best attempt, I wouldn’t have learned some of the most paramount lessons of my life. What they did give me, in retrospect, was the incentive to take responsibility for my life and look at the gaps to create a new reality and future for myself.]
After a suicide attempt in early 2017, I was awakened from narcoma with a deep inner calling to purse a different path. When my life flashed before my eyes, it also shed a light on the dark place that I had buried myself to hide. In my reflection, I was confronted with a startling question. “Who am I?” I questioned who I was outside of my six-year relationship that had come to an end. I questioned who I was outside of my career, my image, my material assets, the judgement of others and the baggage from my past. I no longer belonged to myself and I was struck with the enlightenment that the relationship in my life that needed mending most was the one I had with me. The closeness I was looking for was something missing from and needing to be found within. My truth seeking journey commenced as I held a mirror up to myself and my circumstances. This took having to face and forgive some very difficult realities about myself. My entire life I had been adamant about succeeding without any help, but in a radical moment of courage, I admitted needing support and committed to weekly therapy. My natural curiosity provoked me to both explore and challenge the limits of my perception. I immersed myself in books and personal research and stretched myself in new directions. I started to absorb new information as I traveled new places, attended healing workshops, retreats and dove deep in my commitment to rebuild my life. I couldn’t find this education in a classroom.
With a new grip on my life, I started to speculate all of the limiting beliefs that I had inherited as my own and found truth within my experiences to credence new beliefs. As I detached from the precepts and patterns from my past, I started responding to my life with intention instead of reacting to it out of fear. By acknowledging my doubts, I put an end to making that my entire existence. As I unlearned fear, I welcomed love and magnetized nourishing relationships into my life. Opening up to others about the painful conflicts of my past and being transparent about the adversity I had overcome, I was able to see myself and others through a new lens. With a new set of eyes, I noticed a shift in my external world. Giving myself permission to ask for help, make mistakes and be seen allowed me to overcome new challenges I faced with the acumen that I am worthy of love and belonging. By fully embracing and owning my story, I removed the ownership it had over me. That confidence empowered me to step into new leadership roles and use my story as a pillar of strength to help others heal.
In 2018, I was by chance (and I believe a higher power), appointed to life coaching— an unlikely occurrence that completely changed the trajectory of my life. In 2019, I became a certified life coach.
My instinctive desire to help other people joined with my artless ability to relate to them brought upon the understanding that the life skills I cultivated amidst my struggles were significantly tied to my purpose. My ability to feel deeply has always been one of my greatest strengths and was the gateway to me discovering my unique gift of connecting with others. Helping to heal and serve others is what I have been called here to do and my greatest hope is that when my time here has been organically determined, I have zero aptitude left. My aim is to magnify perspectives – to bridge the gap of where you currently are and to lead you in consciously uncovering all of who you are meant to be. My story is for those who can identify with feeling overlooked and undervalued and for those on the pursuit of internal freedom. We are not victims of our past but powerful producers walking a spiritual path of returning home to who we authentically are.
I see you, I acknowledge you and I’m here for you.