Broken Down to Broken Open
From divine intervention and nature’s union
I sprouted into the world through the grace and fire of my mother and father,
into loving arms I was embraced!
In time I learned about life from a delusional society,
forming a broken point from which to view ;
a belief I was not good enough.
So I kept trying to glue the broken glass of my self-worth back together -
a tiresome tedious effort this was.
I looked outward for help, as I was taught to do, and
came across temporary fulfillments…
People
Substances
Activities
Goals
Emotions
Thoughts.
For fleeting moments these created that sense of wholeness,
yet I continually came back to feeling like something was missing.
Have you felt that before? Like no matter what you do there is something out of place, something lacking?
Ooo honey I’ve been there, and it is there where a desperation arises for something, oh please something, to fix me….but, that magic fix does not exist.
As a child my head was in the clouds…
imagining as much as I could on the movie screen in my mind, from giants reading storybooks in the sky, to fairies and elves frolicking in the garden, to monsters lurking in the night.
As I grew so did that imagination, into fear-based pictures of the worst “what-ifs”, and I developed a coping mechanism of obsessively getting shit done to drown out the inner critic and meet unrealistic expectations (hm, wonder where I picked that up, cough cough capitalistic america).
This has been a debilitating relationship to mind, an example of how, as my teacher Jessica says it, the mind can be our greatest tool or our biggest liability.
Hidden
She walks and talks a certain way
to make all of the pain subside,
but when she looks in the mirror today
all she sees is the demon inside
Codependency
Your heart has melted into mine,
It has formed a thick wax around the ventricles.
The only way to get it off
is to peel it away, layer by layer,
with hopes that my heart will not crumble.
For it might disintegrate like sandstone
hitting the sharp edges of a boulder,
and float into the passing wind.
The pain that you feel reflects onto me
like a mirror that sees
the darkest crevices of your mind.
Your depression makes my energy
go from one hundred to zero,
and your happiness is a road map
to how well I sleep at night.
Mrs. Anxiety
She grips me like death is upon her,
smothering me with her cold embrace.
I can feel her heartbeat against my chest:
it is fast and irregular.
Her body quivers as she inhales,
and the hair on her arms stands up,
rough against my baby-smooth skin.
I rub her back, accepting her as she is.
For, although a bit uncomfortable, she is my friend,
and she is here to guide me...
somewhere, somehow.
Like a flitting faery
I have been a fast-paced, curious, bubbly, creative, keen and fiery whirlwind of a being my whole life.
I was shy, quiet, curious, playful, joyful, organized, anxious, athletic and smart as a kid.
From societal conditioning and traumatic events in my childhood I grew into an anxiety-ridden, lost, judgmental, confused, and addictive teenager.
Experiencing more stress and trauma in my young adulthood, whilst maintaining largely unhealthy coping mechanisms, I stumbled, fell, got up, broke down, and eventually I hit a rock-bottom. From this low of lows sprouted my re-learning process.
Note; the bolded sentences you’ll see from here on out are some of the key lessons I learnt through this process.
Everything is not what it seems - there is so much more to life than meets the eye.
The intelligence of life kept trying to tell me its secret.
It did its best to whisper in my ear,
but after a while of ignorance, it became urgent…
so the volume got louder…and louder…and louder!
It screamed through anxiety, eczema, addiction, allergic reactions, and a pulmonary embolism. Only after my heart broke through an abusive relationship and I got into a terrifying car accident did I hear that subtle voice calling my name to wake me up from the dream I had been deteriorated by. Until then I was just going through the motions, hypnotized by my past-conditionings, distractions of the external world, and false beliefs.
This accident shook me!
A crash, a blackout, wounds formed, deep inquiry, spaciousness…and I awoke. I realized the interconnectedness of life. Slowly I began to sense that I was not missing anything, I was not broken, and there was nothing for me to prove.
Everything is connected by an invisible thread: a shared essence.
From this point I began my journey inwards, and I started to understand how how my inner landscape shaped my outer landscape.
At the same time I began an outward journey across the u.s. in a camper van…oh what a dream come true! These dual explorations brought clarity, and clarity inspired deep intentions.
These intentions led me to sit directly in front of my teacher, whom guided me deeper down my path as a sadhaka (sincere student of Yoga). And to my sweet Love, Georgiy, whom I started a new chapter with living and working on a small urban farm.
As I settled into this new, nurturing, and supportive reality all the old gunk started to surface! Like a sink drain that hasn’t been cleaned out in a long time, even though you’re pouring the most pristine water down it, the overflow of ignored stuff just keeps clogging, coming out sideways, or gushing up.
Deepening in my Yoga practice while living and working in this community brought up all the old conditionings, buried traumas, unresolved emotions, and false beliefs.
The ripe conditions of self-awareness, physical safety, compassionate community, and trusted guides allowed me to come face-to-face with the program running in the background.
Ignorance, perfectionism, objectivity, individualism, urgency, quantity over quality, externalization, false identity, attachment, aversion, and fear of pain were reinforced through a multitude of tendencies such as; over-working, comparison, judgment, resentment, performatism, avoidance/numbing out, overindulgence, and a continual anxiety of “am I good enough?”.
Everything resurfaces eventually.
I was largely in a state of hyper-vigilance…which wasn’t a new experience for me, and it wore. me. down.
I had no clue how stressed I was though, until experiencing a medicinal dosage of mushrooms under the supervision of a trained facilitator. It was through this experience that I felt the dysregulation of my nervous system and what a regulated nervous system could be. After touching this state, so much unravelled, I simply could not continue on how I had been for the past 10 years.
The nervous system is a pillar to wellbeing.
Yet, even with this felt sense I fell into the habitual conditioning over and over, like a stream running through the same groove year after year.
At the spruce age of 24 my body started screaming at me via debilitating pain….I was literally brought to my knees!
The pain spread from my elbow, neck, in between my shoulder blades, mid-back and hips. I was in chronic stress and my coping mechanisms were about 30% helpful and 70% detrimental. I found myself in a state of such overwhelming pain that I could hardly walk up and down stairs, or groom myself for sleep.
Once again, I was shook.
Why was this happening to me? What am I doing wrong? What needs to change? This isn’t right…
I was deepened into inquiry, observation, and the action of being a little less active, unless it was to find the loving care my body needed and the answers my mind pondered for.
Slowing down is necessary for healing.
With help from many practitioners…massage, craniosacral, yoga therapy, acupuncture, physical therapy, nurses, doctors…I was able to crawl out from the most painful time of my life to date.
I was still experiencing chronic pain, though it was manageable enough to return to easeful daily care for myself, and resume work.
Time Stop Over the next couple years of this journey I’m taking you on, I will have received all the medical tests and scans possible to rule out the causes of my pain. The one physical “deformity” capturable via xray and MRI of my entire spine was some arthritis and mild disc-bulging in my neck. So, what caused me to be in such pain? Well, I believe it is rooted in my nervous system. Let’s resume the timeline to explore that more…
Healing takes time, patience, compassion, acceptance, and dedication.
Fall through winter of that year another layer to my dis-ease came to surface. I began experiencing signs of digestive difficulties and abdominal pains.
I contracted covid twice, the flu once, and had an allergic reaction that sent me into anaphylaxis all in the matter of 3 months. When it rains it pours, ya know what I mean?!
In February of 2024 while on vacation in Costa Rica, my partner and I were very ill, and I experienced the most intense flare-up of eczema I had in my life. When returning home from this trip I had hives for 2 weeks after.
Wow, that body just went through A LOT!
If I had known more about toxin load, nervous system dysregulation, and long term effects of viruses like covid at that time, what follows would not have been so shocking to me, but because I didn’t know about any of this it was quite derailing.
In March, at the ripe age of 25 I started to experience a progression of worsening digestive symptoms.
Loose stool, gas, very little bowel movement, bloating, inflammation, sensation of bubbles in my colon, and intense pain in the upper quadrant of my abdomen had me questioning what was going on inside of me. “If only I could look within my own gastrointestinal system” I thought.
“Was I reacting to something in my diet?” I wondered.
There is a puffy inflamed bubble that pulsates and changes location throughout my abdomen.
It’s like there’s a little being inside my intestines trying to get out…
“push push, ugh no breakthrough,
again…push push!
okay try another spot….ughh no give.”
I began keeping a detailed food journal and started removing possible triggers one by one. I received blood tests, abdominal ultrasounds, and…no findings. With the symptoms intensifying each week, my anxiety increased. Was it gall bladder related? I have a family history of gallbladder problems… the pain in the upper abdomen increased. I couldn’t lay down flat comfortably, so I slept slanted. I received more in-depth blood panels and a HIDA scan to address the gallbladder, though nothing remarkable was found.
The pain was so intense it stopped me in a state that felt breathless and timeless. I was back to struggling to walk and care for myself, yet I trudged on looking for answers. I eliminated so much from my diet…so. much.
I lost 15 pounds, which was a lot for me. Needless to say, I was ill.
Pain has a voice…so let it express.
Strong center
Inflated like a balloon
hardened like a turtles shell
tender to the touch…
what is going on in there?
Too bad I don't have x-ray vision!
Uggghhh
Eeekk
I stumble I groan
Difficult to stand
to walk
to sit up
The pain slices through my scapula
Sometimes with a readied edge
Oftentimes with an overused dull blade
It radiates up into my neck, deep into my abdomen, back, and hip.
Where is this coming from?
Thoughts race,
Breath stops.
Oh yeah….breathe!
Though it may feel impossible to take a full inhale,
over and over I remember to focus on this ever-flowing conversation of give and receive.
Inhale,
Exhale…
This too shall pass.
While it is here, I ask, what are you telling me?
Disconnection
Forgetfulness
Expectation
Attachment
There is no miracle pill,
but this pain is my miraculous teacher.
I practice listening, yet it can be so hard to hear as falsity is so loud out there.
Oh dear,
This has been going on for over a year
It has changed clothes and morphed shapes, but it always brings me to tear.
Fear
Confusion
Anger
Desperation
Come in package with the pain.
Yet, I find hope…
In the well of love from which I came,
reflected to me through
the sound of hums in and around
the sight of spring growth
the nurturing support of community
the warmth of sun and cool of moon.
In deep dedication to healing
I steep my trust in innate wisdom.
Although this was now the most intense pain I had ever experienced, I would sporadically and simultaneously enter into a state bliss. How curious this was!
Another curiosity during this time was my observation that the digestive discomfort flares and musculoskeletal pain flares seemed to coincide, ebbing and flowing in a sort of dance, sometimes synchronized, sometimes not, but always in a conversation.
After a month of this I looked over my food journal carefully and noticed a theme of intense pain episodes occurring after consuming grains, especially corn. There was also a clear line between cannabis consumption and the increase of pain intensity. So, I said goodbye to these friends, and surely enough the pain decreased to a bearable state. I continued making progressive adjustments to my diet, which, overtime was a very dramatic difference to the way I had been engaging with food all my life. I shifted what I ate; a balance of lean protein, extra vegetables, healthy starches and pure fats, plus a medicinal dosage of pre and probiotic foods. Importantly, I also began shifting how I ate…thoroughly, in gratitude, calmly, and with spaciousness.
Notably; this shift didn’t happen overnight, over weeks, or even months, it has been a slow and non-linear process that I am still engaging with today. Because when stress hits, so does the urge to eat hastily and consume simple carbs and excess sugar.
Once again, my energy returned enough to resume work.
On a mission to get to the bottom of this…I read books, researched online, and reached out to my community for clues to my healing.
I knew there was a lot I needed to rule out…inflammatory bowel disease, gastritis, cancer, oh my! I needed an expert…who are in high demand, but I was lucky to get in within a couple weeks with someone an hour north of me, and she started running preliminary tests (basic stool, SIBO, and celiac). About a month later I was able to establish care with a local GI Doctor and he got me scheduled for an endoscopy and colonoscopy in late June. The results? A medium polyp removed from colon and a few gastric polyps removed.
That’s it! So…what was all that intensity then?
Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
I had an answer…but I wasn’t satisfied…my curiosity only deepened. What exactly causes IBS? What was causing it in my body? How can I heal this?
Decoding the timeline of life experiences really helps to understand the root causes of dis-ease.
I knew there was something missing from the western medical approach to addressing diseases like the ones I was facing…the diseases that put a name to a cluster of symptoms which have no structural cause and are deemed “untreatable”. So began my deep dive into uncovering those missing pieces.
I got really curious with myself and asked a lot of questions about my experiences of chronic dis-ease. I started to understand how stress to my system from food, experiences, thoughts, viruses, emotions, activity, and how I relate and respond all had an impact on my experience of wellness.
I uncovered these triggers by going back in time and recollecting all of my life’s most stressful experiences, all of the symptoms of “un-wellness” I could remember, and putting them into one big compilation of Katharine’s Dis-Ease Causers. This helped me to view my experiences objectively and understand how even what may have seemed “small” to me had an impact on my body-mind’s sense of safety and resource to maintain systemic balance.
I observed how my stress levels were impacted by what I consumed on a daily basis via sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and touch. I noted how well I was able to process, digest, and eliminate these things physically, mentally and emotionally. I paid attention to how stress levels lead to certain behaviors and responses which continued the cycle of stress and exacerbated symptoms. Gradually, I made small and big changes to my way of living from every angle I could think of. I started building up my healthy stress responses and increasing my capacity, because I saw how maladaptive stress responses were wreaking havoc on my health.
From here I underwent a tremendous amount of transformation, because I was addressing the one thing that made all the other things worse…stress.
This was like swimming against the current, because I had spent years ignoring my self-care to apease a “go-getting, over-doing” drive. I had to slow down, make space for rest, be okay with not “getting it all done” or “doing it perfectly”, build my self-love, encourage acceptance, learn my personal activators and how to self-soothe, understand my maladaptive coping tendencies and lovingly invite a different response. Learning the art and science of tending my multidimensional being as I would intentionally tend a garden was the balm to decrease my physical and digestive pains. It was there the understanding of my nervous system’s role in my well-being became a lived knowing.
Adaptive stress responses build resilience, confidence, connection, and wellbeing.
I didn’t walk this path alone, my dedication to unlearning, de-stressing, and healing led me to the help I needed naturally. I found an integrative support system of…
~A holistic nutritionist to re-establish a healthy relationship to eating
~Bodyworkers to help me release tension and re-align structurally
~Movement specialists to enhance my body’s functional experience
~Yoga, Ayurveda, and Spiritual mentors to support a holistic relationship to life
~An IFS therapist to aid my capacity in witnessing, feeling, and freeing stored memories and emotions
This support system is what helped me formulate a well-rounded toolbox of awareness, adaptive stress responses, healthy lifestyle choices, and healing tricks.
After two years of intense health scares, and a year of manageable symptoms I am now experiencing a low-level version of the pains I had begun this journey with. Through consistency and compassion I have made leaps into a healthier version of Katharine, and continue to unlearn and relearn more and more about my experience of wellbeing every day. For this I am boundlessly grateful to the support system of my partner, therapists, guides, teachers, friends and family.
There is an unconditionally loving and compassionate force within.
My experiences with dis-ease, self-healing, and re-membering health have shown me the power and accessibility of the healing force within us all. Through quietness, spaciousness, and patience, an unbreakable trust and dedication to the unconditionally loving witness and healing power within forms. This force works wisely to soften and clarify what may have previously felt terribly frightening, worrying, and distressing. It is from this place that breaking down becomes the ripe opportunity for breaking open.
Breaking open to what? love, beauty, gratitude…
It is this “breaking open to life” that is the healing I’ve experienced.
It is my hope that you find your healing, through whatever life has dealt to you, and that my sharing of experience, learning, and resources gathered along my way may help you cultivate a well of resource too.
As there is so much more nuance and depth to this story that one blog post cannot hold, I will go deeper into specific topics in the future. Please let me know in the comments if something in particular piqued your curiosity!
I heartily intend
my guidance as lend
to aid your tend
towards wholly mend.
May you remember that place in you where you are healed and whole…
JAI!
