A couple weekends ago, our family went to lunch together at our local country club. We wanted to celebrate having all three of our daughters home for the holidays. About halfway through our meal, my oldest daughter Megan joked about how much she hated coming home during her freshman year of college back in 2018 because she “couldn’t stand my healing journey.” She laughed and said something like, “We all had to suffer because you turned into some weird version of yourself.” And then she added, almost casually, “Remember how awful you looked? So sickly. Thank God that’s over.”
In a split-second, an old gut-punch of defeat, humiliation, fear, and grief rocketed through me. I felt it viscerally from my belly through my chest and into my throat. The reaction was a familiar one—I’d had it a hundred times before.
But something very different followed the initial bodily response.
Before the movie in my head even had a chance to pull me in, a gentle phrase washed over me like warm, soothing rain water. “I will not abandon myself.”
“I will not abandon myself by collapsing into stories about Megan as a villain. I will not abandon myself by identifying as the victim of some unfair circumstance. And I will not abandon myself by building a fortress of protection to keep myself small and locked-away.”
Instead of abandoning myself, I turned my attention within. To the one who has been with me my whole life—the one who has waited patiently to be met, to be understood, and to be loved unconditionally.
Even as the conversation at the lunch table continued, I discreetly remained within. I stayed with the sensations. I stayed with…her. I don’t really have another word for this ME that has always been there. So I will just call her her.
“Hey, how are you doing? That hurt, huh? You OK? I’m here with you and I will not leave you. Everything is OK. We are learning to see this memory through a brand new lens of Truth and Light. I’m here now. We’re OK.”
Without notice, I continued to stay, letting that “me” within—that timeless, eternal Presence—know that everything is alright. That these sensations, emotions, and stories are here because they are ready to be seen for the truth of what they always were.
Megan’s harsh comments were simply the catalyst for bringing to the surface something that was already in me—waiting to be felt. Waiting to be seen through a new lens of clarity. Her words cast a bright spotlight on a deeply held belief that was still intact: a belief that I had somehow failed as a mother, a wife, and a human being during that period of suffering. A belief that maybe I had done something bad or wrong.
When Megan said what she did, it touched the raw open wound of those beliefs within me. And, thankfully, my BRILLIANT, amazing body did exactly what it knew to do to wake me up from the trance of those beliefs: it sent huge waves of sensations rocketing through my body.
Sure enough, after a couple of moments, the entire experience shifted into one of softness, kindness, and love. We finished our lunch and went home. Nothing was ever said about that little blip of conversation again.
Once we were back at the house, I found myself longing to bring back that experience I had at lunch. I wanted to evoke those same sensations and emotions so that I could bring them closer, once again, and get to know them even better.
So I opened my Google photos on my phone and searched for 2018 and 2019 photos of myself. These were the photos that I had blocked from memory for a long time because the sight of them were too triggering. One photo in particular, from when my body was at its thinnest, brought the familiar surge of sensation and the equally familiar impulse to escape.
But again… I stayed.
And as I stayed, the same quiet miracle unfolded. The sensations didn’t need to be fixed. They didn’t need to be interpreted. They didn’t even need to be healed.
They just needed to be met with a clearer, more truthful understanding. Beneath the costumes of “awful” and “unbearable” and “I can’t handle this,” those symptoms, sensations, and emotional waves had always been just Life arising as this. So simple. So innocent. So pure and raw. Just this. Life as this. And a very compelling costume on top.
As I sat, filled with so much love for that ME that has always been here—unwavering, unchanged—it occurred to me to open my Gratitude App from that same 2018-2019 time period. I wanted to see what had been helpful during the time.
Here is a screenshot of what I found:
As I read that beautiful page from my Gratitude App, the memory of that day returned. I remember a day of particularly relentless hives and swelling. Itchy welts covered nearly every part of my body from my scalp to my feet. I had awoken with a swollen eye, and by lunch I had a swollen top lip to match. But, in spite of the symptom flare, there was a sense of deep peace. Somehow, the habitual fear and hopelessness had momentarily faded and there was a sense of clarity:
What if this flare was actually PART OF my awakening? What if this very human experience was actually essential to my remembering my true nature—my identity beyond the decades of stories, labels, and concepts?
And Clark Kent came to mind. What if those days of awkwardness, those moments of rejection from Lois Lane, those hard times in Gotham City were all EXACTLY what was needed to reveal the Super Man that was always there…waiting. Just beneath the costume of everyday clothes and geeky black-rimmed glasses?
What if my symptoms, as persistent and uncomfortable as they were, were the very tools needed to reveal the “super hero”—the TRUTH-- within me?
There was a crack in the entire foundation of the once-solid story, “These symptoms are awful.”
What if they actually weren’t?
What if they were gifts that my adorable little mind just couldn’t understand?
That fateful August day with my Gratitude App helped set the stage for what would eventually allow me to be completely triggered by my daughter at lunch AND find unconditional love and grace on the other side.
That day at the country club was never about someone doing something mean to me.
It was an opportunity for an old belief to come into the light to be seen and felt; an opportunity to see with clarity that the years I thought were defined by suffering were actually years of amazing expansion, growth, and awakening. Nothing had EVER been out of place. Nothing about those years was wasted. Nothing about that body had EVER been wrong.
It was an opportunity to spend more time with that ME within—loving her and getting to know her more intimately. After all— SHE is the love of my life.
May it be clear as ever
that nothing you’ve ever felt needed to be different
in order for truth and freedom to be present.
May the tender places, the awkward places,
the parts that still feel small or uncertain
be met with the same kindness
as the parts that feel steady and clear.
May you remember that the costume
was never the problem —
and that nothing about your humanity
has ever been in the way of what you truly are.
And as you find yourself moving from one moment into the next,
may you trust that whatever appears
is Life itself in its most efficient costume
to reveal the super hero Truth of your identity.