Today these photos popped up in my social media “memories” feed. When I saw them, I couldn’t believe it had been a year. It may look like a bowl of rocks to some, but to me, it was the start of everything new. A year ago, I had invited a former coaching student who had become somewhat of a guru in trauma yoga, to come to my home for a weekend. I needed help. I had finally acknowledged what I was struggling to say for a while. I had miscarried 9 months prior and I was stuck. I was living “neck up,” completely disconnected from my body. But damn it, I was “fine.”
I was no longer ok with being “fine,” because first, it was a lie. I wasn’t. And second, even if I was, it was not enough. I didn’t want a fine life, I wanted an extraordinary life. And I had one. I just couldn’t appreciate it all because of this huge wall of grief between me and it. So down she came, 100 miles to spend the weekend with me, working this out. This was the day Whole House was born.
I remember lying on the yoga mat, her above me with all kinds of things smelling and smoking and music playing and while she worked her magic, my body and mind began to soften. I remember thinking, “I need my whole house, ‘neck up’ living will not sustain me.” To me, my whole house was my body but it was also those places I feared going because it hurt. My deep welled emotions were terrifying because my pain lived there. I was afraid if I went to the pain, I wouldn’t make it back. But that day, I claimed my entire house; my body and all the aspects of my life, mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. I know that where our trauma lives is exactly where we have to go to recover from it.
And Whole House was born that day. I knew what I wanted my work to look like at its core. Building both my own whole house and a lifestyle that supports it as well as Whole House Counseling & Consultation LLC, has been a process and a daily practice. Today I’m proud of what I’ve built, who I’ve helped along the way. We, you and I, were built for this.
