Hello

I grew up in a single-mother home because my father struggled with alcohol, which was unfortunately the reason for his tragic passing at the young age of 31, and I was only 10. Both of my parents faced many challenges in their upbringing, including trauma, abuse, poverty, anxiety, and depression, the latter three having inevitably been passed onto me. However, I want to take a moment here to honor both of them for having done better than what they were shown and thank them for passing this value onto me. Even as an angsty teenager struggling with the loss of a parent, I understood that had my dad been shown different tools to cope or to heal himself, such as therapy or meditation, perhaps he would still be here and he would have gotten to see me grow up. But because this was not his fate, I vowed not to let his death go in vain. I knew I would spend my future helping others figure out how to help themselves.

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Teenage years were messy. My mother and I moved from Kansas to Texas soon after his passing, which was another big shock to our lives. Despite having made straight As and graduating Salutatorian of my high school class, I was not making good choices outside of school and subsequently began experiencing daily panic attacks due to the conflicting lifestyles of good student versus troubled teen. Additionally, my aunt Marsi who was like my other mother once we moved to Texas was dying from lung cancer during my senior year of high school. The last time I saw her was on my 18th birthday March 5th, 2008, and she passed March 30th, only a month and a half before my graduation. That was the first time I went to a therapist.

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After taking my first psychology class in college, I was hooked. It made perfect sense; ill thoughts equal unhealthy person. But if a person could better their mental wellness, they could be a healthier person! I just had to get my own mental health in check before even thinking about helping others. However, tragedy didn’t stay a stranger for long. I moved to Portland, Oregon in 2009, and during the last semester of my associate’s degree, one of my high school best friends Delaney died by what I consider an accidental suicide from overdosing on her newly acquired anxiety medication. I prayed it wasn’t true, but after finally accepting what happened to her, I realized I couldn’t change it, but I could for damn sure change the way I was living my life. After realizing how hard college was going to be if I couldn’t get my anxiety under control, I decided to move back to the Midwest to help my family with some personal matters, and to pause before going on for a bachelor's degree. I thought I was coming home to help my family, but moving back probably helped me to heal the most.

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My family was healing, but meanwhile I was miserable as a waitress and a bartender, and still not quite figuring out how to take care of my anxiety. I felt the need to continue enhancing my life but wasn’t close enough to a university to continue my bachelor’s. However, I soon found massage therapy. I had gotten my first massage, which actually made me cry just a little bit after the massage therapist left the room! (God bless you Linda!) I thought if I could help people feel as good as I feel right now, I would love my job. After realizing I loved helping people in a therapeutic manner but also working with my hands, and if you put the two together, you get massage therapy! Within a year, I was celebrating the grand opening of my business as a massage therapist and yoga teacher.

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In the last 10 years of having my business, I have faced many ups and downs, some in business and some in my personal life. But being in the healing realm of both modalities, slowly but surely I am overcoming the traumas and triggers and anxieties of my life. Whether a person chooses meditation or medication, one must figure out how to heal, and neither path is a walk in the park. In the last decade, I have had to learn how to have my own back and validate myself instead of relying on any outside factor to give me a fleeting sense of happiness. Every void I thought life had scarred me with was a chance to find purpose, meaning, and beauty in my life. Every hole in my heart was an opportunity to fill it with love and gratitude for myself. Throughout the years I learned that every part of me I thought was broken was actually a way to celebrate my authenticity. Life made me different and time allowed me to figure out how to cherish that. Maybe I was born an empath, or perhaps life molded me to feel the pain of others so deeply because I have matching scars, but either way, it is my honor to help others with the tools I have learned along the way and am practicing today. 

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Now, if I can confidently say every experience is a gift, I can also confidently say that you have it in you to start healing yourself. Life might have taught you to pour until your cup is empty, but you can learn how to fill your own cup till it is always overflowing. Are you scared to be your little weird self, or are you more scared of losing your uniqueness to be like everyone else and never figuring out how to live authentically and truly happy? It is my life’s mission to help as many of you fellow sensitive souls as I can to stop struggling to find peace and happiness.

 

Love yourself, live authentically, and embrace your weird!

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Live Toadally Enlightened