I am a house of ants
I look back nine years to a pivotal point in my breakdown as a capable person that foreshadows the many rock bottoms to come.
A big break up, 3 house moves, a secretive work relationship, an unplanned pregnancy and toxic workplace prove too much as my body gives up in an attempt to steer me in a new direction.
As I experience a loss of control over my body-from brain fog, severe skin reactions & body pain, to hair loss, a precancer diagnosis & sensitivities to almost every food, chemical & weather pattern-I appear to develop an allergy to life itself.
Hoping for a promising start as I move into a new home, instead the house eerily reflects the state of my inner dysfunction-a shaky foundation & crumbling facade...infested with ants. As the noise of life becomes unbearable & the ants continue to swarm through the walls, suppressing reality no longer works and I am forced into stillness.
*Heads up* I briefly mention abortion & a sexual experience
Naively moving into the ant house 🐜
Mystery symptoms start taking over my life. I have few photos from this time because I didn’t like looking at myself or accepting what was happening.
My second iteration of the “zen corner”
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This is Divine Interruption.
I'm Sarah Hildreth Rankin.
Hi, I'm here again.
I made it.
I listened back to my first recording, my brief introduction, and the first thing I said was, hi, I'm Thera.
And when I heard that, I was just like, no, this can't be happening.
Why do I have a lisp?
So I cut that part out, and hopefully, the rest of it is fine.
But that's where we're at.
So yes, I'm trying this again.
And I don't even really know where to start.
The past few days after recording my first introduction, I have had so much come through in terms of just like memories and thoughts and things I want to say when I'm even sleeping, like I wake up in the middle of the night, I go for walks.
I realize I'm talking out loud to myself all the time.
And again, because it's so familiar, I don't really know how to share it, because I don't know where to start.
And with anyone, where do we start on our journey with our story, or what is the right point in time?
So there really isn't one, but I was reflecting today on where I am now.
You know, essentially, it's just been this long, ongoing process of like breaking down.
And that doesn't have to be a negative thing.
It certainly has been challenging, and has not felt positive for a lot of that, you know?
But I know now that it's essentially a divine process, is being broken down, because we need to build a new foundation, right?
And you can't do that when you're operating from a foundation that isn't solid, that isn't true, that isn't aligned, that isn't healthy.
So I was thinking back to what part of the breakdown do I want to talk about right now?
And I love the idea of cycles.
You know, I found them to be very prominent and helpful to help me understand myself a bit better.
And, you know, we work in nine-year cycles, or that's how numerology works in nine years.
So when I think about nine years, I actually realize that was the start of a really big part of my breakdown, like a pivotal part of getting me to where I am now.
So I'm just going to start there.
And when I think back to that time, so we're looking at like, yeah, nine years ago, so much happened.
And probably the biggest thing was, that was the year that I left a relationship that had been going on for about six years.
And you know, relationships ending, that's a big deal.
It's a big change, it's a big ending, and a new beginning.
And I moved back in with my mom.
So I was 30 at the time, and you know, that is what it is, moving back in with your parents.
Hey, I'm lucky that I could move back in, you know, with a parent.
And I had that as a resource, because otherwise, I don't really know what I would have done.
But that's kind of where it began, was that ending, and then moving back in and just realizing, okay, we're starting something new here.
And what I thought at the time, you know, with this ending, there's always some excitement, along with the pain and like the struggle of that.
There's also this, oh, a new beginning, like fresh start, what is that?
Where am I going?
And little did I know, you know, that these things come wrapped in different packages, and what's on the inside?
I don't know.
I also met someone new that year, so I started a new relationship.
So I end one, move out, meet someone else, start a new relationship, and there's so much hope in that, right?
But very quickly, it's almost like meeting this person.
This is my partner today, actually.
So we're still together, and that's a beautiful, wonderful thing.
But it was almost like meeting him actually was like the beginning of a very huge breakdown.
In a sense, it was almost like meeting someone who I could be safe with, allowed that space in my body for things to actually start coming up and out, for things to, I don't know, let go.
Whereas before, I was holding so tightly because I didn't feel safe, right?
So I held everything in more and more.
And so almost meeting this person thinking, oh, we're starting this life together, it's going to be amazing, I'm going to be amazing.
And yet everything kind of started to tumble from there.
But it was in a way meeting him, opened things up for all of the stuff that had to come out to start coming out.
So we found out quite early on, like very early on, that I was pregnant.
And that was really overwhelming.
And I won't go to get into it too much.
But at the end of the day, we decided that it wasn't the right time for us.
It was pretty stressful.
We weren't living together.
We worked together, and it felt like at that time, we had to be quite secretive about the relationship, which I don't know, doesn't always feel good.
It can be kind of exciting, but feeling like you need to hold something in and then also then becoming pregnant and realizing how weird that would be.
And we knew the same people and worked at the same place, and it was just, it didn't feel good and it didn't feel right.
And we just weren't sure at that time.
So had to terminate the pregnancy or made that decision.
And it did feel like the right decision.
It came along with a lot of feelings about that.
And yeah, I'll talk about that again maybe another time, because it's its whole own experience that really deserves to be honored in its own way.
But that kind of was the start of things.
It was this very dramatic beginning.
And after that, I also got an IUD, which seemed quite benign at the time.
But from there, things just really started to take a nosedive, especially like in all areas of my life.
It was like, that just kind of opened up this energy, like something almost activated.
And that's what I really believe too.
You can have these experiences and meet these people, and it's like we become activated.
They turn something on, you know, in our energy.
And it's like, okay, now this new wound is going to open up, or now this new thing is going to happen.
We're on a new track, essentially.
And that's really what it felt like.
We ended up moving in together and into this house that from the outside seemed quite wonderful.
It was really large and spacious.
We had all these rooms.
We had a yard, a front and backyard, great location.
All of the things is cool, loft.
It was amazing.
So from the outside, great.
But from the inside, it started to prove itself to be ridden with ants, which was not so fun.
And it was kind of like this insidious beginning, where one day you'd be in the kitchen, and they'd be like, oh, there's an ant, okay.
And then you'd like open the cupboard the next morning, and there'd be like ants, like covering like a whole honey jar.
And then there'd be trails of ants going up the walls and up the ceiling, and then down into little cracks in the house.
You know, they kind of revealed themselves slowly over time.
And then once I kind of recognized that they were everywhere, it was just so gross.
And when you squish them, they smell like those marshmallow bananas.
I don't know if they've eaten those.
So at least they didn't like smell gross, but that smell now is just associated with like ants being all over me and all over my things.
And in a way, this house almost like feels like a metaphor for me, because when we came together there, everything appeared from the outside again, like this solid foundation, this beautiful new beginning, but then a recognition of like something deep underneath in the foundation that was not solid.
And it didn't matter what we did, how many traps we put out, or how we package things away, or clean the house or whatever.
These ants found a way, like they were in there.
We had people come in and fumigate.
We had all sorts of things.
But you'd wake up in the morning, and you'd feel something in your face, and you'd slap your forehead, and there just, you'd killed another ant.
Like they were everywhere.
And it felt like that was almost what was happening in my body.
From the outside, things should be a certain way.
Oh, I should be feeling really good.
This should be a great new chapter of my life.
And yet, there's some deep, dark, ugly, uncomfortable things like coming up.
And it's like at my foundation.
So, what started happening was essentially just every part of my physicality started to kind of, I don't know, like malfunction.
And I've always had health stuff.
So, it's not like I was new to having crazy reactions or having doctors be like, what's wrong with you?
You don't make sense.
Like, that's part of my journey for sure.
But it just accelerated and new things were happening.
So, I wasn't just reacting to like a few foods here and there, or weird weather, or chemicals.
It was like everything I would eat, my face would swell one day, or then I'd just be covered in a full head-to-toe rash or hives.
And any sort of like eczema I had was just so beyond.
I was wrapping my body up, and my arms and my hands was like medical tape just to kind of keep the skin together.
I remember dousing my hands in like tar, like this is kind of like tar shampoo, and like coating them in tar shampoo, and then putting on gloves and taping the gloves onto my hands, taking bleach baths.
It was just, it was a lot.
And then my hair started to fall out, and not just, you know, kind of regular, but just anyone who's lost hair, and I know a lot of you have, it's just, it's really stressful, and it's not a good feeling, because especially when it's, I don't know, one of those outward-facing things that, you know, we identify with.
So I started to lose a lot, a lot, a lot of hair, ongoing, and then I couldn't really function.
Like, my mental capacity started to change.
I would wake up in the morning, and I was like in a fog, just a deep fog.
I felt like I was hung over.
I couldn't think.
I had difficulty speaking, and I kept being like, okay, once I get to work, it'll get better.
Like, I just couldn't process things.
And that was maybe one of the worst, because you're not really functioning when you're in a complete fog, and you're just waiting.
Like, when is this going to end?
I remember being at my desk and waking up at work, and it was like seven o'clock at night, and I had no clue when I had fallen asleep.
And I was like, what am I doing here?
Just these moments of like, I have no idea what's going on.
So that was happening more and more.
Everything I was eating was giving me pain, like internal stomach pain, digestive pain, all of it.
And I was trying things, right?
I was trying all sorts of different products.
And it felt like all of these things were separate and yet together at the same time.
I couldn't really place what was happening.
It was like everything was just going wrong.
And I was eating all the insane things.
I was staying up really, really late to make very special granola that was with a certain type of berry and a certain type of date.
And just eating that like all day the next day, being like, this will fix everything.
It's like, no, there's no magic granola that solves all of your deep-rooted health and emotional issues.
Just want to say, want to put that out there.
I remember making pancakes once, and they were very special pancakes without certain things in them.
And it took me like an hour and a half to make the pancakes.
And then once I made them, they didn't work.
And it was just devastating because the amount of time and energy, and I had no energy, right?
I put it into doing this.
And I just remember crying, like, I just want to eat pancakes, but I can't.
So a lot of that.
And, you know, the ants kept coming.
The ants kept showing up along this period of time, like, oh, the cat's food dish is just covered in ants.
And I would get so angry and frustrated and just, like, try and scrub them out or put out more traps.
And it was like, as these things were coming out of me, it was like these ants were coming out of the house.
And I just kept trying to shove everything back down.
And at this time, too, at my workplace, I had three bosses at the time.
It just became the way it was.
I was in between positions, and I was working in three different people I was reporting to.
And it was beyond.
Like, I think back now, and I'm like, no, that was the way it was, and I managed it.
But it was not good.
It was not okay.
It was beyond any sort of workload that I could manage at all.
But at that time, and I'm sure with a lot of us, it's like, oh no, well, this is what I need to do.
And maybe if I just stick it out and I do a really good job, they're going to see how great I am, and then I'll get this new position, or I will then, once I sacrifice myself, then I will receive something that will be beneficial.
I just need to prove myself.
But that came at a huge cost.
And I didn't really know there was any out.
Like, I remember thinking, okay, like, I'm working for my normal boss, and then I'm working for my boss' boss, and then there's this new boss of another department that I'm also working for, and I'm having issues with all of them, and there's no one I can go to to talk to because they're all the higher ups.
Like, there's no one else that I can share this information with or get support from.
And that's how it felt at the time.
I felt very alone trying to manage this and just kept pushing harder, trying better.
And one of these bosses, like, I don't know, he was a real piece of work.
And I hadn't known him, he was very new.
He was kind of scouting me.
He's like, well, if you do this work for me on the side, for this new department, along with your other job, then there might be something in it for you.
Like, we'll see if you're a good fit and you could get this new position.
And I would stay late working on these extra projects for him, like creative marketing pieces and things, and putting a lot of my heart and soul and energy into that work.
And I remember him calling me once after I sent him these proofs to look at.
I was like, okay, here, I finished your campaign, let me know what you think.
And he called me back.
He's like, yeah, this is really bad.
This is really not any good.
I don't know what you were thinking.
And because of all the stress and how much work I'd put into it, I just remember being completely shocked.
I was like, why would anyone be so rude and unkind?
That's how it felt.
And I remember kind of crying and trying to get off the phone.
I was just so embarrassed and so shocked that someone would talk to me like that and give me no feedback.
I was like, so what's the feedback?
Is there anything I can change?
Anything constructive?
No, it's just really bad.
Like, I don't know what you're thinking.
So anyway, that kind of stuff was happening at work.
And this person also turned out to be a bit of a creep and would comment, I don't know, just comment on my body and things like that.
Just also really didn't feel good.
And I knew it wasn't right.
It didn't feel right, but I didn't know who I could talk to about it.
Just one of those situations.
So that was going to be my future boss.
So I was doing all this extra work, so that I could eventually move in to work for this guy.
And as this was happening, I'm like, I don't know if I want to work for this guy.
Like something about this feels really off and not cool.
And then, yeah, I was getting just more and more sick at the same time.
And I was trying to cope, right?
So we all have our own coping mechanisms.
And for me, one of the things I would do would be just do more.
That's the only way I've really known how to manage is to like buckle down and work harder.
And that can mean, okay, I've done this long day of work, and I feel really stressed out, and all these horrible things are happening to my body.
I know.
Okay, I just need to train for another like half marathon.
That's what we're gonna do.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
We're just gonna run, because then I can have a structured schedule, and I can control that one thing.
And I can control my body when it's doing that.
So I would decide to kind of use things like exercise as a way to manage, thinking that it would de-stress me.
But really, it was just another way of controlling another part of my life to try and feel more in control.
So the running didn't work.
Running did not work.
The biking didn't work.
It wasn't enjoyable, right?
I wasn't doing these things to feel, I was doing it to feel better, but the basis of it was just to control more.
And obviously, it ended up breaking down, like, oh, my knee's hurt, or my hips are out of alignment, and then I'd have an injury.
I couldn't keep going down that path.
Or yes, I would work more, I'd stay really, really late at the office, trying to prove myself more, come up with better ideas, because, oh, maybe if I could come up with this amazing idea, then these other people who are in charge will afford me more time off, or more grace in the workplace, they'll be kinder to me, or they'll just see how awesome I am, and they'll, like, leave me alone.
So all of these things were me, like, trying to manipulate outside of myself, and, like, override what was happening, which was a breakdown, right?
Essentially, like, breaking down, but I just kind of held on tighter.
Or even, like, drinking alcohol, which was just something that came in and out of my life.
I've never had a problem with it, and I feel grateful that hasn't been just a part of my path, but I have definitely abused it and used it, but trying to feel better, I don't know.
It never, again, it never really worked very well.
And then I started to react really, really strongly to alcohol as well.
So that didn't make me feel better having, like, a couple drinks after work.
I thought, oh, yeah, yeah, just relax.
And in the end, it would be like, I'd wake up and my face would be, like, you know, six times the size.
And I couldn't think straight.
I was like, okay, this isn't helping.
Nothing was helping.
And so as my, like, body was breaking down, I was breaking down at work.
Kind of not cognizant and had no, yeah, my mental capacity was lowering.
And then, you know, I had this partner who's like, awesome.
And like, we've been together for a very short amount of time.
We've already gone through a pregnancy and a termination.
And thank God he was there.
But also, he was probably like, what is happening?
Like, we just got together.
Like, what is with this person?
Like, what's happening?
And I couldn't explain any of it.
And, you know, he never questioned it.
He's very supportive.
But even when it came to, like, sex, right?
You're with someone new, you want to be together with them, you're physically attracted to them.
But I found there was just this moment, and I remember it.
Yeah, so we're having sex, and all of a sudden, it was like the sound of, like, fluorescent lights, you know, the sound where they kind of buzz.
I completely left my body and then was jolted back into it and just heard this sound, and it was like, stop, I can't do this.
It was like, this violent snap and this loud sound, and everything shut down, and I just started bawling, and it was really intense.
It was very embarrassing, it was very confusing, and for him, he was, like, really shocked.
He's like, oh my god, what's wrong?
Like, did I hurt you?
What's happening?
And I was just like, no, I can't control my body right now.
You know, everything was coming up, and I just couldn't stop it.
So even being, like, intimate with him, I was just, all of a sudden, there's this whole new part of my life.
I was like, I just, I can't, like, I don't even know what to do.
I can't do this.
Every time, you know, we'd get close in that way, I would feel so emotional.
And it was too much.
And I was also experiencing so much, like, physical pain and related.
You know, the IUD was not my friend.
For me, it just wasn't something that worked out very well for me.
But, you know, after that termination, after having the IUD, after the body started shutting down, I would get these, like, jolts of electricity.
That's the only way I can describe it.
It would start, I don't know, at the base of my spine or, like, in my crotch, kind of, and out of nowhere, like, I could be at work or, like, eating a bowl of Cheerios, and all of a sudden I'd be like, ugh!
And this jolt of electricity would go straight from the bottom of my spine all the way up to my neck, to my head, and it would make me have to, like, brace myself.
I would have to put my hands out on something.
Otherwise, I felt like I was just gonna topple over.
It was like all my nerves were on fire.
And that would happen randomly quite frequently.
And it felt related to that area of my body.
And also, it kind of just compounded, and then it started to turn into just deep pain, not just these jolts, but just this deep, ongoing pain.
And there were a few moments where I actually almost, like, willed myself.
I don't know, when you've experienced, like, certain types of pain, and your body goes into, like, a stress or, like, emergency response, right?
It's, like, trying to protect you.
And for me, I would, like, almost, like, I'd go to the ground, because I feel the pain, and it would get so overwhelming.
I would go to the ground, then I would lie down, and I could will myself to, like, pass out and, like, fall asleep.
And I could do it quite quickly.
I'd just be like, mm, like, I'd just bear down and hold my hands really tight, and be like, oh, my God, okay, this is so painful, deep breathing.
And then everything would just go dark, and I would just kind of fall asleep.
So that was, you know, this was also happening, right?
So, like, my body was not well.
I didn't want anyone touching me in any way.
It was a lot.
And then I got screened at a regular Pap test and found out that I had cervical dysplasia, so pre-cancerous cells.
And at the time, with everything else that was happening, that was pretty scary.
It felt just very real.
And I was like, uh-oh, uh-oh.
This is, like, not going well.
And I don't really have any clue who to turn to or where I can go.
And I keep having to go to this job, and I keep having to, like, show up, you know?
And for me, showing up was like, how can I be presentable?
How can I dress myself, make my skin look a certain way, make my hair do something so that I can at least show up and just, like, keep going?
Because the only option felt like it was to keep going.
And there was nowhere to kind of, like, let this out, because I thought I was going to die.
And that's, I think, emotionally and mentally, everything's holistic, right?
It's all connected.
And I truly, I believe that even beyond more now on my journey.
But as you're going through these things, like, they're not just one-offs, right?
These, these symptoms are all related to emotions or experiences or energy that we're carrying.
Traumas we've had, like, it's just all so connected.
And I didn't really have that understanding at the time.
And I had nowhere to put any of this.
I didn't know how to unpack it or understand it.
And I started to kind of isolate myself more, because even to just manage, it's like I'd have to shut off after the day, because I was just pretending the whole time.
I was pretending to be okay.
I was putting on this face of this, like, you know what we do when we're trying to survive, right?
We're trying to keep going.
And I don't know why it didn't feel possible to not be that way.
There was just never, there's never really felt like there's an option just to be me fully, or to share any of this in a way that was true.
So most of my day and most of my life at that time was like putting on this face and trying to move through it, that does not help our body, that does not help us heal, that does not help open us up to any sort of extra perception to more.
So as I reacted that way to what I was going through, the body got louder, even louder.
And I developed, I'd always had many different types of allergies, sensitivities, but then it started to again get extra aggressive.
So I used to be a little allergic to pollen in the springtime.
So I was familiar with that.
It's like less pleasant, right?
Sneezy, itchy, watery eyes.
But then it just escalated and it became like, I can't go outside in between, let's say February and June, because this season seems to last even longer.
Like I can't be outside because when I breathe in, I have like asthma symptoms, which I had never experienced before.
And as someone who was running, I noticed that right away.
When I was running outside, I would have these attacks from like, okay, like I am struggling to breathe.
And not only that, but if any sort of pollen, and of course, imagine to my brain, right?
You start to associate danger with all of these situations, with being outside, with being in nature, being around trees, with springtime, with summertime, everything is an association of danger, danger.
Like, you're not safe.
And if any sort of pollen would land on my skin, I would feel like I have to rush home and like take a shower.
If it gets in my hair, if it gets on my clothes, I would put everything into the dryer, super hot heat.
I don't even know if that does anything.
It's probably psychosomatic.
But I would like must kill everything because everything is dangerous.
You know, I'd have these crazy reactions, and I was already reacting, but now I couldn't even be outside.
I couldn't go in the sun because sunlight would almost like activate, again, something inside of me, where my skin would swell.
And I'd have these reactions for about two weeks, that sometimes it was almost like a balloon, and you're blowing up a balloon, and you keep blowing and blowing, and you can feel that pressure, and you're waiting, you're like, when's it gonna pop?
Oh my gosh.
And that's what it was.
Like each day, it was like my face, my neck, my eyes would keep swelling, keep swelling, and I'd be waiting, and I'd be like, oh my God, is it gonna close off my throat?
Am I gonna be able to breathe?
Am I gonna be able to see?
How far is this going to go?
So that was a scary place to be.
So I did not want to be outside.
I didn't want to be anywhere close to nature, the sun, really anywhere for at least, you know, a big chunk of the year.
And then, so I've seen many allergists, dermatologists, doctors, certain specialists.
And at one appointment, I actually went in, and the doctor said, Yeah, yeah, no, no, is that a leather bag?
Yeah, you can't carry that anymore.
Like, that's definitely, you're reacting to that.
He's like, Oh, you got leather boots?
Like, you can't wear those?
Definitely not.
And I was screened for all sorts of things.
I was given all of these sheets.
And this is essentially this little book.
They're like, Hey, yeah, you need to stay away from these things.
These are dangerous for you.
You have very severe allergies.
I recently burned a whole bunch of stuff from my past.
But one of those was this book filled with all of these sheets.
There were different metals, different dyes, different fabrics, different compounds that I was not supposed to come in contact with.
Things like nickel and cobalt.
And this sounds insane, but even like the color, I don't know how to describe this, the color green and blue.
There's certain dyes used to create those colors in fabrics and textiles and products.
And he's like, yeah, so essentially, you can't touch any sort of like metal, leather, and the color blue or green.
And when I left that appointment, I was just like, what?
Like, what is my life?
Like, who can live like this?
And I would joke all the time, like, oh, I'm the bubble kid, you know?
I've always lived in a bubble, and I can't eat things and do things and touch things.
But this is another level, because now I was just starting to go kind of crazy.
Like, how do you control even more?
And that was all I was trying to do is control, because there were no answers.
There was no space to not be okay.
And I definitely wasn't okay, but I didn't, no one could really help me.
Or that's where I was at at that time in my life.
It felt like there was no support and no help and no answers.
And I didn't have anything within me beyond my own way of managing stress, managing in a way that I grew up with, essentially just a coping mechanism, right?
We all have our ways of getting through difficult things.
And mine was, again, just yet to be alone.
Like I had to manage it on my own because, oh, no one's going to be there for you.
That's what I believed and what I felt and then what also showed up in my life.
And then I had to be really on top of it because it was kind of, it always felt like it was my fault somehow because when I would see certain doctors and stuff, they would always kind of look at me like, oh, this is really bad.
We're like, well, what are you doing?
And I'm like, what am I doing?
I don't know.
What's going on with me?
I'm kind of melting.
Can you help me?
And it just always felt like it fell on me, like I should know better.
I should have figured this out.
I should have the answers.
And obviously, I'm the one effing this up.
This is my own body.
And yet I was doing everything I knew at the time that I could to get better, to be okay, but it just wasn't enough.
It wasn't, and what I know now is, it was just a very different time of life, a very different part of where I was at at that time in my perspective.
But essentially, everything just became very painful, very scary.
The world became a scary place.
I felt like I couldn't do anything or touch anything or eat anything.
And part of it was also ridiculous.
There was a lot of humor in the understanding that I'm like, who lives like this?
This is insane.
What is wrong with me?
But it was just also very painful.
And to be hypervigilant at that level, where you are living in a state of ongoing chronic stress, you don't get out of that because, oh my god, okay, when I wake up, what if I can't breathe?
What if my face is so swollen, I can't see, what is tomorrow going to be like?
And then if that's like that, what am I going to do?
Okay, when I take a shower, what's going to happen to me?
And then when I get out of the shower, what's going to happen to me?
Because everything I would do or touch, something would happen, and it would always be this feeling of, and then I need to actually, oh my god, I have to get dressed, but I can't wear any of these clothes, and like I have to look good because I have to go be professional.
And when I'm at work, I have to be better than I am.
I have to be so much.
I have to be more than I am now.
And no one can know, because nobody understands.
And they're counting on me to be a certain way.
I don't know, this very disempowered way of seeing things.
It's like I was very much a victim at that time, and that's how it felt.
But, you know, it was all a breaking down.
My body were showing me in all of the ways that the way I was living, how I was being, what I was doing, the way I was operating, like in a whole sense of like every area of my life, it was not working.
It was not fitting anymore.
And it was just all coming up.
When you're living in a space that symptoms are danger and that they mean something's wrong, you're trying to cure that symptom.
You're like, okay, what kind of cream can I put on it?
What kind of drink can I take?
What kind of food can I eat?
What kind of treatment can I go through?
How can I scrub this away?
I use the word violent because that's how it feels.
It's a very violent way of being.
It's very harsh.
There's no softness or care or space in there to just kind of be with it and feel it and allow it.
And I'd never learned that, how to be that, or what that would feel like to experience that.
So that's what it felt like.
It was like very scary to be in my body and then to also be in the world at the same time.
But I could not control it anymore.
And there was kind of this call underneath.
And I could feel it.
It's like I would hear it, and it was telling me to be quiet.
It was almost like everything was so noisy and so loud, that the only thing I knew I hadn't done, and that I was kind of being called towards, was to be quiet.
But I didn't really know what that was.
And I'm like, what is it to be quiet?
And like, I don't want to, because when you're also in that state of stress, and you're kind of in this survival mode, and like, let's put this in context.
I live in a first world country.
I'm a very privileged person to have this job in this home, have a car, like all of it, to be in a relationship, to have family, like all of that.
And I'm saying, even within that context, I was operating at a level of like, I'm actually dying.
That's what it felt like.
And the body cannot sustain that.
The only thing that I hadn't tapped into, that I felt was, yeah, this call to be quiet.
So, it ended up looking at me creating this like little space, and I called it my Zen Corner, and I put all these little pillows around, and I put candles and plants and a little mat, and, you know, thinking that all of those things are very, very key, you know, to connecting with yourself, of course.
But I made this space where I was going to just go be quiet, and I had no idea what I was going to do, because I had never done that before.
I was never introduced to anything like meditation or mindfulness or even, like, listening to myself.
I didn't know how to do that, because, again, I'd been operating the entirety of my life kind of in this, like, what's next, moving on, moving through, overriding the body, overriding my emotions, overriding what was actually going on, like, the reality.
And I always felt like that's why I had to just do more and be better, because no one ever showed me that I could stop or that I could listen to myself.
And it's that disconnection that is so...
Anyway, so I was, like, navigating that now, today.
Connection is everything, right?
Connection with ourselves, connection with something great, or connection with, I don't know, the truth and, like, reality of what we're actually experiencing.
And even, yeah, touching the table and sitting in the chair, like, can we actually experience and feel that in our body?
And do we know what's happening?
At that time, I had no clue.
I was just, like, flying off into space, trying to hang on to anything, and just felt like I wasn't tethered in any way.
So I remember the first time I sat on this little mat in this corner, and it was so, ugh, it was so uncomfortable.
I hated it.
I didn't know what I was doing.
And I was like, well, if I cross my legs, and I put my hands out, like, yeah, people do this.
But then it was just like this barrage of sound, and thoughts, and memories, and feelings.
And I just, I was like, I don't want to do this.
Like, this isn't going to help.
I thought I could sit and just get quiet.
It didn't matter that I wasn't talking, or that I wasn't listening to anything, or that the house was quiet.
The inside was so noisy, that it was just painful to be there.
And then I could sense, like, I started to sense that that was why I was always seeking more, because I couldn't just be with what was already inside.
And what was already inside was so beyond, it was so neglected for so long, that it was screaming through all these symptoms and all these breakdowns in my life and with my work and my relationships and my body and how I was feeling.
And I didn't want to be there with any of it.
But I started, I started, you know, trying to, and showing up and sitting there.
And that's kind of how things started in terms of listening, I guess, listening and just allowing the breakdown.
And this is very, very early days.
So, you know, so much more happened from there.
But I was seeing a counselor shortly after, and I remember her telling me one day or asking me, she kind of just looked at me and said, well, where is all your joy gone?
Where's the joy in your life?
And I couldn't answer that.
And I knew what I wanted to say, and I had kind of like, I could have canned answers for, oh, well, when I go for this walk with my partner, and, you know, we, I don't know, go to the ocean.
But that's almost like, that would be a lie.
Like, there wasn't a true space where I felt safe.
There wasn't really a moment in my day, regardless of any of the things I had or any of the things I could be grateful for that felt okay.
And that was like very alarming because I had never seen things that way.
It had felt like just moving from one stressful thing in my life to another, to another, to another, just kept going.
And when she asked me about joy, I was like, sure.
But then I realized, I'm like, no, there isn't joy, and I'm having trouble accessing that.
And I always felt like I was a very joyful person, and I knew how to have fun.
But that wasn't the same thing as actually feeling it.
I don't even know how to describe that, but really feeling joy and feeling relaxed and feeling safe.
And so from there, I think that just kind of cracked open a little bit of my awareness, and I started to recognize, okay, there is something else here.
This is another path.
And the only way I'm going to move through it is by taking a different way, moving in a different way.
And I was never able to do this before because I hadn't even felt that basic safety of being with someone who would almost allow that.
Like finally now I'm with someone who can see more of me, accepts more of me, can hold that space for me.
And that's why there's a little bit more space to actually start breaking down.
Because before that, you got so many walls up, right?
That there's no safety, there's no, I can't come undone.
Like, and trust me, it was trying.
I was breaking down much earlier than this, but I was still really so tightly holding on to it.
And now that just that one extra little part in my life where I had some space, a little bit of safety, like having someone to tether to who was going to accept me, regardless of how I looked or what was going on, how inconvenient all of this was and messy and confusing.
And that was the starting place.
And that was, yeah, nine years ago.
So there has been so much that has happened since then, but that was the beginning in terms of opening up and allowing for that breakdown to start.
Because in the breakdown is really, it's everything.
Like I said, it's like the ants, the ants in the house, right?
They were never going to go away.
And it didn't matter how much we scrubbed or cleaned or fumigated.
Or even like if you take out parts of the house, because it was built upon this foundation, it was essentially like an anthill.
Like, and how gross and terrifying is that?
Seriously, it was disgusting.
When people come to stay, one of my friends, I remember she found ants in her suitcase and it was horrifying.
She like opened them up and then they were just swarming.
And she's like, I felt so awful.
We had to, yeah, anyway, completely like spray out her suitcase.
It was so gross.
But in that way that you don't see it from the outside, but once you know it's there, those cracks and that stuff that wants to start coming up, there's so much more there.
There's a freaking ant hill.
So even if you knock down that house and maybe even like build another house, guess what?
The roots there, the earth there just infested with ants.
And I almost, yeah, I just see that as myself or like having a foundation that you can even be born into a situation and a life where if you've never had that root system or that grounding or that the proper environment for you, we're all unique, we all need different things, but that then we're building our house, right?
Or a house, essentially, it just kind of gets built for you really in the beginning, doesn't it?
And we're not aware or conscious to build it for ourselves.
But then we get older and we realize, it's like, oh, this house is actually not, I can't hold it together anymore.
It's breaking down.
And you know what?
I might need to actually move to another side of the town or to even another country and find new soil and new earth and build my house with new materials over there.
And to do that, we have to knock the house down, right?
And I didn't want to knock my house down.
And I still at a point where I'm like, okay, we're rebuilding the house now.
But it's just such a big journey.
So that's what I was thinking about today.
I was like, wow, nine years ago, that's kind of when this part of this journey started.
And that's what I wanted to share.
And there's so much more.
So thank you for listening to me talk about this.
And I'll talk to you soon.
Bye.
