Deep Waters Blog

A good friend of mine asked me the other day: “T, what is it that you are looking for? It seems like you’re searching for something with this journey of yours.”

It was a profound question and one that I have asked myself many times before. It can be easy to lose yourself in the healing that you do getting caught up in the details that sometimes you may even forget the why yourself. What am I looking for? The answer is simple, yet it has such a big meaning behind it.

I am looking for ME. 

Do you remember who you used to be before the opinions of others overwhelmed and washed away your spark? We start off as these beautiful individuals full of energy and then get met with a list of shoulds and shouldn’ts. It starts with our parents – they encourage us to do things based on their likes and wants. Simple things like what to wear and how to do your hair or how to conduct yourself around others. Think about this, how many times were you told to keep your voice down, sit still or forced to wear something you didn’t like because you didn’t have a choice? We then get thrown into society and you meet all sorts of other unsure kids who are all looking for some sort of power to use their own voice. You meet your first clique or bully and life sort of rolls on from there. If you don’t have a stable foundation at home where you’re encouraged to be yourself, you find yourself confused and unsure of yourself from such a young age that it almost seems impossible to get that original version back.

If you’ve read earlier blog posts, I’ve broken down certain instances in my life where I know I lost a piece of me, burying it away for no one else to see. It’s really been a lifetime of not letting the world see me because of my many insecurities. I’ve tried to insert myself into the many different cliques and tribes along the way to prove that I am good enough to exist and be here. Whether it was a soccer team, friendship circles, or a career and work, I would throw myself into these things and do everything I could to show I was the best so that I had some sort of recognition and proof that I too had reason for being here and belonging. I was in a retreat this passed weekend and we did an exercise on the first night that floored me. It showed me that when I came into this body, I was unsure from the very start. As I dropped into that space, I found myself mourning the maiden I once was that I never let truly fly. Staring at that younger version of me, I saw that she was beautiful, and I just couldn’t understand why I didn’t tell everyone to fuck of, letting her shine bright. Everyone has imperfections, so why did I feel like mine were center stage under a spotlight for all to see? Pretty egotistical when you get older and realize everyone has their own shit their dealing with and most people aren’t making fun of you like you think they are. It wasn’t until I hit motherhood that I started to wake up and remember that I have my own perspective that is meant to be shared as well.  Now I find myself in this in-between stage of motherhood and wise woman and I’ve been facing fear just letting it all go. What am I holding onto all of this baggage for? It’s heavy and I just want to soar free.

So, what is this journey all about? I’m shedding all the armor that I have built over the last 35 years to shine bright like I was always meant to. I’m healing the pieces of me that required those layers in the first place. My whole existence has been about living for other people and putting their needs first to show that I am worthy of being here, of love. Now I’m finally living for myself and doing the things that I have always wanted to do. I’ve had this fear of dying young for years now and I always attributed it to losing my mother when she and I were both young. I’ve realized while that may be a part of it, the deeper layer of that fear is: I feel like I have not really lived yet. I’m just getting to the good part and I have so much left that I want to do and see. I don’t want it to be cut short and regret never really showing myself that I can do and be whatever the hell I want. To feel in the depth of my soul that other opinions don’t matter and even if I am by myself, it’s okay because I still have the most important person of all right here: ME.

I have finally come home… to me. In the words of Stevie Nicks, back to the gypsy that I was. That I was always meant to be.

This is my why.

This has been the year of the Pheonix for me. I can feel my wings stretching out and being used for the first time. It’s exhilarating to feel that wind. As I begin to fly, I’m allowing myself the space and time to just appreciate where I am in this journey right now. I love all the previous versions of me so much. They have gotten me to this space that I’m currently in, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them. We have looked fear in the face and given it two middle fingers and a huge scream to FUCK OFF.

Letting go is not easy. You must face fear head on and break through it. Depending on your journey, that takes time, multiple tries, and breaking decades of programming. Don’t give up. I’m here to tell you if I can do it, so can you.

Let yourself fly.

Always love, T

Have you ever gotten that sense of déjà vu? You know you have done something before and now you seem to be repeating it again. Sometimes you may not be able to place it in this lifetime, and sometimes you can place it to something that recently happened. Maybe it’s a situation that happened a decade or more ago and now you’re seeing it come up again when you’re older. Either way, you’re repeating a cycle. I was writing in my journal this morning and one of the revelations I had: “Different cycles are repeating again. I want to ask – what am I not seeing?”

For the last two years, I have been on a kick of not repeating the same cycle. I wanted to make sure I got myself off the current hamster wheel that I was on and move onto something completely new. I thought I had conquered a lesson and it was time for another one. I suppose that on some level, I was successful with that because there are certain things in my life that have changed. My ego must have taken that to believe that I would be starting everything brand new, but of course the universe laughed as I moved from one hamster wheel over to another.

I’ve seen it for months now, the cycle that I’m repeating this time around. I didn’t want to face it because I was so sure I was done with these repetitions. This morning on my walk, I was open and honest with myself and allowed the truth to just sink in. I felt it go through my entire energy body and could no longer deny it. There were a range of emotions that I felt, but the strongest was disappointment. Why? Well, I had been looking at these cycle repetitions as if I was failing a class. Why do I need to go through things 2, 3 sometimes 4 times without learning the lesson? Am I a bad student? I realized, because I had been holding onto these judgments of myself it had been holding me back from seeing the next part of the lesson. While I know that certain things need to be learned in levels, I had assumed I had mastered a level and would be moving on. I’m literally shaking my head at myself as I type this.

Taryn, there is still so much to be learned.

Another message I have been getting from the universe and my higher self is to slow down. Just take things slow, one at a time. Put those two things together and I’ve found the reason I’m repeating certain cycles. I’m trying to go through some of these lessons too fast with my eyes on the next level before I have even conquered the one I’m on. My eagerness to move on is motivated by my lack of courage to sit in the current feelings I’m having. While I pride myself in shadow work, it’s still hard to acknowledge hard parts of yourself. To mourn who you used to be, while you blossom into who you are becoming. In having a conversation with my daughter yesterday, she said something profound that has stuck with me, turning in my mind on a movie reel over and over. She said, “Mom, maybe you were going to do something too soon. Like if you went through with *something that was delayed* it would have spoiled the surprise. You aren’t meant to know it yet.” She’s 15 and so incredibly smart and intuitive. It also helped flipped my perspective on how I look at these levels I’m working through. As if the universe wanted to double down on this message from my daughter, one of the books I’ve been reading lately is “The Three Waves of Volunteers and the New Earth” by Dolores Cannon. It covers past life regressions she had done that centered around the New Earth and people finding out why they have come to Earth. One of the main messages that I have taken away from the book (and I’m about halfway through it) is that we are given knowledge when we need it and it’s time. We often press for more, wanting to know the whole picture but sometimes it’s too vast for where we are in our progression at that moment so we can’t know more, or it will spoil everything. This is where surrender comes in. Letting go and free falling knowing that at some point, it’s all going to make sense. When the time is right.

You know being awake is not an east task. We straddle one foot in the matrix, because 3D life is something that we came here to experience, and the other foot is in the 5D knowing that our existence is so much bigger than this blip of time on earth. If Earth is a school like I believe it to be, and we’re meant to learn certain lessons, getting the answers too early would be like cheating on a test. How can the curriculum really be absorbed if we already have all the answers?  It would defeat the purpose of what we’re here to learn. Hence the repetitions.

I think part of the reason I’m in a rush is because I’m looking at time all wrong. I feel like it goes so fast – hello, it’s August already – and I won’t have enough time to accomplish everything I need to do. In reality, it’s not the timeframe, it’s the way I’m rushing through that causes me to learn at a slower pace. How crazy is that to say? Going fast is slowing me down. It’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one, but it makes total sense to me now. Slowing down is something incredibly hard for me to do. That’s how I know I’ve found one of my life lessons for Earth School. But if I’m serious about getting through class and graduating, I must surrender to the process.

If you’re someone who finds themselves repeating things over and over, or if a certain level is taking an extremely long time to get through, I invite you to slow down. Take a step back and strip your “wants” from the equation. Look with ALL your eyes and scan for what you’re missing in that particular lesson. Surrender the need to have control and really be open to SEEING. Then ask yourself, did you really absorb the lesson or are you rushing through to avoid feeling the experience?

It’ll be interesting what you find.

Always love,

T

Welcome back, fam. How many of us have people in our lives we want the best for? Normally, I would say show of hands, but this is a blog so being that I can’t see you all, I’ll assume there’s a few of you. Now, how many of you have spent countless hours, days, weeks, maybe even years putting your effort into pushing these people into what you think is the right direction? How has it worked out for you?

That’s a genuine question because based on my own experiences, it ended up blowing up in my face. I’m not talking about my kids; that’s a completely different relationship where as their mother I need to show and teach them about life. I’m talking about family members, siblings, friends, mentees, the list goes on. As a human who is always striving to learn and grow, I find that I can’t help myself when it comes to the people in my life that I truly care about. I see a way that things could be done easier, or a toxic pattern that if broken would help and heal and I want to jump in with both feet and help whomever it is get to this other way of doing things. After one too many experiences of nudging and pushing someone in a direction they don’t want to go in, I started to look at myself. Why am I this way? Why can’t I leave it alone?

For those of you who don’t know what Human Design is, I invite you to look into it. It’s a beautiful description of who you are, how you are wired and guides you on what you are here to do. Through research and a few sessions with experts in the matter, I learned that I am a 6/2 Projector with Mental Authority. Now, I know this may sound like another language to you, because I know it did to me when I first started reading about it so let me put this in plain terms… Projectors are people who are able to see things that most can’t see. It’s literally my design to look at the way something is being done and show a different way to do it. Notice I’m not using the word “better” here. That’s because I feel like that indicates that my way is superior to another way, and I don’t subscribe to that. It’s different in that it may become easier or more efficient, or when it comes to healing, it may shed light on some toxic patterns that need to be examined and healed to break them and move differently. The 6/2 means I’m meant to be a hermit and spend time alone to look at things so that once I get my thoughts together, I can go out in the world and lead by example. Mental authority means that when I take everything in, while most people check in with their gut and their sacral space, I check in with logic. So now it makes sense to me on why I always want to go deep and help others – especially those I love most in my life. I can see things from such a different angle and give a totally different perspective. I’ve spent a lot of my life wondering why my suggestions or thoughts were not obvious to others and it turns out projectors only make up about 30% of the population so we’re not as common as some others.

Now back to a big lesson that I’ve learned in the last few years. You can’t force people to make changes. While you may want the best for them, if someone doesn’t want to change, they simply won’t. There have even been some people in my life that have said they want to make changes, asked for advice or perspective, but really just wanted a space to vent and complain. You can tell who these people are when you find yourself having the same conversations over and over again; they make it sound like they’re tired of the same old, but they take zero accountability for themselves or no action on changing behavior so things can be different. I found that when it came to the people I love most, I was naïve to this and I would make these excuses for them. “They don’t know any better” “It’s hard to make major changes” “They can’t help how they act because they’ve been through… insert reason here”

But that’s all a load of shit. I understand that we all have different traumas, grew up differently and have different advantages or disadvantages. However, if someone really wants different in their life, they will make the changes needed to see different results. I’m living breathing proof of that. If you’ve been following along for a while now, you know certain things about my past, how I grew up and challenges I have been through. I could have decided at any given point to give up, put my head in the sand and make a million excuses for myself. Instead, I’ve gone on a journey of self-discovery, accountability and faced quite a few of my fears head on. Was it easy? Hell no. Did I make mistakes along the way? You bet I did. I repeated some patterns two, three, four times before I looked at myself and determined I was the issue and needed to make some hard but necessary changes in my life. Still, I keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Last time I checked, this wasn’t a race, and I wasn’t being graded anyway.

So now, I conserve my energy when it comes to the chronic complainers and leave them to it. If they’re genuinely ready to see things from a different perspective, they’ll know where to find me. Besides, I don’t want to force anything on anyone. To be clear: I accept people for who they are – I just no longer entertain bullshit conversations. So, if you’re looking for space to complain about the same things over and over, my response has been: “If you’re looking for advice or a different perspective, I’m happy to help with this, otherwise, the time you’ve spent venting about this is now up. I can no longer listen to this particular subject anymore.” I found that because I won’t just be a sympathetic ear and listen to the nonsense, I don’t hear from some as often, if at all. Others have respected the boundary and we talk about other things and keep it moving. I will no longer waste my time, breath, or energy on anyone who won’t take personal accountability and who wants to complain to have something to talk about. It’s been much more peaceful on my side ever since. We can only make changes ourselves, guys. We can seek help and guidance from others, but it means nothing if we’re not going to do anything about it.

That goes for whatever side of this you find yourself on.

Always love,

T

I’m currently in the midst of an NLP course that I’ll graduate from and get my certification in September. For those of you who are like what the hell is NLP? it stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming. Which is a fancy way of talking about your subconscious mind and how to reprogram it. What made me dive into this course, aside from the fact that I find the subconscious mind interesting all by itself, was the ability to learn how to reprogram outdated beliefs that no longer serve me. Then once I’m able to successfully do that myself, I can then start to do that for clients who are looking for the same thing, use it with shadow work, the list is endless.

One of the categories I’m excited to get into is Limiting Beliefs. I’ve started learning about it in pre-study work and I’m antsy to dive into it further. How many of us have limiting beliefs that hold us back from living the life we want to live? I know I have quite a few. It usually comes from an experience we had that makes us shut down and think we’re no longer worthy of what we want to accomplish. Whether we try and fail so we give up instead of trying another avenue, or someone tells us we can’t do something and we believe them, at some point there was a moment or action that triggered us into thinking we were no longer worthy or able.

For instance, when I was younger, I would read all the time. My favorite genre used to be horror and I would read a lot of RL Stine’s Fear Street series. Then as I got older, I graduated to Stephen King and Anne Rice. I’ve probably read most of all the aforementioned authors catalogs and I decided I wanted to be an author too. I would write novels, whether they be series or stand-alone stories and they would be epic and I would be on a best seller list! I took a creative writing class, I wrote short stories and poems and thought about how I would eventually have a publisher and would do book tours.

Then life happened. I grew up way faster than I had anticipated, and went into the “real world” where focus is work, bills and getting through life. The journals and books got put away on shelves, collecting dust while I would work on building a career in corporate land. Sometimes I would get into a series (hello, JR Ward! You are amazing and one day I will make it to one of your book signings!) and I would stay up all night binge reading the latest novel. Of course, then I would be sad when I finished in 1 or 2 days and would have nothing new to read for another year when the next release would come out. But I barely had time to read the novels, let alone write one of my own, so the dream of writing went further and further down the rabbit hole until I couldn’t see it anymore.

There were so many reasons why I couldn’t do it: I don’t have time to write. What am I going to write about? Who’s going to want to read it? How would I find the time to get a publisher? Who has time for classes? Not me!

Lately, I’ve been asking myself: When did I decide that?

Such a powerful question that you ask when pinpointing and breaking out of a limiting belief. It’s been sitting with me for a while now and I’ve been applying it to so many things. For this blog’s purpose though, when did I decide that I didn’t have the time to write? That I wouldn’t have ideas? There would be no audience?

Was it when I pushed the teenage dreams aside to be an adult to live a life I thought I had to live? Was it when I was having babies of my own and thought that meant I needed to give up my dreams so I could focus on them and helping them develop their own? Or was it when I stopped writing all together and thought it was going to be too hard to get back into it because the well would be dry and there would be no stories for me to weave onto paper?

When did I decide I couldn’t be an author? Who says I still can’t be one today? I’m writing this blog, aren’t I? I also just co-authored in a book with 34 other powerhouse women called The Goddess Portal – Divine Feminine Wisdom Codes for Modern Maidens, Mothers, Queens and Crones. It went best seller on Amazon for an entire week. It’s published. I’ve had women reach out and tell me they loved my stories in the book. I’m actually living my dream, right at this very moment as I write these words. It’s exciting, humbling, and mind-boggling all at the same time.

I’ve decided that I’m going to continue to write and I’m chucking the limiting beliefs out the door. I can do literally any damn thing that I want to do. Sure, the road to get to the destination may be hard, there may be some detours and some resting along the way, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to get where I want to go. My motto has always been “living the dream” and its funny how words really manifest because right now, that’s quite literally what I’m doing. Aside from the writing piece, I’ve successfully been healing myself through old traumas that no longer serve me. I’ve also been taking those experiences and using them to grow my business to help others heal as well. Like everyone else, I could point out how some things are not exactly what I want them to be at this moment, but why bother when there are so many things going right? Besides, I have faith that as long as I keep pushing and putting in the effort, it’s going to work out so much better than I ever anticipated eventually.

So fam, I ask you: what’s a limiting belief that no longer serves you? When you come up with what it is, ask yourself: when did I decide that? Journal on it. Talk it out with a trusted friend. Go deep – don’t just stop at the surface level. You’ll probably be surprised where you land. Then take that knowledge and use it to re-write your story and path so that it heads in the direction you want it to.

We get one shot at this life in this incarnation. One. Do you want to spend it limiting yourself in the matrix? Or do you want to live a life beyond your wildest dreams doing the things you’ve always wanted to do?

The choice is yours.

Always love,

T

P.S If you’re interested in The Goddess Portal you can purchase your copy on amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5PCY2ZM

Anyone else been frustrated or angry lately? I know we’re in the midst of eclipse season and that our good friend Hermes (Mercury) is in Retrograde, so maybe I was in denial about how this was going to hit me. My ego thought I was going to get through this unscathed and that I would be sitting around a campfire with smores singing kumbaya. Instead, I feel like torching the smores and setting the world on fire with Linkin Park’s “Faint” as my soundtrack. How’s that for a visual?

Yup, it was like that.

I was angry for a few days. Not sitting in it really, more like festering without taking the time to really look at myself or ask any questions. You know how that is, right? You hate everyone and everything, picking at every situation and person in your path. You look for flaws in the things around you and then inflate them into these giant issues, complaining to anyone who will listen about how awful something is. Special note to my circle who has graciously held space for me while I did this over the last few days, thank you. I appreciate you more than you know. The storm is passing, so you’ll get your levelheaded friend back now.

Shadow work. It’s so much fun, said no one ever.

There have been things coming up over the past few days that I thought I had already processed. Looks like the universe wanted to make sure that wasn’t ego talking and I was legit. While I have processed major feelings with certain situations, that doesn’t mean that it’s not still a trigger point for me. I sat and wrote in my journal today for a while. Being honest with myself had me facing a mirror again and asking myself, “Taryn, why are you so angry? Where is this frustrating coming from?” The answer is fear. A tricky yet powerful emotion. Ego loves to run with it and use it as its tool to keep you in check and get you to do what it wants you to do. Fear that I am not enough. Fear that I won’t be seen. Fear that I’m on the wrong path. Fear of being lonely. Pick your poison.

Anyone else relate? I can’t be alone with this.

When we’re on a new part of our journey and it seems dark, we start to get scared because we have no idea where we are going. Most times we have created space for the new to enter. While that new energy heads our way to fill the space, what do we do with that hole that’s there? As humans, we want to fill that hole up right away. Think about it – whether you experienced a heartbreak and you want to fill the space with someone or something else so you don’t have the time to think about it, or you are in between jobs and you’re so used to working you don’t know what to do with yourself, we’re constantly looking for some sort of stimulation to keep us occupied instead of sitting with the space we’re in at that current moment.

I find that I’m in the current phase of my next cycle where I’m impatient and looking for what’s next. I feel like I have been sitting around forever now, wallowing even, and the time for mourning is now over. My soul is ready for the next part of the journey and because it’s not spelled out for me or given to me on a map, I’m starting to get antsy. My ego is coming around to play in a not so nice way; there’s a projector screen in my mind that plays the events that got me to this current place on a loop. My ego pokes and prods at me asking me if I should have done something different… am I sure this is what I want to do? Don’t I want to go back to what’s comfortable and familiar?

Why do we want to scare ourselves so much? I can’t change the past even if I wanted to. Last time I checked, I don’t time travel either. The good news is the festering period only lasted a few days and I was able to get my head out of my ass faster than I would have in prior years. Go me. This is where I’m going to plug having a daily routine whether it’s spiritual or not to check in with yourself. No distractions, just you with yourself. It makes getting out of the festering period go faster. I can tell I’m disconnected the moment I stop my own routine. I have a process every morning where I light my candles, say how grateful I am and talk to my ancestors and then I cleanse and protect my energy. If I’m skipping that, something is off. I had been skipping that lately. My intuition was nudging me to go back, but I’ve been pushing her to the side in my anger. I’ll tell myself I don’t have time to do it or that I’m just not feeling it today.

Those moments when you don’t feel connected? Those are the most important moments for you to get back to your practice. That’s the only way you will plug back in.

So, this week I promised myself I would do my routine every day. No excuses. The first day, I didn’t notice a difference. I was still yelling and carrying on with my bullshit. The second day, I calmed down some. I got more introspective and found myself fighting my ego and the excuses I was making for us. The third day, I was finally about to admit that I was my own worst enemy. Instead of scrolling on my phone for hours at the end of the day, I picked up a book I haven’t finished and read for a while. Today, the fourth day, I finally surrendered. I was able to write in my journal and get words out on my page to be honest with myself. I find myself shifting my perspective and looking through a clear lens again. Now, I can sit with these emotions and honor them.

Did you notice the change in wording too? I’m no longer festering in them, giving in to the heaviness of them and lashing out about any and everything. Instead, I’m now sitting with them. Showing myself the same love that I would have to a friend or family member and talking to myself the way I would to them. The journal entry became so much more productive once I was able to ask myself some hard questions. It seems my mind is 2 steps ahead of my body when it comes to the healing I just went through. We’ll get where we need to go, T. One step at a time.

So happy retrograde, fam. If you can use the energy wisely and push fear aside, you can examine the things that come up from your past, peeling back another layer to the onion to see what lies beneath. I promise you everything that comes back around during this time is doing so for a reason. You just have to be brave enough to figure out what that reason is.

Just don’t text your ex.

Always love,

T

A lot has happened in the last month. The long and short of it is, I ended the first quarter of 2023 having emergency surgery for ovarian torsion. (that’s something I will talk about in the book I’m co-authoring in. Release is set for May!) Believe it or not, the experience was the perfect ending to the first 3 months of the year that felt dark, cold, and alone. While the surgery could have had me freaking out and going further into my cave, instead I’m grateful it had the opposite effect. It put some perspective on the recent Dark Night I’ve gone through and gave me the time I needed to reflect on it all. It also showed me in live 3D that the therapy sessions and antidepressant are working. For those of you who haven’t heard the term Dark Night of the Soul – it’s something we reference often in the spiritual world. It refers to an extremely difficult, dark and painful period in your life where you can feel lost, alone and unsure of where you are supposed to go. It’s meant to strip you of the things that no longer serve you so you can ascend and move forward into the things that will. Because this earth realm is based on free will, you have a few choices when this happens to you: work through it and move on, stay stuck in the dark and get miserable or bury your head in the sand and go back to what was. My most recent experience with this started this past December. For me, my body shuts down and I get sick.  I’ve learned to recognize that’s Spirit’s way of letting me know I’ve taken on too much and I need to slow down and re-evaluate. The events that unfolded afterwards put me in such darkness that I sat it in for a while instead of moving through it. I went through a period of health issues and thought I was falling apart. I guess, in a way, I was. At the time, I was unknowingly in the process of burning away the old ideas and boxes I put around myself to be reborn in this phoenix energy where I am now able to start over again and create new. Out of all the things that I’ve gained and learned over the last few months – and there are quite a few big things I’ll write about later on I’m sure – I gained something monumental.

Sobriety.

I feel weird even typing that word. Like it shouldn’t really apply to me. I wasn’t into alcohol so much. I had a run with that at a young age and got a wakeup call that stopped that particular train in its tracks. I’ve been on my own since 17 and the first place I rented was a room in a home with a coworker who had become my friend. She was in her mid-twenties, and I was pretending to be a grown-up and we would go to clubs where I would get served (or drinks would be bought for me) and then I would come home from work every day and drink. It got the point where my tolerance was so high, I could drink an excessive amount of liquor and still walk a straight line. I remember being so proud of that back then. One night her boyfriend brings a friend over with him and the four of us are drinking in our kitchen and having a good time. I wasn’t interested in his friend, but I could tell they were hoping to hook him and I up. I walked away to use the bathroom and came back to new drinks being served. After I downed the drink, I immediately knew something wasn’t right. My vision was off, I felt dizzy and I couldn’t stand right. I got myself back to the bathroom, locked myself in and started throwing up. I don’t remember a whole lot after that – just that there was a lot of banging on the door at first and then it got eerily quiet after a while. I had managed to call my boyfriend at some point and when he came over, I finally came out of the bathroom. We found my roommate naked on the dining room floor. They had left her there naked with nothing but an alarm clock next to her head so she would wake up for work the next day. When I woke her up, she couldn’t remember what happened. Her body didn’t feel right, and she was ashamed. She wouldn’t go to the hospital and didn’t want to talk about that night again. From then on, I didn’t take so much as a sip of alcohol again for over a year. Scared me straight.

I was never completely sober though. I had also smoked a lot of weed. I would eventually go back to alcohol for a while. I would get so drunk that I would slur my words and be a hot mess, making these super strong drinks all the time at barbeques and parties, but it wasn’t something that ever became a real problem where I had to drink every day. Weed though? I would smoke every day. All day. It became the replacement for alcohol and I would be proud of the amounts I could smoke. How I would keep going, wouldn’t choke on the inhale, and I would smoke these enormous blunts like it was no big deal. My dad smoked for as long as I can remember. So I never thought it was a big deal.

Now, I’m going to pause for a minute here. I know weed is probably considered one of the least problematic drugs. Weed had become a problem for me though. I’m not talking about relaxing after a long day and smoking a joint to relieve some anxiety – I’m taking about smoking 2-3 blunts a day, another at night to go to sleep and not wanting to really do anything. In the last 10 years there was never a time you didn’t see me high. I would laugh about it and say I was a functioning pothead but think about that. A decade with my head in a cloud of smoke. I wasn’t doing this to relax occasionally or using it as the plant medicine it really is, I was abusing the shit out of it to run and hide from myself. It would numb me so I wouldn’t have to really look at things in my life and make changes I knew needed to be made and it allow me to hide myself so I wouldn’t have to face the parts that I didn’t necessarily like. I made no attempt to hide my smoking; I would go out with friends and light up and think it was no big deal. I didn’t care what people thought about it either. If you didn’t like it, oh well. My kids knew I was smoking all the time – they could always smell it on me. I would never smoke in front of them so I was constantly sending them away from me so I could get high. As they got older, they started to figure it out and would get mad or impatient with me. You would think that would have triggered some sort of change, but it didn’t. I always had this attitude of: It’s just weed. Maybe it is for some people, but for me, it became something that would take over a big part of my life. I never realized how hazy my brain was until COVID hit. The first time I got sick, I still tried to smoke. How crazy is that? I got myself all worked up though and it backfired on me. From then on, every time I would get sick, I would forego smoking. Once I started to feel better, I would go right back to it. This last time though? In December? I don’t know what it is about that particular time. Maybe it was a combination of things going on. The anxiety, the holidays and then the events after.

I’ve been sober for 4 months as of today.

I’ve decided that I’m tired of not having a clear mind to tackle this phase of my healing. How can I really face life if I’m constantly trying to smoke it away? There were even several times throughout the last decade where I couldn’t even get high. It wasn’t because the weed wasn’t good enough – I just wasn’t getting the same buzz off it anymore. I would get the side effects of course. Sleepiness, munchies, shit like that, but no high. Looking back, that should have been my first sign that I’d had enough. I have no desire to go back to weed right now either. I don’t know if I’ll ever smoke again; I haven’t put a time limit on this. I could see potentially smoking again but in the right setting. Using it in ceremony maybe to help me connect in, but not right now.  It’s funny because I always said I was a function pothead, but I’m realizing now just how much I didn’t really function. I have more ambition to go out and do things that I would never normally do because I don’t have something holding me back. I’m less apt to stay home and do nothing and more likely to go out and explore. Do things by myself. Meet new people. The world around me is so much clearer because it’s not covered in smoke and I’m enjoying the new view.

I know some of you reading this will say “it’s just weed.” And maybe you’re right. It IS just weed. But not for me. To me, it was something that facilitated me running away from myself. It would numb me out so I wouldn’t have to feel things, face issues or deal with life. The same way an alcoholic would go to booze or like a coke addict uses. I became an addict myself where if I didn’t have anything to smoke, my personality would change. I would become mean, irritable, and hard to be around. That’s a major red flag and where you know you have a real problem and why I decided to put my blunts out.

Sobriety.

It looks good on me. So, I’m going to keep this going.

For those of you who turn to something every day to numb out the pain, I encourage you to take a look at your daily habits. I’m also happy to recommend some people within my circles that I run in that can help you get sober. Life is meant to be felt. Seen. Heard. LIVED. Don’t let the years go by in a blur. You’re missing out on way more than you think.

Always love,

T

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog post. I haven’t really had a whole lot to say – I’ve been healing myself for the last few months. I mean that both physically and spiritually. My body decided it’s time to take a break. This will be the first time I’m really talking about this, but I was diagnosed with POTS in January. Don’t know what that is? Don’t worry, I didn’t when the cardiologist first told me about it either. It’s Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome: (POTS) is one of a group of disorders that have orthostatic intolerance (OI) as their primary symptom. OI is a condition in which an excessively reduced volume of blood returns to the heart after an individual stands up from a lying down position. That’s per our good friend google. Some of the symptoms include lightheadedness (occasionally with fainting), difficulty thinking and concentrating (brain fog), fatigue, intolerance of exercise, headache, blurry vision, palpitations, tremors and nausea. I found out about this after I dealt with having RSV right before Christmas time. When I think back, I’m sure I’ve had this for a while. For the last 6 months or so I’ve been so excessively tired and had trouble going up the stairs without my heart feeling like it’s going to beat out of my chest. I would be sitting for work and having heart palpitations. I’m only 39 & otherwise healthy. I thought this was a little off, but because I didn’t have anything major going on, pushed it to the side and kept going about my life.

What’s treatment for this? Beta blocker medicine to keep my heart rate lower since it skyrockets when I stand up or do any sort of consistent movement; light exercise when I can do it; drinking a shit ton of water. How the hell did I end up with it? Apparently, this is a condition that’s on the rise since COVID came out. I’ve had COVID 2-3 times in the last few years, so I believe I must have started this after my last time dealing with it. They caught it because while in the hospital for dehydration, they saw an irregular heartbeat on my EKG and sent me to the cardiologist. My heart is otherwise healthy – but when doing a stress test after I got off the treadmill, my blood pressure plummeted.

So that’s the physical diagnosis.

Emotionally & spiritually? I’m dealing with major heartbreak and not allowing myself to feel.

I talk about this a lot with my healing work, how important it is to honor and respect your feelings. Yet, I’ve had a hard time doing it myself over the last couple of months. My fight or flight response is to close myself off again once I’ve been really hurt. I think of it like a clam who shuts violently and you can’t get it open again. I took a deep dive recently into my own shadows again and realized that I close myself off when I don’t feel safe. I’ve had one person besides my husband that I trusted my safety with over the last few years. That person is no longer in my life right now. It was a major blow to my stability. Think of a table: one of the legs was kicked out and I’ve been trying to get the thing level ever since.

My ego has been saying, hasn’t it been long enough? Aren’t you over this yet? It’s trying to put this timeframe on something that has no time limit. I’ll be over it when I’m over it, when I’ve gone through the grief process and felt all the feelings that need to be felt. What’s currently delaying my process is this self-protection mode that I go into once I’ve been knocked down hard. I’ve done this since I’m a little girl. I refuse to let anyone see how badly I’m hurt, I won’t really cry and I’ll try to shake things off like they don’t matter. I can’t do that anymore. It’s literally making me physically sick. I feel like because I know better now, with all of the learning I’ve been doing in my energy work, it makes it impossible to just brush things off. It’s like that saying: once you know better, you must do better. So, I’ve felt stuck for a while, in this purgatory of protection and feeling. It’s made me realize that I’ve never really learned how to deal with the hard shit. It was easier to shove everything in a closet and keep that door barred shut. Now the closet has been opened and everything has fallen onto the floor, and I don’t even know where to start to clean everything up. (I can’t take credit for that analogy – my therapist gave me that beautiful perspective) Because this coping mechanism is something I developed so young, there are things that came out of that closet that I haven’t looked at in a long time. So, in a way, I feel like I’ve been working through another dark night of the soul. Finding and relearning myself again. Who am I? What is it I want from life? What am I here to do? If you’re into energy work, you know the chakra system. I’ve been going through each of them again, one by one and clearing out what needs to be released. Some of the shit that’s been coming up are things that I haven’t thought about in decades. My body will physically tense up just thinking about some of them. Sometimes a traumatic event will be so disturbing that your body and mind will literally shut off and make you forget it even happened. Once you’ve done enough healing work, your brain will decide that it’s now safe to remember. Some of the things make me want to go back to sleep, but that’s not really an option. While I could bury my head in the sand if I wanted to again, that’s not what I really want. Instead, piece by piece I have started picking up the garbage that came out of the closet. I’m deciding if it’s something that needs to get put back neatly or if it’s really garbage and can be discarded. It sounds like a pretty process when you break it down that way, but it’s actually quite messy.

You may be asking, why deal? Why not just throw it all in the garbage and move on with your life? I could do that. But then I would still live in the same patterns, not feel my feelings and most likely end up more sick as time goes on. I don’t want that. I don’t want my kids to do the same. I want to break these shitty cycles that have been in my family for generations. The only way to do that is to feel, be honest about it and just be.

I am awake. I am a cycle breaker. That is by no means an easy path, but the one I chose. So, I will continue to do the work.

For all of you out there, who have a hard time feeling, I see you. It’s so incredibly hard to accept yourself just as you are and to just be. The world has so many distractions, most of which are designed to make you further hate yourself and pass judgment. I invite you all to take the time to just sit with yourself. In silence. Without any distractions. Listen to what your body is trying to tell you. Chest pains? Check in with your heart. Trouble with your stomach? Check in with your confidence and self-esteem. Take the time to really listen to what comes up. That’s the only way you’ll really heal and put the pain to bed. Do yourself a favor and don’t put a time limit on your healing or grieving process either. Just know it will pass once you’ve processed everything you need to.

I say this as someone who’s going through it, so I know what I’m talking about.

Always love,

T

I turn 39 on the 7^th. This is my last year in my 30’s! It’s so crazy to me because I never really consider my age. To me, you are how you feel, not your actual number. I still dye my hair crazy colors (currently pink and purple) I pierced my nose 2 years ago and I’m still getting tattoos. I’ll always be young. I figured what better way to celebrate turning 39 than to release a blog with 39 things I have learned over the years? So below I’m going to give you some gold nuggets I have picked up along the way:

1. You are never the exception to anyone’s rule. This was a tough one I learned a few times. It doesn’t matter how much you love someone or think they love you – how they treat others is how they will treat you.
2. Accept people for who they are and not their potential. It will save you a lot of wasted time and energy if you can just accept people for who they are instead of trying to change them into what you think they can be.
3. People have to want to change on their own. No matter how good our intentions are for someone, they will not change for you or anyone else. They will only change if and when they are ready to.
4. Self-accountability is the only way you’ll grow. If you’re not willing to look within and see how you are the cause and effect in your own life, you’ll stay in the same spot. Forever.
5. Shadow work is really fucking hard. No really. Like, really hard. It requires the self-accountability mentioned in #4 – and if you can’t get out of your own way, shadow work is pointless.
6. Vulnerability is beautiful and a superpower. Fuck that never wanting to cry or show emotion nonsense. I wish someone would have taught me earlier it’s okay to be soft. Even when other people are hard.
7. This too shall pass. It really will. It may not pass as fast as you want it to, or how you want it to, but nothing lasts forever. Just hang in there and you’ll get where you need to go.
8. The people around you affect you more than you think. Your vibe attracts your tribe. No joke. If you’re surrounded by people who tell you that you can’t do something, you’ll believe you can’tdo it. Family. Friends. Lovers. Coworkers. Choose your circle wisely.
9. You are allowed to change.In fact, you should change. Often. It’s how you grow out of the things that no longer serve you and into the things that do. It’s not a change up if you want better for yourself. If you want different, you have to act different.
10. Healing is a lifetime journey. You will revisit things you thought you had gotten over just to peel back a further layer and heal some more. This doesn’t mean you are going backwards, so don’t get discouraged. It just means you’re getting deeper into yourself.
11. You are good enough right now, just the way you are.Stop doubting yourself and just get started on whatever it is you want to create. If you build it, your people will come.
12. Outside validation isn’t as good as internal validation. People pleasers hear me on this. No amount of praise you get from anyone else is better than feeling in your own power. Once you realize this, you won’t even look for the external validation anymore.
13. It’s important to really love yourself. I mean real love. Like look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how much you love you. It’ll make being alone feel peaceful instead of lonely.
14. Be selfish with your time. Time is literally something we can never get back. Stop saying yes when you really want to say no. Do the things that light you up instead of being in places to make other people happy.
15. Stop worrying about tomorrow. Every single day is a gift. It’s so hard to stay in the present when you’re constantly worrying about what tomorrow is going to bring. Just focus on today. Tomorrow will be here soon enough.
16. Having goals helps keep you on track and consistent.Do a vision board. Put everything you want to accomplish in a year on it and put it in a spot where you can see it every day. You’ll be surprised by how much you get accomplished.
17. Affirmations really work.  Tell yourself you’re amazing every single morning and see if you don’t believe it after a month or two. You should have 3-5 affirmations yousay every morning before you do anything else.  
18. Love is always the answer. I know this sounds cheesy and can be super hard sometimes. But love is what’s missing in so much of this world. If we would respond with kindness instead of anger, so many things would be different
19. The energy you put out is what you get back. As much as we don’t like to admit it, when we’re being jerks, we get shitty energy back. It’s not the universe doing it to you, it’s you doing it to yourself. Fix your attitude and watch your world shift.
20. Don’t assume anything.You know nothing, Jon Snow. Your ego lies to you most of the time. Instead of assuming what you think is going on, ask directly. Most of the time it’s not at all what you think it is anway.
21. Stop anticipating what could happen. Similar to #20 – our ego steps in and starts to drive these worst-case scenarios in our heads. The more you feed into this, the more you’re telling the universe you want these things to happen. Focus on the BEST case scenarios instead.
22. The universe gives you what you need, when you need it. That includes people, places and things. Sometimes it involves heart break and sometimes it involves joy, but there is always a reason and lesson behind it if you’re willing to look for it.
23. Being stubborn and hardheaded will only create obstacles on your journey. You are not always right. Even though you want to be. Be open to learning and different perspectives – it’s paramount to your growth.  
24. You are not your past. And don’t ever let someone hold it against you. The past is done and over with – how you move forward is what really matters.
25. How someone reacts is a reflection of them, not you. It’s hard, but don’t take people so personally. We’re all dealing with our own version of trauma and trying to figure things out. Don’t internalize someone’s reaction, understand it’s their trigger and not yours.
26. Your best is good enough. If you wait for the perfect time, you’ll likely never find it. We’re our own worst critics. Fuck fear. Go do it.
27. Fear is our biggest teacher. Fear shows us where some of our biggest wounds need healing. If you’re willing to be courageous, you can shut fear down and face those shadows to finally put them to bed for good.
28. Take up space. You are entitled to your feelings. They matter. Don’t be afraid to speak what’s on your mind, ever. Even when it’s not the popular opinion.
29. Holding in your feelings will make you physically sick.You think you’re keeping the peace by not saying how you really feel – but what you’re doing is holding yourself in. Do that long enough and you’ll be bitter, resentful and start to get physically ill. Headaches, stomach issues, things will continue to spiral from there.
30. Learn to be a good listener. Most times we’re not listening to understand, we’re listening to respond. That makes for shitty conversation and confrontation. Do you want to be right or understood?
31. Anything really worth having takes hard work. It’s not going to magically appear and you’re not going to be handed anything. Be prepared to really work hard for your dreams if you want them to come to fruition.
32. You’re not being rejected, you’re being redirected.Rejection is hard. It tends to make us look inward and think we did something wrong. Most times we’re just being redirected to something more aligned with us.
33. Patience really is a virtue. And I’m still working on it myself. Go slow. It’s not a race. Our society teaches us that we’re supposed to be able to multitask and get things done in the fastest way possible. You can’t truly appreciate something if you’re already focused on the next thing.
34. Stop doubting your inner knowing. You already know. How many times do we deny our intuition because we hope or want for things to be different? Accept things for what you know them to be and not what you want them to be. Trust your inner compass.
35. Grounding is super important.You don’t have to meditate or be spiritual to know when you’re outside and in nature, you feel better. That’s you getting grounded back into yourself. Away from noise. Do that as much as you can. It’ll be easier to keep your feet on the ground.
36. Stop repeating cycles and expecting them to turn out differently.The universe will literally send you the same pattern through different people and experiences until you master the lesson. Old ways won’t open new doors. Check yourself.
37. Don’t make decisions when your emotional. Give yourself 24 hours. Sleep on it. If you make a decision in the heat of the moment, you’re most likely going to regret it later. Ground and then decide what to do.
38. Sometimes what we want, is not what we actually need. As a matter of fact, sometimes what we want is not even good for us. Forcing things will usually have you fucking around and finding out. Know when to leave things alone.
39. Be yourself. Your authenticity is beautiful. You’re not supposed to be like everyone else. So be weird, be different, be YOU.  Don’t be afraid to shine bright just the way you are.

Here’s to another year of learning, growing and shining bright like a diamond.

Always love,

T

Sitting with pain is way harder than consistency. I would imagine it’s probably a big proponent of why we don’t remain consistent, right? Tony Robbins talks about pain and there’s a quote from one of his books that has always sat with me: “People will do more to avoid short term pain then they will to gain pleasure. Most people manage pain by eating, drinking, smoking, distracting themselves, working harder. That’s just managing the pain, the pain that comes from not feeling fully alive from not growing” We want change, but we fear the pain that growth may cause. So instead, we avoid it, not realizing we’re causing ourselves greater pain in the long run because we’re not living in our authenticity.

I’ve been saying I’m growing and onto new cycles for a while now… and I’m at a point in my journey where I have no idea where my path is leading me. Enter said new cycle. I never thought I would be in the spot I’m in right now. I’m still in the process of accepting it. It’s hard for me to write this one. My heart has been bleeding for what feels like weeks and I’ve been doing my best to patch it up. I’m a healer, right? I have tools in my box that are designed to help with all sorts of healing. I had to be reminded that while I am magic, things take time to heal. I can’t snap my fingers and be over something.

The biggest part of growth is new boundaries. I don’t think it’s just the growth we have trouble with, it’s those new boundaries that a healthier version of you starts asserting. I used to have no boundaries. I didn’t say no very often. It’s why my mental health was so fucked and my anxiety had gone through the roof. I’m the type of person who will find good in just about anyone. My Human Design is a Projector. I can literally focus in on you and SEE you. The more I love someone, the more I try to understand them; soothe their wounds, be a safe space. Then it would turn into trying to heal them. I’ve done this with family members, boyfriends, friends.

It wasn’t until I started healing myself that I realized, I’m not Bob the Builder. YOU are the only person that can heal yourself. Even more important – YOU have to want to heal. Not in a half assed attempt when you’re upset in a moment, but every day. Consistently. Changed habits. I wrote about that in the last blog. That shit is hard as fuck. To change a pattern that has been so ingrained in you for so long can sometimes seem impossible. Stepping out of your comfort zone is scary as hell and facing your shadow side is intimidating.

You hear it all the time. When you grow and evolve, the people who resonate with the old version of you will have a hard time with the newer version. That could be for many reasons, and no one is a bad person. Sometimes, your paths just split. If you ask me, it’s a shitty consolation prize to say that to someone who lost someone who’s been so important to them for so long.

I hear my mother in my head – “This too shall pass, Tar”

I know it will, Mom. But the time it takes to pass is what’s so fucking hard.

The sleepless nights. The back and forth on whether or not you’re doing the right thing for yourself. The self doubt the creeps in and is determined to talk you out of walking forward and wants you to look back.

And here’s where I hear my mother in my head, again – “Just walk away, Tar”

You know she had been telling me that until she died? I could never understand the peace maker in her. I used to rage for justice; to tell my side of the story and to get people to understand me, too. (hello, Aries moon)

No more. It’s exhausting and also pointless. I get it now, Mom. You can’t control what other people think, anyway. We see things from our own lens. That’s why there are three sides for every story, not two. As long as you’re solid in who you are, that’s all that matters.

I imagine as I continue my path and go through life, I will continue to lose people along the way. My heart will hurt and I will need to mend it again. You have to accept people for who they are and sometimes that means leaving them where they want to be. Some people may stay exactly where you leave them. You could see them again in 5 years and they haven’t really changed. But there are others where you split up for a while and maybe you don’t see them for months or years but somehow you find your way back to each other. Both of you different versions of yourself able to walk along side each other again.

What’s important to remember is the universe places people into our lives exactly when we need them. They will exit when the purpose or lesson has been learned. It’s when we refuse to let go that hurtful shit can happen. That’s the universe’s way of giving you a choice – you can stay and things can continue to unravel or you can make peace with what is and respect what was and walk away.

So I will leave you with this – may you have the courage to face yourself to make the changes you know you need to make in order to grow, no matter how painful that may be. May you have the courage to sit with and honor the pain that comes with that growth so that you learn what it’s trying to teach you in order to move on.

They’re called growing pains for a reason.

Always love,

T

My new year did not start off as planned…. How about yours? (not even going there about mercury retrograde)

I think we put too much pressure on ourselves every year. To start fresh & new. “This year I will … insert your action item here” “New year, New Me!” How about New Year’s resolutions? Anyone do those? If so, how many of them do you accomplish? 

If you’re anything like me, you make a list, check off the boxes a few days in a row and then “something” happens and you’re thrown off track. You valiantly try to get back to it, but then you miss another day. And another. All too quickly weeks have gone by, and you’ve decided to scrap the whole thing because you’ve already missed so many days that it’s pointless to even start over.

Fuck it, I’ll try again next year.

Consistency. It’s hard.  

It’s those hard days. You know the ones I’m talking about… The getting up and going to the gym on the days you don’t want to. The eating healthy when you just want that damn quarter pounder from McDonald’s. Not having a drink when everyone around you is. Walking away when you want to get the last word in. Sticking to your no when it’s easier to say yes. Pick your poison. There is a comfort in what we know. ‘This one time won’t matter- I’ll get back to it tomorrow’  

I printed out this picture and quote from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that has quite literally followed me around from job to job: “Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work gains success. Greatness will come”

That quote has always sat with me. Consistency is something I had struggled with for a long time because I used to assume if I messed up, that was the end of it. But that’s not fair. You can’t be on 100% of the time. No successful person is. The Rock? He has off days too. I don’t need to know him personally to know that. He’s a human being. We ALL have off days. What makes him so successful at what he does though is consistency. Consistently showing up even after the set back.  

In my experience, you must give yourself the grace to recognize that sometimes the changes we want to make are hard and are going to take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and all that. You have to push yourself through the days where you don’t want to get up and do the thing. Consistency can look like baby steps. Maybe instead of changing your whole work out routine you commit to walking every morning. You may miss some mornings, and that’s okay. This may not feel like much right this moment, but as you gain momentum, you’re walking a little further every week. Then wait for it – maybe you start to jog. Hell, now you’re even hiking. While you’re beating yourself up that you didn’t hit this major work out goal, you just accomplished a life change without even realizing it. All because you showed up consistently with the baby steps.

Now don’t get me wrong, sometimes, we need to rest too. That’s where the grace comes in. You’re not giving up if you’re taking some time to rest after you get knocked down. That’s probably the universe telling you to reevaluate your current setup. Also, a gentle reminder: It doesn’t make you less of a person if you need help and support to get yourself back up. You give up consistency when you don’t get back at it. When you let that set back throw you back into your comfort zone.

Do we come out of the womb running? No. We can barely move and need someone to take care of our needs. Then it’s tummy time, lifting our head, crawling and then walking. If you’re fortunate enough, you have someone there nurturing you, showing you the way and supporting you when you fall.

What have I learned this new year 1 week in? Grace + patience are paramount to successful consistency. Both of those items tend to be in short supply for this woman writing this and I was grateful for the reminder. You are going to have off days. Shitty days where you want to quit. Cry. Curl up into a ball. Honor those feelings. Instead of beating yourself up and rushing to judgment about how you failed and then giving up… just be. Sit in the storm. There is a message in that moment if you can quiet your mind. Most likely that’s the message you need to hear to keep going.

Consistency is hard work. It’s hard to break out of your comfort zone and really implement change. Anyone can say they are making changes, but it takes hard work to stick with them. It’s why you see the gym filled in January and empty again in March. But if you keep pushing through, those times where you stumble? You’ll find yourself getting up faster. Getting stronger. And the consistency will come easier.

With Time.

With Patience.

And with Grace.

Always love,

T