hearts racing.

For anyone who has ever been to our home, you know we live modestly. 4 of us crammed into a 1200 square foot space- one shower, one couch next to a tiny kitchen table inside our one major room of the house- our “living room” with a 2 person kitchen attached. Straight above this rectangle living space is a steep stairwell, with 3 small rooms plopped on top that span the space of the “living room”. That’s it. That’s all we got. When Taryn sneezes in her door-shut bedroom, I can hear her while making dinner in the opposite corner of the house in the kitchen, with music playing in the background.

We do have an amazing backyard. Tons of space for the dogs to run around, a small deck and fire place, lots of grass, lots of air. When we are home with no plans, we are out there, in the sun. The problem is, those days that we have each year…. I can count on one hand. Keeping up with the yard is almost impossible. We are either working, schooling, sport-ing, camping, running, or traveling.

We could move. Get a house that actually fits two cars in the garage. Where all four of us could stand in the kitchen at once. Where we didn’t have to have a shower line. But. That would require us giving up the one thing we value the most in our family- experiences.

The Stoics believed that vacations were meant to be a balance of exploration and relaxation. They should not follow societal expectations or be meant as escapism from building daily resilience in typical life. They are meant to admire the natural world, to appreciate what we have, and to find beauty in new experience.

We stopped buying the kids presents and started buying them experiences. We spend our money on traveling and activities. At least once a month we take a trip- we camp in the mountains and lakes, we visit family and friends in other states, we go to concerts and overnight adventures, we go on true vacations with planes and trains and new cities, we run trail races in new towns, sometimes we just take the camper 2 hours away for a couple days to be outside, to talk, to move our bodies, to be in the natural world. Dave and I work very hard on our schedules so that we can make these experiences happen each month, and we prioritize this time together. They are not escapism from our daily life, they are part of our life.

This works for us. It’s what the kids know.

It’s how they’ve learned to be flexible, to be prepared and resilient in stressful situations, to be helpful and organized, to appreciate- new things and old things, to become adaptable and adventurous, to try things out and not be afraid of challenges. We told them early on, we are here through your childhood to spend time with you, and money on you, now, as you grow, to help you SEE the world in all sorts of ways, and that is what we promise you. Not fancy clothes or a fancy home, and not on spending money on things and on their savings, but on LIFE NOW. That’s how we roll. Because we believe that if we can teach them through experience, how to live, and prepare, and cultivate a life of knowledge, then they will be ready for their future. Money and things won’t solve that for them.

Lots of people probably think we are a bit crazy. We won’t be saving money for our children’s college careers, or their weddings; the kids don’t have phones and social media; we don’t open massive gifts and boxes during Christmas and birthdays; the kids earn and buy their own “wants” with their own bank accounts; we don’t have a weekly budget or stress over the specific amount of money we have in our accounts; we don’t go shopping or buy random things for fun; we don’t have a pantry; our tv comes on about twice a week for an hour; and most days we aren’t at home.

We are rich in experiences. Both from our pasts and our present. And that is what we believe balances out our lives from the flow of grinding and adventuring. Experiences.

Both of our jobs are based in experiences. The chaos and trauma we intake are high intensity, high stress, grinding experiences. They teach us, they fill us, they also drain us. A servant’s heart needs to be served as well. As we have dedicated our lives to serve others, we have learned that we must prioritize serving ourselves to find respite and steadiness. Adventurous and worldly experience is what serves our hearts. We travel and adventure, not to escape our lives, but to live our lives. For us, living is found both in serving, and in experiencing.

Recently, we had the opportunity to travel to Chamonix, France, and EXPERIENCE this small town in the Alps, in the Mont Blanc region. We spent our days trail running all over the epic mountains of the area on the TMB, and our evenings walking the streets in search of exceptional cheese dinners, baguettes, cured meats, and nighttime pizzas. We then took three trains down and around the mountains, to end up in a smaller town on the southeastern side of France along the banks of Lake Geneva, Thonon Les Bains… where we swam in the crystal clear lake water every afternoon, ran the hills of the city every morning, and ate local French Cuisine and watched the sun set over the water every night. It was the best experiences I’ve ever had. I would spend this money over and over again, a million times again rather than on owning a large home, with nice things, and new items, and have a chunk of change in reserves. I don’t know what tomorrow brings.

Here’s what we learned:

We are SO unimportant.

The two of us and the little life we’ve built is so incredibly small in the giant cosmos. Remote locations aren’t meant to entertain you. They are beauty, and you are a tiny dot in the world. Be grateful. Be in awe. Be aware.

We must spend more time slowing down.

Dave and I are go go go. Until our trips. We have built a sustainable life around this process, but we must incorporate slowing down in our daily lives, and not just because we’ve made it to a trip. Like most Americans, we spend too much time in beta waves in our brains. High stress, high anxiety, highly activity. We barely calm the fuck down. Spending time in other cultures where it’s normal to start their mornings slowly with coffee shop visits and SITS, walks and talks, afternoon dips in the water and friend time, breaks and resets, opened our eyes to possibilities and intention behind finding time in our days for joy and SLOWNESS. On a Monday at 4 pm, on a cloudy day, barely 70 degrees, on a tiny tiny beach, 100 people started the end of their day with smiles and snacks and peace. No where else to be, no where to run to, no one to appease.

Doing hard things together, bonds us.

Suffering together on the trails of 3,000 elevation gain in just a couple miles, over and over each day, being out of language, out of water, out of flat ground, in rain and sweat, out of energy, out of cell service for translations and maps and locations, didn’t pull us apart, it pushed us together. Working through difficult feats- mentally and physically creates connected brain waves and synapses and indescribable experiences and puts them into a collective consciousness. You share it forever. Do more of this with your people.

Don’t live in expectation. You will be disappointed.

It rained almost everyday we were there. Some days it poured. 10 years ago, I would have been absolutely miserable with the given weather. This time I barely even noticed it. I used to wait for things to make me happy. Vacation will make me happy. The sun will make me happy. The mountains will make me happy. Etc. Etc. Etc. Weather is a force of nature under no one’s control. Why do we expect nature to appease us? I was the happiest I’ve ever been, and not because the sun was out, or the mountains were visible, but because I was content with what the world needed to do that day and I would adjust.

The second day we got there it poured so hard. We trucked our way up a mountain trail. Straight up for 3 miles, in mud and muck, each step I took was the height of my waist. It was actually quite miserable. After half a mile or so, I had a moment, not gonna lie, I started to complain. Not really because of the rain but because of how hard and technical the climb was. I had my moment, I shut myself up and I got to work.

We made it to the top of the peak, soaking wet, exhausted, but, with smiles on our face. There was a tiny Refuge at the top. A place where hikers and climbers, and stupid runners, can rest for a sandwich and a beer. Let me tell you, that was one of my favorite memories of the trip- the warm ham and cheese, and amber ale, sitting with Dave in this tiny hut, with the owners dog laying at my feet. Pure joy. That was my sun.

Quit with the expectations… find beauty in the rain.

Be kind.

No matter if you are in a foreign nation or down the street at your local grocery story… be nice. I cannot even begin to explain to you the many little moments of kindness we experienced from foreigners throughout the trip, because we were decent human beings trying to do our best and be helpful. We barely speak French. And this huge issue was a tiny tiny problem for us. We were respectful, and honest, and inquisitive, and we had people helping us, and chatting with us, and taking care of us left and right. Got free coffees, free drinks, took pictures with strangers, had people walk us across town to our destination, met new friends and made new relationships. All because we showed up with kindness, and it ignited kindness in others. People aren’t born mean. People aren’t born cold. A million tiny experiences happen to people throughout their lives that can end up hardening hearts, and building walls. Don’t be one of those experiences. Be the kindness that reminds us all we are human.

This isn’t a post to tell everyone that you need to travel, and to get rid of your savings, or to stop buying your kids Christmas presents. It’s meant as an invitation to adjust where you might need to in your life, or to find gratitude in the way you have truly found your joy, your balance in your daily routine.

Too many of us work to live. Too many of us live in anticipation of a day or a moment or a certain time, that will pass and we will be left empty again. Too many of us live in scarcity, with our hands seemingly tied to a bank account or an outcome or an unachievable goal line that is constantly moving. Too many us are unable to find rest, or unable to push ourselves to do hard things. Too many of us let our ego run our lives, and too many of us let our grumpy moments seep into our actions with strangers, and then into our actions with ourselves. If our moments in the rain, and the mountains, at the edge of cliffs and rock falls, in the sparkling cold glacial meltdown of the Alps, taught us anything… it is that life is worth experiencing, and you can’t do that from the routine of your couch, or your phone, or your car, or your computer. Don’t run from your life, find freedom in your mind and your mental fortitude. Invest in experiences to get you there.

Get living.

Listen to: "Hearts Racing.” by Bones of J.R. Jones

love story.

This is about a love story.

And it starts with the Savannah Bananas… anybody heard of them? WATCH THEM NOW.

Dave and I have fallen in love with our own little Savannah Bananas… we call them the LaSalle Oranges.

Valentine’s Day 2023, we had the opportunity to sit down, meet, and learn the story of Chief Husley of LaSalle Fire Protection District. What we didn’t know, was that day was about to change our lives for good.

Chief Husley is one of the most fearless men we’ve ever met. Alongside is his sidekick, Chief Hill, and the four of us share mutual love of real and raw vulnerability, personal struggle and triumph, performing 2% better everyday, habits and process building, Stoicism and brain plasticity. Fast forward one year later, our shared visions, Husley’s fearlessness, and his trust in us and our platform, has transformed the culture at LaSalle Fire and we are stepping into unknown territory with confidence, support, and fucking mad desire to change how responders thrive, and to inevitably sustain longevity in their lives, to KEEP THEM ALIVE.

In short, Dave and I spend 6 hours a month at LaSalle Fire with the crews and the Chiefs honoring their O.R.A.N.G.E. mission of Outstanding Service, Relationships, Accountability, Noble purpose, Greatness, Extreme ownership. 2 hours of intentional time with each shift, where we sit, workout or walk together and deep dive into real, meaningful, and profound conversations about mental health, the emotional toll of the job, trauma exposure, relationship skills and communication threats. We work from a philosophy of Stoicism: understanding and managing your emotions (WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A STOIC), and present 2 hour topics each month building on mental resiliency and exercising the mind. We have worked through suicide, behavioral symptoms of trauma, divorce and death, team building and empathy, compassion fatigue, mind and body connection, anger management and anxiety redirection, home struggles, parenting, values and honor, mindset and perspective…. we’ve done group art therapy (ART THERAPY WITH LASALLE), and book clubbing. And this island of misfits (as Chief Husley describes them), participate, listen, share, laugh, CRY with us, together, inside this bright orange station, and we all leave a bit brighter, healthier, and heard.

There have been many times that Chief Hill and Chief Husley call us to just share a, “WHAT THE FUCK?” moment after our sessions, just to validate and make sure what happened had just really happened. Dave and I are in awe of this department’s ability to get behind our weird idea of Mental Fitness for first responders and own the shit out of it. Every. Single. Time. we are there. We all show up together: the volunteers, the historic company members who have been at LaSalle for years with endless family history, the new kids with eyes wide open, the old grumps set in their ways, the hard workers and farmers, the body builders and martial artists, the medics who come in and out of LaSalle’s doors, the country cowboys, the metro millennials…and for 2 hours we are the same. We always laugh and say, we all have a million different parts of our lives, but we all share the same problems, same struggles. And these hours where we all let our guards down, heal us.

Last night, we had the opportunity to attend our first LaSalle Fire yearly banquet, where the Chiefs recognize their crews and celebrate their wins. It was a beautiful night and NOTHING we expected. After the many amazing honors of the dedicated line staff, Chief Husley began to share a story of the early months of 2023, and his unwavering dedication and concern for upholding his value as their Chief. He talked about wanting to do more for his staff, to care, to teach, to love. And through one of his valued captains he learned about Elevate, and this strange idea we were implementing by being onsite with departments and building a culture of mental care and love. He said he knew from the beginning we were the missing piece to his team.

Chief Husley presented Dave, Siren, and I, with Life Saving Awards. One of the highest achievements to receive in a firefighting career. Team Freyta got three.

I am not a firefighter. Siren is a DOG. Dave doesn’t work for LaSalle. We did not save any lives on the line of duty.

I cannot begin to explain to you what this honor feels like. Dave describes this moment as standing in a cloud and feeling detached from our bodies, a moment when we were watching this happen to us, an out of body experience. Chief asked us to stand next to him as spoke to the crowd, and asked anyone who had been impacted by us, to come up and stand next to us. As 3 quarters of the room gathered around us with hugs and tears, we watched spouses and partners we had never met come up as well and share this moment with us.

There is NO amount of words or thanks or gratitude I could extend to LaSalle for bestowing us with this honor. It’s unwordable. We can only promise to embrace this honor, to embrace this cultural shift, and to continue to witness and recognize the men and women who dedicated time in their lives to show up for each other and themselves. And. We can learn from this and continue to take moments to reflect and to grow…

What we learned.

1.) Push past fear to find momentum. The Chiefs at LaSalle, saw potential in what we had to offer. No matter the obstacles, no matter the potential set backs, and eye rolls, outside judgments and lack of confidence in this program, no matter the varied personality types and backgrounds of their crews, they charged forward and they gave this a chance. They modeled vulnerability. They honored meaningful discussions. They encouraged discomfort. They embraced weird.

A young firefighter, strong, noble, fast paced and efficient, came up to me with his wife after the banquet. We were blessed with endless gratitude and hugs and tears this night, but I’ll never forget what this young man asked of me, with his beautiful bride next to him... “Sammy, maybe don’t tell anyone it was my idea, but can we do MORE ART THERAPY?”.

“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions- not outside.” - Marcus Aurelius

2.) Just as we believed, vulnerability is the recipe for change. Our community continues to face a stigma. The stigma that it is weak to ask for help. It is weak to share our emotions. It is problematic to be personally affected by the job of a responder. Suck it up, stash it somewhere and move on, fight the tears, be strong, don’t talk about it. We are doing the opposite at our departments. Don’t give up, communicate when you’re not okay, be present, cry with us and heal, be strong by sharing, talk it out. There’s no one out there that can challenge me and say this shit doesn’t work. I had a room full of “misfits” prove there is POWER in vulnerability. There is STRENGTH. There is FORTITUDE. Prove me wrong.

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” - Epictetus

3.) Do not allow the misjudgment of others to cloud your vision. When we share with most community members, words about the work we are doing with LaSalle, we can be met with looks of confusion and doubt… “Really? I wouldn’t expect that from a small, rural department.” As humans we experience life through our own lenses. We create thoughts, beliefs, realities around our own perceptions and judgments. Intention and authenticity can break down barriers. Intention and authenticity in repetition can change opinions. Intentions and authenticity in consistent repetition can improve lives. Prove me wrong.

“If I wanted to be like everyone else - like the mob- then I wouldn’t have become a philosopher.” -Ryan Holiday on Daily Stoic

4.) Moments matter. Everything is fleeting, and we must learn to reinvest in the present moment, because in the end, moments are all we have. While we will never be able to duplicate this beautiful moment we shared with the members of our team and their families, we can reflect, and we can continue to charge forward. To take the momentum we’ve built as a community and make every next moment count. Dave and I will not continue to live in this inflated space and allow this success to lead us to complacency. We will honor it, process it, and use it. It will motivate us to continue, not to pump the brakes. To work harder. You can’t prove us wrong.

“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.”- Marcus Aurelius

5.) “Let the dogs bark, Sancho. It is a sign that we're moving forward,” Don Quixote said.

2023 was the hardest year, Dave and I have ever gone through together. We were severely challenged by some members of our community. Challenged is now how we choose to look at it, but I have to admit in the moments of these obstacles, we were broken, devastated, pained. It has only been through our lessons and sticking together that we have overcome.

Following the loss of Dave’s late wife to her addiction, he was met with extreme adversity. Many of his department members told stories of his trauma, twisted reality, turned his pain into drama. Dave was suicidal just months before she passed. He had put a date in his phone that he was planning to leave the home permanently with his children, if she continued to refuse to get help, and she died a week prior. He made mistakes in their marriage, he did not have the skills to communicate effectively, and he did not have support. Dave does not shy away from sharing this with our community.

Following the divorce of my first husband, many of my family and friends were skeptical of my decision. I made mistakes in my marriage, I did not have the skills to communicate effectively, and at times I did not feel like I had support. I do not shy away from sharing this with our community and my clients.

We use our mistakes as lessons. We've learned, we’ve grown, we developed skills and principles to follow in our marriage to keep us from repeating detrimental mistakes and to ensure the longevity of our partnership. And we are open and honest, because we believe our lessons have the power to help others. (OUR ETHOS.)

Unfortunately, the firefighter community has a knack for rumors. And every love story has an antagonist. After believing we had gotten through the hardest time of adversity the time following his wife’s death and my divorce, we were mistaken and met with a hard reality this year- the more people you help, the more people who know your name, the more haters you attract. We went through a period of time last Fall, where we were getting attacked from all angles. People we trusted, lied to us. People we were honest to, used our openness against us. People we supported, shamed us behind our backs. After many increasing blows to our souls, one department in particular, for which I will abstain from naming, let me pour my heart out in a Chiefs meeting with our story- our failures, our successes, and our passion, and our desire to support their members, and as soon as I left the room, they discussed the rumor about us they believed to be true. The Chief shared with his staff immediately following my exit, that I was Dave’s mistress, and that Dave and I colluded to kill his late wife. Just call us, Bonnie and Clyde.

I cannot quite put into words what it’s like for the tragedies of Dave’s past to be turned into lies for the entertainment of others. It’s sickening. I quickly approached this department with respect and dignity and shared our reality, and shared the detriment it causes us to experience such disappointing and hurtful interactions. I am not afraid of speaking my mind, particularly when it comes to our TRUTH, and particularly when it comes to the integrity of my husband.

The departments we work with, know our story, they know our failures, they hear our hearts, they SUPPORT our tragedies. We don’t live in fear. Chief Husley and Dave had a honest conversation one day about Dave’s past. Dave left that day with more acceptance of himself, more ability to be vulnerable, more clarity on our purpose. Because Chief did not fear our brokenness, he beheld it.

It’s difficult for me to not want to rage against this injustice. And. I won’t. I will write, and I will move forward, and Dave and I will love our people. And love them harder. Because this community has statistics rooting against them. To stay alive in their minds and in their bodies, is defying many of the odds. Divorce is twice as high as civilian couples, PTSI (post traumatic stress injury) is inevitable, and responder departments are 3 times more likely to experience suicide than a LODD (line of duty death). We don’t have time to worry about the dogs. BARK. You won’t stop us. Prove me wrong.

“You say — ‘It’s unfortunate that this has happened to me.’ No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by it — not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.” - Marcus Aurelius

6.) Being witnessed is the most beautiful thing in the world. Dave and I have literally given our time and lives to supporting others. We firmly believe it is part of our purpose in this world. We have spent most of our career timelines building fortitude around this mission and preparing ourselves to be sacrificed in the process. We witness. We sit in others’ traumas, pains, grief, losses, triumphs, hopes, stories, successes. The sharing of oneself with others opens up a space where there once was none. Through this newfound space, positive memories develop and resilience can be restored. Witnessing is a mechanism by which to HEAR. We remind our communities that none of us are alone.

This banquet night, was a moment for us in which we were truly and never before, SEEN. The helpers saw us helping. There is no greater sight than the recognition of our sacrifice and dedication, and for no ulterior motive other than to simply tell us they see us. I have never felt this way before. Thank you to our LaSalle family. Your eyes and hearts are our enterprise.

In encouragement of this transformative healing of witnessing, I am asking each of you readers to spread this like wildfire. Call, text, video chat, send a card, and witness 3 people in your life. Spread the love. Finish reading this post and go do it now. Don’t let the moment pass, each one is fleeting.

“Associate with people who are likely to improve you. Welcome those who you are capable of improving. The process is a mutual one: men learn as they teach.” - Seneca

Thank you to our tribe. Chief Bear Husley, Chief Zach Hill, Chief Jeremy Young, Chief Chris Edwards, Undersheriff Matt Brown, Retired Sheriff Rick Albers, Chief Nate Busick, Chief Chris Bondus, Chief Paul Ondr, Chief Dave Montessi, Chief Ron Cameron, Chief Andrew Lorenz, EMS Director Buffy Witt, for drinking our Koolaid with grace and tenacity. And to the badass and amazing team members they lead…our crews, you are our heroes, you are irreplaceable, and you have made Elevate and our mission what is today…you all FUCKING ROCK.

This is our love story. #loveyoudontdie

Listen to: "Can I kick it?" by A Tribe Called Quest

PS. Thank you for my gummy bears.

La Salle Fire Banquet. 3.09.2024

sideways

Before you read, listen to: Growing Sideways by Noah Kahan.

Depression is a bitch. I remember moving to Colorado and thinking to myself how excited I was to move to the mountains and the sun, believing that it would finally rid me of my cyclical depressive states forever. There was no looking back.

Except. Colorado didn’t cure me. The 365 days of sun didn’t cure me. Endless hikes and trail runs didn’t cure me. And when my first “dip” hit after moving here, I dipped so hard and plummeted so deep because of this tragic disappointment and let down to the inevitable realization that I was still me…and part of me was chemical imbalances, loss of brain grey matter, some faulty hormones and fucked up neurotransmitters. I couldn’t wish it away, I couldn’t believe it away, and I definitely couldn’t trick it away by moving half way across the country.

I remember listening to that song for the first time, and instantly feeling connected to it somewhere down deep in my soul. I told Dave right away that Noah was singing about depression, and without really understanding Dave shrugged it off with a general like for the song, and I thought to myself… you only really know it, or hear it, feel it, sing it… if you know it. It’s like being a part of a club with a secret language.

A difficult part of being in the club is that most people don’t speak the language, and quite frankly it is an unteachable one. Sometimes dips feel so incredibly lonely just because you can’t explain it to anyone. It’s not that you can’t ask for help, or that you don’t want others around, or that you are too depressed to even get out of bed… sometimes it’s just simply because the only cure you actually crave is for your loved ones to hear your language, a language they can never hear or be taught. It’s an incurable cure. I crave to explain something I can never vocalize, and I crave to feel cared for in a space that no one else can sit in with me unless they are a club member. And as comfy as it can be to chill in that space with another club member, it doesn’t fulfill our loneliness.

I think that’s part of the reason I became a therapist. It was an easy way out. I am surrounded by others pain, and so I feel less need to be painless. I am surrounded by others sadness, and so I feel less need to be happy. I am surrounded by others struggles, and so I feel more valid in my own. It is ALOT easier to heal the world through others than it is to heal yourself. And I’m really good at it. My job definitely requires me to be a functional depressive, and it really does allow me to take my pain and turn it into purpose, but at times it can be a distraction from my own tendencies and dips and my cycle has begun to mirror that of my community and circle.

When I’m dipping, my clients are dipping. When I’m dipping, my community is dipping. And this tumultuous cycle creates a tidal wave of disaster, that I can now see more clearly over the course of the years as my burn out trajectory. Shit hits the fan, all fucking at once. My shit has currently hit the fan, and right here is where I always wind up finding myself, typing away at an attempt to come to some formal conclusion about depression. I don’t have one.

Here’s what I know.

There isn’t a one size fits all. What’s symptomatic for one person, isn’t always for another. Depression doesn’t always mean you want to kill yourself, or that you are suicidal, but it typically means that you’ve at least thought about it before and at times, not being alive, can feel like a relieving solution to speaking a secret language that is impossible to teach. You may cry endlessly and feel trapped inside the corners of your bed, but most of the time it’s not so dramatic. It’s more like the universal feeling of the alarm going off in the morning and the tinge of dread that pings your body, but for us in dips, this feeling becomes gnawing and constant throughout the day like a dull pain in the back of your head and in the pit of your stomach. Sometimes it’s internal rage and instant mood shifts, like one minute you are laughing with your partner and they say something that is slightly cringeworthy or maybe a little wrong or judgmental (in your opinion), and instead of brushing it off like a normal human or like you would on a non-dip kind of day, you feel your entire body shake and shift into a downward spiral of self-pity and they notice your immediate change in demeanor, but you have zero idea how to explain how crappy you feel in the slightest change of a second. It’s repetition of personally joyful things or activities that start to feel ridiculously obligatory and survivalistic. It’s debilitating annoyance and resentment. It’s feeling completely broken inside all of your organs, but walking around WITHOUT ONE scratch on your body. It can be exhaustion and days and months of sickness and somatic pain. It’s looking in the mirror and seeing how you feel on the inside bleeding its way through your pores and your skin and creeping its way all over your face, but knowing that you look exactly the same as you do everyday to everyone else. Most importantly it’s extreme helplessness, it’s a feeling that you’re stuck like this forever and you may as well just unpack and settle in on this shitty-ass vacation. And so you continue working, and surviving, and parenting, and taking your kids to birthday parties and practices and drop-offs, and having dinner with your in-laws, and celebrating holidays, and cleaning your house, and laundry-ing, and paying bills, and cooking meals, and making everyone’s life that rely on you continue to move and grow and spin, all while feeling like you’re imprisoned on the world’s worst shittiest of vacations, suffering in silence and pretending it’s fine, because this language can’t be spoken.

The hardest part about depression can be when you try to speak the language and no one seems to hear you. When you confide in another and they respond dismissively because of discomfort, or they try to relate unrelate-ably, or when they just tell you to let it go or that things aren’t that bad. It’s in these moments that you realize who can hold space for you and who can’t. And as a therapist, my hardest struggle has been to find those that can truly hold this for me, because I am usually the one holding everything else for everyone else.

I am confident to say that I do have those people. Yet. I still protect them. I still only let them see the little crack in my brain, not the whole shitty vacation I’ve planned. I think it’s because I've gotten so burned in the past by letting others in and being so horribly and devastatingly disappointed by their inability to hold space with me, that I keep myself at an arms length distance even to my closest humans. And over these last few months this has become incredibly problematic for me, because by keeping them from seeing my full dip, yet desperately wanting them to be there in my full dip, I haven’t quite allowed them the opportunity, while still expecting it. I’m preparing myself for disappointment, and by preparing for it, I’m creating it.

To be fair to myself, it is astonishly difficult, as I feel like I have tried to articulate in this writing, to explain how depression feels and how bad it can get. This unteachable language can make us feel crazy, can make us uncommonly angry, and can make meaningful relationships feel conflictual and weary. It can make parenting and managing children feel like a complete nightmare, it can make optimal stress feel overwhelming and depleting, it can make obstacles seem like Mt. Everest, and it can make daily triggers feel like torture.

My least favorite thing about depression, is that for me, it very much resembles the plight of being a stepparent. Sometimes it feels like they are interchangeable, and I can’t tell if I’m in a dip, if I’m in a dip because of stepparenting, if stepparenting is my dip, or if I’m just having a bad day. Being a stepparent is one of the single most misunderstood, judged, double-standard, living crises that I have ever experienced. And I have to say, depression can feel exactly the same way.

So I boil down my stepparenting experience to the last years- learning to self advocate, to repeat my needs, to set my own boundaries, and to vocalize my empowerment. I guess that’s why I'm here then today, writing. To relate my lessons in stepmom life, to the journey of depression. I’m here to advocate. To make it uncomfortable to hear what it’s like to live with depression. For most of the world who just dip for just one day at a time, to hear what it might feel like for us living with consistent, agonizing and cyclical dips, and to feel uncomfortable in that realization. Discomfort is what teaches us, and maybe I can teach a few words of our unteachable language through discomfort.

I’m here to repeat my own struggle to myself, in order to recognize where I’m at and I need my people, and that it’s okay to need them. To begin resetting the boundaries that I let so quickly break down when my dips feel gone and I feel like I can tackle the world. To recognize I’m not superwoman, and to remind my loved ones that I’m not in fact, unbreakable.

And I’m here to empower my club members. There is life with depression. There are moments without. Stop driving on empty. There are a million things we can do when we recognize we are dipping, I promise you. I know them well and I practice them well. Sometimes shit gets away from me, and I spin into a tornado of my own dips and community dips and I plunge further into the depths to help others before I help myself. It doesn’t ever make it easier to do it that way and to avoid my own despair…

…It’s hard now. Or it’s hard later. Dig deep to find your center, because we, depressives, have a lot to teach this world.

the battle

2016, when my mom called me to tell me my dad died unexpectedly from a heart attack minutes before, wasn’t the hardest year of my life.

2009, when my support system forced me into a treatment facility for anorexia and I weighed 90 lbs, wasn’t the hardest year of my life.

2007, when I finally left a 7-year physically and mentally abusive relationship, true details of which only Dave really knows, wasn’t the hardest year of my life.

2019, when I divorced my husband and everybody thought I was making the wrong choice, and I lost almost all of my friends in the process, and eventually really lost them all after they slowly dropped off in 2020, wasn’t the hardest year of my life.

2020, COVID, losing income, losing sanity, while trying to coach others through their loses of sanity, quarantining with my brand new family and having zero idea what I was doing, wasn’t the hardest year of my life.

2022. Currently. Hardest year of my life.

I have a plethora of things in my life to be grateful for. A plethora. By no means am I lacking life experiences and privileges and joys. I think that’s the hardest part of all of this to accept… the fact that i’m in the most stable and abundant relationship of my entire life, the fact that my business makes me happy and I’m living my career in my most authentic way, the fact that our coaching practice is jumpstarting and I’m training people all over Colorado about being strong and vulnerable, the fact that we have an amazing camper and are traveling the states at least once a month all year round, the fact that I’m in the best physical shape and strongest shape of my life, makes me feel even crazier saying that I’m having the hardest time being alive than I ever have before.

Becoming a “mom” without any primal attachment to the humans you are momming, is the most absurd thing that exists on this planet. I’m not even kidding.

That’s not to say that I’m going to change my mind about momming, or that I would go back and tell myself not to do it, because Dave is the best thing I could ever imagine having in my life. But holy shit, this role is insane. And after 3 years, it hasn’t gotten easier, I’ve just gotten crazier, and it’s just gotten harder.

Now. I FIRMLY and WHOLEHEARTEDLY believe that challenge and discomfort is what makes us who we are. Therefore, this challenge that I’m up against is one that I believe will propel me into a more mature and aware version of myself, and for that I am already grateful for the experience. And. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve literally thought, that if I just died tragically, I wouldn’t have to deal with this excruciatingly helpless situation I find myself in everyday.

Disclaimer: I am not suicidal and I do not want to die. And it’s not something I’m making light of or joking about either. My reality is, that sometimes parenting these kids while trying to manage myself, find some joy in my days, and find myself again feels so impossible and so far from reach, and I feel so stuck, that I’ve imagined it ending. And the only way it would end, is if I died, because I will NEVER give up on Dave and our children.

That’s the truth. That is how incredibly hard it is to be a full-time, custodial stepparent to adolescent children who’ve lived and experienced tremendous trauma before you were a part of their lives. And whose trauma is not only devastatingly sad and floats around us at all times, but whose trauma has made it almost impossible for them to learn and incorporate how to be productively their age and consistently good humans. It’s not their fault. And it couldn’t be more exhausting and maddening.

My intention in blogging about this particular life circumstance that I’m living, isn’t a call for help. It isn’t a plea for pity, and it isn’t a ploy for popularity. I hate all of those things, especially asking for help. I’m writing this because I’m tired of my own thoughts going around and around in circles in my brain and I need resolve. In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger talks about the sharing of stories and trauma, and this sharing is an unburdening that allows us to feel connected and to gain mastery over our hardships. Not because there is a solution. There is just a simple release, and even a little camaraderie.

I’m writing this because the ONE thing I’ve learned about any of my struggles is that trudging through them allows me to potentially help others trudge through their own, not because I am wise, but because I am equal. Otherwise, what is the fucking purpose of all this? If I can help one person feel heard and understood, then I’VE MADE ONE PERSON FEEL HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD… and all I had to do is practice vulnerability and unload some of my own shit. It may not be directly and specifically related to any of your situations, but maybe I can touch one of you, by just digging into my soul a bit, regurgitating some of my demons, and showing you how imperfect, and messy my insides can be, and waving at you from across the room so your demons know they are in good company. I see you. Life is hard.

Being a stepparent is like stuffing a mirror in front of your deepest darkest demons. The ones you’ve thought you’ve overcome, the ones you thought had left you, the ones you thought you were stronger than, and the ones you didn’t even know existed. You are triggered in the most unnatural ways, you are picked, and prodded, and judged, and manipulated, and taken advantage of, and misunderstood, and double standard-ed, and held to ridiculous expectations, and then pressured and expected - on top of all of that -to love the children as a biological/birth parent would. It’s insanity. We do not have a primal connection, one that outshines choice, and the benefit of the doubt, and repetitive forgiveness, and doing our best. Primal ALWAYS wins, you can’t fake or learn or create the primal attachment. Birth parents spend years growing WITH their children. Learning the good and the bad, and the hard and the ugly. They transition with the transition. Stepparents are never afforded this luxury, this grace. Nobody says to a birth mom after complaining and struggling over the first year of newborn life, “Well you knew what you were getting in to! You signed up for this, didn’t ya?!!” We empower, and compliment, and lift up, and support, and help out our newborn moms, don’t we? But stepmoms, hell no. We’re not going to give props and support and encouragement to the ladies giving up their lives to help raise and parent another person’s children out of the love they have and the goodness of their hearts, instead we do the complete opposite. We tell them how mean they are, and how controlling they are, and how much better they should be at transitioning into PARENTHOOD, and we definitely don’t let them vent about how hard it is! Cause ya know… “they chose this!”

As a stepparent, you have no real say in the outcome of who the children are, or even will be, because for most of us stepping in, the child is at an age where their personality type and demeanor has already been formulated and locked in, and most of their behavioral issues stem from the family dynamic that you were never a part of. Their mess becomes your mess, whether you stay out of it, or whether you try your best to change the outcomes or not, their brokenness is now yours, no transition time for you or feelings considered…this mess, their mess, it lives inside your house, and it lives inside your marriage, and it lives inside your safety and your space, and inevitably it begins to live inside your heart. BUT all we ever hear is… “don’t try too hard Stepparent, and don’t care more than their birth parent does, Stepparent, BUT do love them just the same!!!!”. Pure insanity. And pure ridiculousness and an inconceivable expectation of us. The funny thing is, we allow this to happen for awhile. Because most stepparents are Type A’s, or fixers, or people pleasers, or helpers, or perfectionists, and we believe we can do it and it won’t begin to live inside our hearts because we believe we’ll either have changed it for the better, or we’ll have figured it all out by the time it starts to creep in. The truth is we don’t, we can’t, we won’t. And we ALL end up here. In this lonely land of insanity and resentment… and mostly helplessness.

There are a million things I’m learning now. Now that I’ve hit rock bottom, I’ve realized that I am not alone in the journey, that I didn’t do something wrong to get to this place, but more so that I just didn’t know. WE didn’t know. We weren’t given tools or taught how to navigate this island of insanity, because no one realizes they need tools and navigation until they find themselves shipwrecked. And sadly, the stereotypes and societal pressures that are placed on blended families and stepparents are woefully outdated and horribly misguided. But there ARE tools, there ARE people out there who are experts in this, there ARE support groups and podcasts about this crazy role we’ve found ourselves in. And there is our WHY’S… our partners. For me, that is always my guiding light.

While I would love to give some closure and lessons learned about this island I’m attempting to live on, I can’t. I’m in the weeds of it. And I have yet to cross the valley to the other side. It maybe a few years before I get there. But what I can tell you all is that we need to educate ourselves on the understanding of blended families. 40% of us are blended. It is becoming almost as prevalent as the nuclear family is, but we are not even close to operating, feeling, thinking, or functioning, as nuclear families do, yet we are pressured to do/be just that. Be normal. Be happy. Be “blended” but yet, be the same. WHAT?! There is NO education around what that looks like, what that means, and how to accept the hardships that come along with this collision of messes, the colliding of people over love. There is only reactive measures that take place. And a cultural shift begins with us educating each other on what this is like for those involved, and not educating through the lens of what a normal family looks like, with normal roles, and normal expectations. Treating my Team Freyta as a “normal” father, mother, daughter and son team is literally the worst thing you could ever do to us, and it’s what everyone does. We are learning to be okay with being unnormal, and unnuclear. Learn with us. We are 40 percent, yet we are living on that lonely island.

Everybody’s fighting a battle you don’t know about. I can’t tell you how many times Dave and I said that on-stage during our relationship retreat to the 50 couples we taught all weekend. My marriage to Dave is exceptional, I am honored to be his wife and we work our asses off everyday for each other and at our jobs so we can play harder and experience life together. But. Our lives are pretty fucking hard right now at home. We haven’t had a day together void of tears, or arguments, or exhaustion from endless hours of redirecting and over-parenting and endless discussion, for months now. Even our “honeymoon” was filled with hours of discussion about our blend, and our worries, and gut-wrenching fears. We are battling. A lot of us our battling. I get paid to help other people work through struggles. It’s literally my job, and many of you would say that makes me an expert in helping people through struggles. Yet, here I am, fighting through the hardest battle of my entire life, daydreaming about giving up because sometimes feeling helpless is just too much. Struggles don’t avoid us, and they don’t discriminate. They find us all, even the us whose job it is to teach the overcoming.

This season of ours is long and it is hard. But Dave and I know we aren’t alone. And we know that in times like this, there is an even greater call for us to practice what we preach… THERE IS NO GROWTH IN THE COMFORT ZONE. COMFORT MAKES US WEAK. DISCOMFORT IS WHERE WE FIND OUR STRENGTH. THERE IS PURPOSE IS PAIN.

So. Now that I’ve shared the pain with you all; I’ve unburdened myself of it; I’ve hopefully helped one person feel heard and seen and not alone; And I’ve advocated by encouraging those who don’t understand stepparents and blended families to educate themselves and to show us some respect... Now, I’ll invite the pain.

Bring on the battle, I’ve got my Team behind me.

The picture I posted is a photo of my tattoo that is a work in progress. Dumbledore refers to the Phoenix as a bird who can carry immensely heavy loads, and whose tears, heal. While my work as a therapist and my connection to my clients resembles this analogy, so does my personal life. My load is what I’ve shared, and my tears are these words. Thank you for hearing me.

“The pain is where faith is born… Are you alive yet?“ Listen to: CHANT by Macklemore Ft. Tones and I

PS. A thank you to my friends and clients who asked me how I was yesterday and when I wasn’t good, they listened. My clients and friends are literally the best humans in the world, and I’m so incredibly lucky. Your listening and care encouraged me to get this out. I would thank you by name, butttttt confidentiality and all. I can thank my BFF Brooke, what up girl! Love you all.

Stepparent Resources:

https://jamiescrimgeour.com/kickassstepmompodcast

Let’s Normalize the Real Stepmom Experience

Mary T. Kelly

NachoKids Academy

therapy PSA

I haven’t blogged in awhile because I’ve been overwhelmed. Which isn’t anything new, but everytime I thought about blogging I thought about the struggles I’m having, and I was feeling like a broken record in my posts. So I’ve been avoiding it to prevent repetition. It took me some time to remember that blogging has always been for myself to regurgitate, in order to refocus, and instead of trying to write for everyone else, I need to be okay with writing for me…

My client hours are so booked up lately that it’s March 6th and I don’t have an hour open to schedule until April 5th. That’s craziness. The world of self-healing is booming right now, which is super positive, but the amount of shit that people are dealing with has never felt as overwhelming for me as it has in the past few months. So. In an effort to appeal to the masses, while unleashing my overwhelm-ness, I’m going to write an advocacy piece for therapy. A therapy PSA if you will… for those in therapy to understand more about the behind the scenes, those who are thinking about starting therapy, those who aren’t in therapy but should be -because everyone should be-, and for those who love a therapist.

Who ever you are. Buckle up, let’s get wild (said no one ever about therapy :) ).

There’s a meme out there that a psychotherapist wrote, “Being a therapist is weird. Like what’s on the agenda today? A breakup? Suicidal ideation? A detailed recap of your mother’s inedible lasagna?” @psychotherapymemes. Gosh this is so true, we NEVER know what we are going to get, except in my office it is more like… A narcissistic partner who treats you like shit? The horrible plunge of loneliness after the traumatic death of a spouse? Running hangings and dead child calls? Walking through multiple rape memories? When your best friend got blown up by an IED? …with side bars of some normality, like daily doses of work stress, bullies, communication breakdowns, and body dysmorphia. This is my work day. No joke. Trauma, after trauma, after trauma. Even the normality of every-people problems feels traumatic to us, therapists. We are literally sitting in your shit with you, and every hour is an adventure.

Now. This is important to understand for many reasons. I’ll start with the perspective of a new client, searching for a therapist… My husband always talks about the importance of finding the right therapist when we go and meet with Peer Support teams in the fire service. He reminds them that it might take time and that it might not be the right fit at first. He is 100% correct. We therapists, are people, and we have our own individual way of interacting, engaging, and supporting you. I can’t tell you how many of my clients have started with me after leaving another therapist. That is okay, and that is normal. BUT. My advice and PSA to you, new therapy-ers, take time to research and understand the therapist you are going to give a try. Read their websites, find their specialities, understand their approach to working with you because the information is out there, and if you can’t find it, ask them. Here’s why… if you are planning to just talk at your therapist about your mom’s lasagna and they are solution-focused and trauma specialized, you are going to get a lot of redirections and body-solving techniques or some “I don’t give a fuck blank stares” because they are used to finding direction and guiding their clients to healing and purpose post-struggle. Or. If you are looking for a bond, a deep meaningful relationship with a therapist who can give constructive feedback and provide a safe environment, but choose a therapist who is behavioral or does mostly listening and encourages self processing, you are going to feel very alone in that room. Do your research, ask questions, not every therapist spills their shit upfront like I do, it will save both you and your prospective therapist time and a lot of wasted energy.

Our weird lives are also important to understand if you are a seasoned, newly seasoned, or just started therapy-er. Therapists care about you as a client. We care about your well-being, (If you’re one of my clients, I can safely say I actually have real love for you), AND you are not the only person on our schedule. It’s easy for us as humans, to unintentionally over estimate our existence. When you leave your hair dresser, you don’t think about the 10 other clients they do hair for that day. When you say goodbye to your kid in the morning, you forget that they will have hundreds of interactions with other children and adults that don’t include you, for the remainder of their day, until you pick them up again. That isn’t to negate your importance in others’ lives, and specifically in the lives of your therapist, but it is meant to help you understand that our time is energy, and we are juggling the energy and scheduling of multiples of humans with immense pain and struggle in their lives, while maintaining our own lives, and most likely running our own business that requires us to ya know, run a business. So if you get upset because we don’t have Tuesday at 5:30 PM open because at that specific time, YOU won’t have to miss work, or your yoga time, and it’s the only night you have free that week, and it’s Sunday night already and you’re just asking to schedule this… you can politely go pound sand and find another therapist who can, with all due respect :).

My clients mean the WORLD to me. Truly, the world. I love the hours I spend with them and their existence is of the upmost importance to me. AND, I have limited hours in the day to be at work. Understanding that your therapists are managing their own schedule, billing, invoices, insurance coverages and needs, payments, rent, office needs, clinical notes and filings, case management, completely outside of the direct clients hours we provide you all and only get paid for, will allow you to be flexible, positively assertive, and proactive when trying to schedule and plan your relationship with your therapist. Most of us have families, and other means of income outside clinical hours with clients, as well. We are masters of juggling, and our ability to bounce from one trauma to the next can wear us down. This is our job, we don’t need you to worry or not hold us accountable for what you are paying us for. We just need you to be inquisitive about your therapists’ availability, understanding about our capacity if you are asking for more than is a part of your session, and respectful of the time we can provide you.

If you have expectations about your time, scheduling, communicating outside sessions, goal setting, things you want to accomplish and see progress in, communicate them to your therapist, and allow there to be a conversation about whether they are realistic, and whether they can be met. Then you have the opportunity to respond and make a decision with the information you’ve been given. Every therapist comes with a caveat… some are quiet and let you do the work, some have tons of openings and work all PM hours but are $200 a session, some kick you out right at 10 til the hour no matter where you are in your processing because your clinical hour is up, some only do virtual… mine caveat is…err, are… my life is cray and so is my schedule, I’m chronically 5 min late to every appointment because I don’t kick people out, I book up months in advance, I will probably cry with you once, or twice, and I like to hug you when you leave.

We are people. This is a business. But the business is healing people’s emotions tied to their traumas and pain and stress, and thus our jobs are emotional. Which makes everything weird, and tricky, and not straight forward. This doesn’t mean therapy and therapists aren’t awesome. We know a ton of shit about the mind and how it works, and ways to face fears, and tackle pain, and communicate to others in healthy and effective words. Therapy is invaluable. I’m gonna tell you a secret about why it works… You talk outloud. That’s it. That’s the magic. You talk outloud, some of the thoughts you may have said in your mind a million times before, but this time you say it outloud to another human person that cannot repeat anything you’ve said to anyone, ever. So that means you get to say whatever the fuck you want, and someone else listens, HEARS you, validates you, without personal judgment, and even gets to give you some support around what to do about those thoughts. It’s magic because for the first time you hear yourself say them, and you own the words you say in that moment because they are now outloud floating in space, and then you find control and mastery over them because they have left your crazy mind and repetitive replaying. Sometimes you even come to your own conclusion for the simple fact that you have let words come out of you and heard them, and there are answers in them you never heard before because you’ve never said them so specifically. This is called externalization. And why you need a therapist in this simple process is because we hold that uncharted space for you, clinically, emotionally, supportively, to help you see yourself. We are trained in walking you through it. And trust me, I’m not talking about clients unveiling deep dark secrets and revelations here, I’m talking about simple daily stressors of life that keep us stuck because we are in cycles in our minds without the safe externalization of therapy that provides unbiased, thoughtful feedback.
Go to therapy. For all the non-therapy-ers. That’s all I got for you. Therapy is for everyone. Mom’s lasagna people and all. If you research, find a good therapist, invest in it, engage in it, your life will expand.

Invest in it.. that’s another PSA announcement. I understand that therapy isn’t cheap. And most great therapists, don’t take insurance because, truth: they pay us shit, and it’s a fucking PAIN IN THE ASS to bill and get paid timely and without a hitch. Guess what else isn’t cheap, your gym membership, your Starbucks every week, your iPhone, alcohol, going out, gas, not packing your lunch…. you get the point. Everything is a sacrifice. I don’t expect everyone to make unnecessary sacrifices to go to therapy, but investing in your mental wellbeing, which is controlled by the MOST IMPORTANT ORGAN/MUSCLE IN YOUR BODY, needs to be prioritized at times. There are many ways to afford therapy out there and therapy is for ALL socio-economic levels- use insurance, find a community mental health center, find therapists that take various methods of payment such as victims compensation, state-funded grants and supporter groups, ask about payment plans and sliding scales, ask to pay less for more sessions booked at a time, or try the good old fashioned way of self-budgeting. Costs for sessions vary all across the board but roughly average to about $120 a session (in Colorado). Understand that, before taking the dive and then make a financial plan for yourself. Therapists aren’t charging this to be mean or greedy. Therapists are charging this to keep their business running (remember all the unpaid hours and expenses I mentioned before?). Most have started in community mental health, and worked their way up to owning their own private practice to gain flexibility and lessen energy expenditure. Also, we aren’t rich. TRUST ME. 80% of you make more money than me, guaranteed. If you have concerns about pricing with your therapist, ask.

In Harry Potter, Dumbledore explains that phoenixes can carry immensely heavy loads and that their tears have healing powers. We are phoenixes. Not every therapist is a good one, just as in any profession, you will get the good with the bad. But to do our job, it requires us to have a servant’s heart and a tough mind. Our ability to help you heal comes from a place in us that was once broken. So if you love one of us, love with an open mind and an understanding heart. We were broken, are broken, will be broken, and our job reminds us of it everyday. Speaking for myself, that is why I love my clients because they unknowingly see the broken pieces of me and instead of running from them, they let my pieces share their space, and in carrying their loads my pieces are strengthened. And that is why I love my family, because they are my biggest cheerleaders of my biggest brokenness. They, unknowingly, are many topics of discussion in my sessions- in sharing failures and successes- and they allow me do this work, because it is a big piece of me they have to share so I can carry all the loads and heal all the wounds.

Thank you to the ones that love us. Thank you to the ones who invest in us and this work. Thank you to the ones in contemplation of coming to see us, for keeping this business alive and competitive…

“Doctors study medicine. Teacher study education. HEALERS STUDY DARKNESS.”

…And thank you to my fellow healers…this shit is hard. Keep fighting the fight. Plant the seed. Make the cracks for the light to get in. Recently, a social worker left our shared-case phone call with these words of encouragement for me, that I’ll leave with you now- “May the force be with you” :)

Hey V, thanks for making me blog. You’re a great friend, fellow encourager, and supporter to me and this business. This ones for you.

Listen to More Heart, Less Attack, by NEEDTOBREATHE

mac n cheese

Before you read…

This post may be triggering or difficult for some of you to read. If you are a biological mom or dad who has had great success in being a parent and an individual, or if you are a personal caregiver to my kiddos- who knows them and loves them… it may be hard to separate your feelings from mine.

I write when I am overwhelmed and overloaded, when I’ve tried all my coping and mindset shifts and asked for help and when those haven’t worked, when my bucket is so full the only thing left to do is let the water out… for me that is writing and regurgitating from my mind. I don’t plan on hiding any of my feelings or truths behind the life that I now lead as a full-time- 1/3rd of the time full-time single-parent, stepmom. It’s amazingly difficult. And that’s my reality. So this is me preparing you…

This post isn’t for you. This is for me… and for the other stepmoms, stepdads, fire spouses and burnt out adults and parents out there. It’s an anthem, a validation scream for my people. Because I need to let this water out to allow myself able to take in the good again.

Still, I highly encourage all the caregivers out there to read this for research purposes, for understanding, for a look inside your own self habits/thoughts and your understanding of the family system, or the way you may perpetuate the stigmas and stereotypes society places on us as step parents and first responder families. Hopefully it will allow you to re-evaluate… or to at least learn something new, and at the bare minimum to maybe care about something you don’t really know much about, for the 15 minutes or so it takes you to read this.

Macaroni and Cheese. There’s the box kind, and the homemade kind. Everybody enjoys macaroni and cheese, not much to argue there. But sitting down to a bowl of box brand vs. a homemade serving changes the macaroni eating game completely. Still gonna eat, still gonna have a level of enjoyment, but it’s simply not the same…

Being a step parent is a lot like box brand Mac n cheese. The noodle shapes and kinds are whatever the box gives you- sometimes it’s shells, sometimes it’s tubes, sometimes it’s cool dinosaurs and paw patrol characters, sometimes it’s 5 year old noodles that have been broken and begun flaking apart. It is the same with the powdered cheese flavors and consistency- you get what the box has in store- there’s no choice in it. You like white cheddar flavor with spirals? Too bad! Only thing left in the pantry is elbow macaroni, extra cheesy.

When you make the box you get to add some butter and some milk and you get to throw in some flare of your own if you’re so inclined, and sometimes that extra flare makes a bit of a difference, but even the slightest upgrade it can give your bowl doesn’t change the basic structure of the boxed ingredients you had to cook with. The process is short, and fast, and in 10 minutes you have a bowl. There’s like 3ish step directions, zero choices, you pour the water, it boils, you throw everything in the pot, stir it all together and it’s done. Not much chance to give it cooking love, or have a say in the 3 step process, if you fuck it up- you got overdone noodles or little burnt sticky cheese volcano puff balls. You do it. And Eat it. And everyone’s suppose to love Mac n Cheese right?

It’s a whole hell of a lot different than cooking your own homemade, scratch Mac. When you go to the store you get to prep for it, look up recipes, find the best noodles, your favorite cheese, maybe get some Kerrygold butter, add some bacon or some fancy gouda. You make up the rules… sure you know the simple basics of noodle and cheese making, but you get to do it however the hell you want. And most importantly, you get to CHOOSE. You get to own the choices, you get to cultivate the process, you get to give life to the kitchen and develop your Mac making process as you go. Mess up this time? Try again, make more cheese sauce, add some more flavor, cook some bacon, boil more noodles. Learn as you go. And when you are finally ready to sit down and eat it, it doesn’t even really matter how it actually tastes because YOU MADE IT, and you have pride in the process- its failure and successes. And that shit it yours- from start to finish. And you have the next years of your life to try cooking it and perfecting it some more.

Sure. If you want Mac n Cheese, its always your CHOICE to EAT Mac n Cheese. But if it’s a lifetime of boxed Mac, that’s truly the only choice you get to make in it. You make it or you don’t.

I’m not sure if you all can follow this analogy, but it’s actually quite spot on. Being a mother to children, grown human children 12 and 7, who have been noodles without you for basically their entire life, is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I love homemade Mac… my mom used to make it for me all the time when I was younger. Unfortunately there is nothing homemade about being a stepmom.

I’m trying. I wake up everyday hoping for a homemade bowl, and for the reality to somehow dis-exist.

I can’t tell you how many times I've heard the “Ohhh yeah I bet its hard for you. BUT, its your CHOICE to do this and be their mom.” Nothing actually infuriates me more than when people tell me this was my choice. Remind me though… when was it my “choice” to have children with the man that I love? Nope. Never. Not my choice. I can understand that it was my choice to marry Dave and to be in the family, 100% that is true. BUT what people fail to consider is that it is not a choice, but a sacrifice to make. If I “choose” to walk away from the love of my life, the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I don’t want to raise his children with him, that is a choice I have to make, but where are the options in that? Could you truly say that you would turn your back on love so special, so empowering to your being and your soul and that is simply a choice? I am not willing to sacrifice that. So sure, I chose Dave. But I did not choose his children, they are a requirement. A sacrifice.

Nobody gets to turn Kraft Mac n cheese into Paula Deans.

Now. Please don’t misread me. I am giving you reality, but I am not suggesting that I do not love my kids and that I am an evil stepmother. I am simply sharing the truth with readers, a truth that many humans never hear about because stepparents are too fricken scared to say it and because they have no platform to. We live isolated lives for a long period of adjustment time. A LONG ONE. Statistics show it takes blended families and stepparents at least six years to find a groove. And most of those years they are facing double standards and judgment. Not only from the outside, from extended family, but even unintentionally from the vary family members they are “choosing” to love and sacrifice their lives for. It’s pretty insane.

There’s no real need to go deep into my story, since most of you know it, but the sparks note version- my kids’ mother past away from addiction a few years ago and thus, the house I became a parent in has suffered extensive grief, loss, trauma, and pain. The boxed Mac that I was given was hidden in the back corner of the cupboard, the noodles were broken, flaky, the cheese was clumpy, and it was old as hell. Yet, I was enticed by the box’s aesthetics. My Freyta’s B.S. or “Before Sammy” as they like to call it, were indeed, a hurting box of Mac. But to describe my kids and husband’s resilience and grit is like imagining a mixture of the Energizer Bunny and Yoda. If the box’s logo was the Energizer Bunny and it’s brand name was Yoda, could you pass that box up on a shelf? I couldn’t. And now, I will sacrifice cooking and eating Yoda Bunny’s forever because I fell in love and I am proud of the kitchen we cook in.

Our kitchen is kind of crazy too. Not only am I now, overnight boxed Mac n cheese making stepmom with no ability to cultivate the process of being a homemade parent, I’m also single parenting them for 48 hours (2 days) at a time, every 4 days of my life. Dave is gone for 48 hour shifts for work. Leaving me, just mom, of children I didn’t birth or raise, 35% of the time. It’s so hard. I love the kids and I am raising the kids because that is what it takes to be Dave’s partner. I’ve learned to love them, and I parent the shit of out them, again don’t get me wrong… I’m a hard working mom, I work my ass off to better their lives… but I don’t love doing it. I love Dave, and I love them because they are Dave’s, but it wasn’t a choice I made. It was a sacrifice. And so, the four days in between Dave’s work sets, I typically feel comfortable in our family. I enjoy being a parent with Dave. BUT. I have yet to enjoy being a parent without him. And I’m pretty sure it’s because it’s like trying to LOVE a boxed mac n cheese that you didn’t even get to choose from the store.

What I still haven’t figured out is how to feel heard in the endless mindfuck it takes to be a stepparent and how to heal myself in those times I feel so lost and so angry I don’t know what to do with my body. I feel as though I have tried it all- I have 2 therapists, I have a husband who supports me, a best friend I can tell anything to, a family who loves me, I workout everyday, I take care of myself body, yoga, sleep routines, clients who I love, a stepmom group I can go to, tons of reading and literature on this lonely plight, and still I go through frequent dips of helplessness, rage, and sadness. None of which will change my mind on being a part of this team, but all of which I hate and suffer from. And maybe there isn’t a fix, and maybe it’s simply practicing patience and acceptance of the 6ish years of transition I’m in. But holy shit does that suck.

And herein lies my lesson in the midst of the waves of self pity I’ve had, along with the triumphant moments of parent victories I’ve had— such as advocating for Taryn and WINNING!! with her principal and health teacher, and hearing from their teachers that they would have never known what the kids have been through because of how well they show up now due to the hardwork we’ve put in with them, and when Marek tells me I’m the best mom he could ever ask for— that all moms must feel an extent of what I do. ALL moms must have moments of rage and resentment and despair. And if I feel that with children who aren’t mine which can make some logical sense, but if they do with their own despite their homemade Mac process, then how alone they must feel at times too?

In the same way that I’m given the double standard that I can’t feel moments of irrational hatred towards our little monsters because I’m a stepparent and that’s so mean to feel (even though WE stepparents gave up our lives for them DESPITE not having a primal connection), but bio parents are allowed to get mad and annoyed … there’s also a double standard that bio moms shouldn’t ask for as much time away from their kids as stepparents because it was their choice to have them. They chose homemade.

I was instagramming with an old friend a few days ago. She posted a picture of her two super mini kiddos and her hanging out solo for a few days while her husband was gone on a work trip. I reacted with a shocked faced emoji, feeling the instant pit in my stomach I feel every time Dave leaves for work in the morning before his shifts. Her response actually caught me off guard. She said “I don’t know how single moms do it. You’ve been single momming a lot too! It’s a lot!”. And holy shit those simple words made me feel SO seen and SO heard. That’s one of the first times someone outside this looked in and saw my struggle- without judgment, without reminding me it was my “choice”, with just simple acknowledgement that I don’t even get from Dave’s family. I was blown away.

She went on further to tell me that being a mom is hard no matter what shape or form the title comes in, and that she was there if I needed anything and she reminded me that I was doing my best. It honestly makes me cry just even typing it out again.

In many of my posts, I ask for people to stop judging, to stop living in their microcosms and echo chambers of the things they only know because they understand them, and the things they judge because they don’t. For awhile, I’ve felt pretty alone in my stepmom-ing world, but maybe it’s because I’m not surrounding myself with the right people. Or. Let me rephrase, maybe it’s because I’m putting expectation into people that I feel like need to understand my struggle, but who never really will or will never try to, instead of absorbing the energy of others who will, and finding solace in that. Instead of feeling alone because I cannot change the reality of a few, I will change my expectation and accept that they will continue to let me down if I believe otherwise. Redirect my energy- stopping filling sand into a bucket with holes.

People are going to continue to judge me. People are going to continue to hold me to higher and double standards. Because people will NEVER understand what this is like for me. There will be some who will understand what it means to be a stepparent. But they won’t understand what it means to be a full-time stepparent. There will be some who will understand what it means to be a full-time stepparent. But they won’t understand what its like to be a single stepparent for more than a quarter of the time. There will be some who will understand what its like to be a fire spouse, but they won’t understand what it’s like to be a trauma therapist. There will be someone who will understand what it’s like to be a mom and a trauma therapist. But they won’t know what it’s like to run their own business. There will be some who will understand what it’s like to be a trauma therapist and mom, running their own private practice, but they won’t know what its like to have trauma kids at home, and to be a fire spouse, a stepparent, full-time of the time. I have yet to find that other human on this Earth who knows all of those at once.

So it may just be me for now, on this weird ass island of my own… but when I need a fire spouse pick me up- I know where to direct my energy, and when I need a stepparent perspective I know where to direct my attention, and when I need a single parent lift me up I know where I can reach out… instead of always trying to explain my moments of rage and breakdown to people I FEEL I should and I FEEL need to hear me. I need to do better with my output of energy and stop letting people let me down. I know I’m doing my best. I know this shit is the hardest. I don’t need to prove that to anyone.

I’m good with having a tribe of people, a tribe of moms, a tribe of stepparents, a tribe of first responder families… because at the end of the day, and in my moments of utter insanity, you get me, you are ALL my people.

Can we please just stick together? Be empowering? Be good listeners? Be honest? Be humble in our pursuit of learning more? We all need help. Help out. Sometimes, just like me, all the help we need is people to hear us, to see us. To listen.

To ALL my parents out there, to ALL my shift workers out there, To ALL my boxed mac n cheese eaters, I SEE YOU.

Listen to “Damn It Feels Good to Be Me”, by Andy Grammar.

PS. My kids are the best things that ever happened to me. And Dave is my favorite person in the whole world. Thank you 3, for loving me. #teamfreyta for life.

vacation.

People don't understand things sometimes. That's normal. But when people don't understand and they feel either threatened or insecure because of it, they tend to judge. Judgment is like a defense mechanism. It's a lot easier to judge something, then to go introspective and try to understand where you are being triggered internally. 

I HATE judgment. Maybe because it’s my job not to judge and to live intimately in many people's weird ass bubbles, but also...what does judgment give you except for negative thoughts/emotions and self deprecation? 

We all judge.  Parenting styles, the way people drive, others houses or cars, fitness standards, the list goes on. No one is exempt from this terrible part of human nature. BUT, we can learn that we do it, understand our own triggers that enlighten us to self defined shortcomings, and understand that those triggers are telling us we may want to do better or want to be better. Then we can practice RESPONDING, instead of reacting with judgment, and maybe even implement things in our life to change internally. And if at times, the judgments we make or verbalize aren't really about our own areas of adjustment, then we can learn to shut the hell up and let people live their lives. With all due respect.

I’m guilty. 

Before I became an overnight mom, I judged the parent life. Not always in a negative way, I had preconceived notions of what I thought it was like or how to raise a child. Most of my thoughts about how to raise kids, pre-children, has influenced how we raise our kids now, but I think where I failed in understanding is the capacity, or lack there of capacity, moms and dads have for things outside of their family, and in conflict with that, how necessary it is to make time for themselves as it’s detrimentally imperative to their survival… or at least for us it is. Our individuality as Sammy and as Dave, and as a couple, is IMPERATIVE to our happiness. And thus we have parented so hard in the last couple years to teach our kids self-sufficiency and resilience so that we CAN have that time. How we live this ideal is by explaining to them that we all need refueling time to recharge our batteries in order to show up best FOR EACHOTHER and our mini team.

So. Now, I practice not judging other moms or families and where they are in their processes, and instead reflect in gratitude for the partner I have and the hard work we’ve done to facilitate growth in our family. What works for us, works for us. And that's it. I turn my judgment into gratitude that we've gotten our kids to function on technology/screens for only 30 minutes a day without fighting us or asking for more, for how ridiculously hard we work in order to schedule needed time off in the mountains and nature to refuel every couple months, for getting our house in order so that we can prioritize trail runs alone and date nights to reconnect, for our repetitive communication with them on how to be good people and show up for each other and their community so that we can go on adventures and thrive in chaos like: flat tires in the middle of nowhere, missed/delayed/cancelled flights, poopy pants in public, snowed in campers, blown transmissions, frozen pipes, driving the 28 foot toy hauler down narrow ass canyon roads and insanely small hilly streets in Cali, and not to mention surviving the story of our last two years- addiction, deaths, so many deaths, trauma, healing, motherhood, the tremendousness of our work traumas, and, COVID.

Our life is pretty strange. And many people don't understand it. And over the last few years I've had to learn not to get upset that people don't understand, but to understand that they don't understand, and in times when I really need help or understanding, to explain.

Explanation is in my control and I can either chose to be resentful or irritated because they don’t understand or I can choose to explain as best I can, and accept their help and their perspective. 

So in an effort to explain, I’ll start at the top… 

Dave is a firefighter. That means he spends most of his shifts running various type of calls- medical calls (DOA, cardiac arrests, strokes, diabetic issues, syncope, falls, broken bones, etc.), motor vehicle accidents, fires, water rescues, hazmat calls, behavioral calls (domestic violence, abuse, overdoses, suicide, suicide attempts, violence, psychosis, etc.), all still while maintaining physical fitness standards as well as daily training (EMS, pulling hose lines, pumping, forceable entry, throwing ladders, etc.). Dave's department works on a 48 hour shit schedule. This means he leaves for work and is gone from home for 48 hours at a time. He does this 48 hour shift, then has four days off and repeats. 

For example, a typical week looks like this.... Dave gets up at 5 am Monday and leaves the house for work. He returns home around 8:00 am on Wednesday morning. He is home until Sunday morning at 5 am, leaves until Tuesday at 8 am. This not only leaves him discombobulated at the variant of his life and schedule, constantly transitioning from 100% work to 100% home, but also leaves me a single parent 1/3 of the time, and requires us to follow a schedule that shifts every week... meaning the days he works each week are inconsistent. 

Now. This particular schedule gives Dave flexibility to spend his four days at home, which is wonderful. But. In those four days we are typically cramming in everything we need to get done, groceries, all the house and car things, family time, appointments, kids appointments, activities, vacations, because he does not get to change his schedule at all. And because he’s gone, away, gone all together, all 48 hours at a time.

For our family, we are also juggling my business. I do my very best to get as much accomplished in the late PM hours when the children are in bed on his 48, like clean the entire house because we have 3 dogs, 2 kids and 2 chickens, the laundry, preparing for our 4 day depending on if we are doing things or honkering down at home, while working and running my company, and taking care of the kids and normal kid life stuff. 

Then, there are the logistics of my schedule. The amazingness of running my own business means I get to set my own work hours. This is pretty great, AND it's also a crap shoot. My life is run by the calendar. In order to be able to sustain a relationship with Dave, I have to make sure that at least one of those 4 days we have time together, meaning I'm not working and we can have a "weekend". That also means I have to plan 6 months ahead, going into the calendar, adding Dave's work days then figuring out 3/4 days I can work each week, scheduling those hours around school, pick up, child care, time off if we want to go somewhere and THEN figuring out if the kids are not in school and I'm working, who can help us with them during the day while I see clients. So. I've become a pro at Tetrus'ing our ridiculous ass schedule to make sure everyone is taken care of, I have a relationship with Dave, and my clients are supported.

Then. There is the reality of OUR JOBS. We inhale an exhorbanant amount of trauma. Dave sees and responds to trauma- all kinds, to the point where his brain is permanently damaged by the intake of trauma and living in hyperactivity. Thus, he has to actively dump the memories, process, and take care of his mind in order to just live in homeostasis like the rest of the world. That means therapy, processing with me, lots of outlets and physical exercise, yoga, reading, intentional sleeping habits, healthy eating, and having an active and supportive social community, his tribe. That is simply survival for him. If he doesn’t do those things he becomes a statistic- firefighters are more likely to commit suicide than die on duty, they are 5 times more likely to have PTSD than the general public, and they are almost twice as likely to get divorce.

I hear and absorb trauma- all kinds. I feel and care so deeply for the lives that enter my office that my self care is CONSTANTLY a work in progress, tweaking, adding, reacting, everyday to do better or to pick myself up when I get lost down the dark hallway of pain. The one thing I need consistently and cannot NOT prioritize is exercise. I run. I run the crap out of the pain I inhale. And I have to. So that means trying to make sure I get that time in everyday in order to function. 

There is also the juggling of my clients schedules, and because of the nature of the world right now and how much support people need, there just simply isn’t enough time in the day for me to schedule and maintain a healthy and strong relationship with my family and give my clients the ideal hours they need. So its a CONSTANT battle, with a lot of upfront and preparatory communication and emails.

All the other business owners out there will understand that many of my "work " hours are not clients hours. They are emailing, texting, scheduling, calendar work, billing, billing insurance, billing companies and payees, paperwork, note taking, case management, credentialing, continuing education, supply shopping, invoicing, blah blah blah blah blah.  Those hours go unseen, and sometimes un-prioritized for me because my kids hate when I do paperwork at home and require family time... so I find myself doing this at midnight on the 48's when I finished everything else, or when Dave is driving us somewhere on our "weekends"- computer in my lap, in between dishing out snacks, helping Marek pee into a water bottle so we don't have to stop, helping my amazing driver navigate and attempting to still be a somewhat decent copilot, listening to stories about Dog Man books and the one time Taryn heard about this one thing this one day, one hour, one time at school. 

This is our life. It's beautifully chaotic and we love each other more for the sacrifices we make to keep our ship afloat. BUT. People really don’t know about it and people don't really understand, so it becomes difficult to explain to others why we don't have a free day to plan something with them until 2 months from now, or when a grandparent is disappointed because they waited until the night before to ask to take the kid somewhere and doesn't understand why we can't work around that, or when friends just wanna meet us for a quick dinner sometime in and around Taryn's therapy, Marek's friends birthday party, their dentist appointments, my phone call with Blackhawk Fire, and Dave figuring out when to pick up the part he needs for the truck because it needs to get fixed before he goes on shift tomorrow and we leave for a couple days camping the minute he walks in the door at 8 am which is the next time he'll be home.  

AND.

It becomes frustrating, and where I have to check myself, when others start to question how much "time" we do have to go on adventures. We hear alot of "you guys take so many vacations, it must be nice!", or, "you guys are always doing things!...do you still have your practice Sammy?", and, "you guys sure have a lot of nice toys...", and, “you guys run so much that’s crazy”, or “just relax! Don’t be so uptight!”… that’s my favorite one… and finally, “you discipline your kids a lot ”, or “you are strict/hard on them.”

All feeling very judgy for us. It can feel as if people think we just are out spending money and taking time off because our lives must be so easy and so we should just relax and not be so regimented.

Whether that's the intent or not, it's difficult for us to swallow those comments because it feels misunderstood. 

TRUTH. We live in a very modest home with one full bathroom for four of us, a mini kitchen where only one of us at can be in a time, with one shared room that our new couch didn't fit in so we had to return a piece of it because it was too big. 

We don't spend our money on things, we spend it on experiences or ways to have experiences. We bought a camper, a used truck, two paddle boards, a used side-by-side (basically an off road 4 wheeler) all during COVID and have spent the last year traveling the West utilizing those purchases up to the max. 

We work our asses off, as helpers, to make a fair living in order to stay in our house and to go on adventures. I work the minimum of hours being a therapist, training fire departments in mental health resiliency and running my business, so that I can fulfill my purpose as an advocate while being able to help pay our bills, cover my business expenses, and have time to be a mom, a partner, and to stay healthy in my mind. 

We’re regimented because we have to be in order to live a life where we get to “play”. We workout and run everyday because if we don’t, for the reasons I’ve laid out, we’d lose our minds. Dave got me a cup for Christmas that says, “Running. Because murder is frowned upon.”

The judgement call on our parenting style drives me crazy. We have rules and discipline to keep our children humble, kind and stable. Our children experienced one of the worst traumas a child can withstand and therefore they need to feel safe in order to develop a secure identity. That requires consistently and stability. 

Yes. We have time limits on screen time and tv time, and they do chores to earn money and help take care of our home, and lying, talking back, and throwing tantrums instead of sharing their emotions warrant consequences in our house. So call us strict if you’d like, but we have in depth conversations about our feelings daily with them, cuddle non stop, have watched them show up for other kids by talking them through bad days and big problems, we let our 11 year old drive the side-by-side on trail roads and taught her how, let our 7 year old run around the land of the campsite with just a walkie talkie for hours on end, and our favorite family song is Rose Tattoo (listen here) by Dropkick Murphy’s. Not a day goes by that the kids don’t tell us how much they love us. Strict, fine. I call that something different. My word would be love.

Our sanity, and our ability to GIVE the way we do to each other, our kids, and to our patients requires us to take these adventures and live this way. Our family refuels this way. We play hard because we work hard and give everything to our roles. The one piece of advice I received from a supervisor as a brand new therapist, knowing and understanding my passion for giving and giving more than I typically have to give, was... You can't pour out from an empty fountain. If your fountain doesn't have a water source, you will eventually have no water left to give. 

I used to feel bad saying no. I used to feel bad taking "days off". I used to feel bad setting boundaries with family and friends. I used to feel bad telling clients my first opening is in two weeks because I'm so busy. I used to add hours as needed or spend the days before "days off" working extra to make up for it. 

Now I know, that my team is really the only thing that matters. We need time, away, together, adventuring, exploring, relaxing, belting out our favorite songs and screaming extra loud at the profanity parts out our side-by-side roaring up the mountain. And if I don't get that time with them and for us, then I'm no good as a partner, and a mom, and therefore no good as a business owner and most importantly as a therapist. And for you all. 

A lot of people ask me how I manage to care so much and stay healthy.... That is how. I can't be good for you all, unless I'm good for me and my team.

So. If you don’t understand, and find that you feel this way about others in your life in whatever capacity, I’m begging you to try to listen to them, to better understand them, and if you don’t understand, to CARE. Something that we practice in our house is saying I CARE instead of I understand. Because here’s the thing, Dave will NEVER understand what it is like to be a fire spouse, single parent, single parent of two kids you didn’t give birth to and just started raising, run a business and be a trauma therapist. And I can’t expect him to…BUT HE CARES. Just the same as I will never really understand what its like to be gone 1/3 of the time from home and to manage the damage to his brain as a sacrifice for doing what the loves. But I care.

Stop judging, correcting, making comments, giving unwarranted advice or patronizing. Care about them, care about each other. And if you still can’t understand or try to understand, then look inward and figure out why you have such a hard time getting behind something that’s different than the way you live your own life.

Everyone's life is different. We all have different struggles and different ways of reacting to them or overcoming them. But in the essence of them being different, let us learn to be inquisitive and not assuming. Let us learn to be confused and not challenging. Let us learn to be thoughtful and empowering and not spiteful. Let us learn to be self-reflective and motivated and not jealous. And let us learn to be internally grateful and not judgmental. Let's ask first. Share first. Listen first. And let other's lives inspire us OR remind us that what we have is also important to protect and nurture. That is what makes the world go round, understanding. Understanding leads to acceptance, leads to self awareness, leads to growth…then, that leads you to uncovering your own path, your own adventures, and if everyone could practice this, the world could thrive. "The love of one another is the only thing real"- Trevor Hall

"Risk happy... Do Epic Shit"- Team Freyta

Listen to, Vacation by the Dirty Heads.

Mask by Taryn

My beautiful and resilient stepdaughter had a moment of clarity this weekend, when our friends asked her to share how she survived such a difficult time in her life. I think it was in this moment she realized that there was purpose to her pain and that sharing with someone brings her strength full circle. She truly SAW herself.

That night she told me she wanted to write a blog post and asked if I could share on my website… She’s amazing. Here are her words…

You know that feeling when everything is crashing down… You feel weak like you're worthless and Nobody cares about you. My experience with that feeling is well known. This is my story of surviving an Alcoholic.

Imagine a small 7-year-old girl. Long brown hair, glasses, two front teeth are missing. And helpless. Has a little brother that's 2 years old. Has 2 main friends and has scars from what happened to her mother.

When my brother was born I was happy (even though I asked for a sister). My mother drank on special occasions but not every day. My Dad would go to work and save lives, but like every superhero, it's hard to save his family. 

After a few months of my brother's hatch day, my mother started to drink more often. But how would I know I was only a 7 year old.. I loved my mother dearly, but she and my father fought when he was home. My dad was working over time to avoid being home, but more because of financial struggles. My mother talked bad about my father's side of the family to me, but I didn't know or care so I just went on my jolly way. 

Soon my mother started to smoke and drink more. But nothing physical yet. Around that time she started to get very angry quickly. She called me dumb and fat to my face. I didn't say anything to my dad or grandparents because she said that “everyone's family was like this” and “this is our special secret”. Shortly after she started to get physical with me, not my brother. Why? Because I was his shield, I never let anything happen to him or my dogs. My brother is now 6 and doesn't remember anything, but I'm happy he doesn't remember the terrible things that happened to his older sister. I hid my scars and bruises from everyone because I thought that everyone else hid theirs too. It was like this until the summer, when she was so weak that she couldn’t hurt me. Instead, she made me make and give her drinks. I’ll never forget the day my dad gave me the news that my she had passed away from a kidney failure. I was sad but It felt like a weight was lifted. Shortly after that, we all fell in love with Sammy.

How I got here today was by opening up to her. She understood being in chains. She was the first one I told about the pain and anger. People make bad choices sometimes and it hurts you, and you can love them still. And sometimes you have to understand that both feelings can exist. The bad things that happened to me, gave me a chance to understand other people and what it could be like to live in their shoes. I learned that even though people can make mistakes and life can change, you can still choose to live a good life and not live in the shadows, and I’ve learned I can still trust people and love them. Once I finally talked about my heartbreak and anger, I became stronger than it.

I know that everytime Sammy does a Blog post she recommends a song! And when I wrote this I knew that the song 'Heart of Stone', By SIX The Musical cast was a perfect song. It talks about the confusion in a relationship and how you can stay strong during that period of time. If you are feeling like you're being mentally or physically abused by someone, talk to someone you know and trust, so that it can be stopped. Then your pain can become purpose.

PS. Sorry that I sound so much like Sammy, it’s a whole thing in our house now. ;)

full speed ahead

I was stranded in Istanbul, Turkey for almost 3 days alone, and then for another 2 days in Cairo in 2017, during a year of political and social unrest in both countries. In Cairo, they tried to take my passport at the airport, would not allow me to pay for an excursion to see the pyramids for safety reasons because I was white and female, and in Istanbul I roamed the airport endlessly for 2 days straight without anyone to talk to and with very little WIFI ability to communicate with my support team.

At the time I was definitely not in my emotions, I was in survival mode. Once I finally got a hotel room in Istanbul for a night after waiting hours and hours for flight updates just to be cancelled across the board, I got inside my room, and immediately shoved the bench, two chairs and my suitcase against the door and stuffed one of the chairs underneath the door handle. I didn’t remember I did this until I was reliving my experience with a friend after I had gotten home. My final destination was Uganda for a humanitarian trip to support women and children in Amor Village with therapy and community art making.

There was an uncharacteristic “blizzard” in January 2017 in Turkey, although minor by most blizzard standards, it had basically caused the entire airport to shut down and left thousands of people stranded in the airport for a week, as the country was completely unprepared. I remember roaming the airport for hours because I couldn't sit long enough in one place before I had to get up and pee or get food, and would lose my spot to relax since I had no traveling companions with me to keep dibs. There was a huge window in one of the many wings of the long ass halls of the Istanbul airport that I’d pass a few times a day on my walks, and there was a parking lot outside this window. There, a group of cars left stranded, with one in particular that stood out to me… a cop car with it’s lights blinking on and on and on under the “blanket of snow”. The lights continued flashing until the day I finally hopped on a 1:00 am flight detour, one of the first flights to leave from the blizzard, a lucky strike I got to get out of there, to Cairo, then to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and then finally to my destination of Uganda.

That was quite an adventure. I didn’t realize how scary it had been until retelling my story. How scary it was being alone in a sea of humans in Istanbul, and hailing taxis back and forth from my hotel on my own, how once we arrived in Cairo and they put me up in a hotel because my layover was longer than 4 hours and they don’t allow people to stay in the airport over 3 hours for safety reasons, how the shuttle to the hotel was bomb checked as we drove up to the gate, or when a group of men in the middle of the night screamed and yelled at us as the shuttle passed them on a highway exit street corner, or the government’s attempt to keep my passport at the airport until I continuously refused and told them I would pay for a visa, or realizing the gravity of the situation when the hotel concierge told me he wouldn't recommend booking an excursion to the pyramids in a calm and quivering tone he said to me, “It’s not safe ma’am. My recommendation is to not leave this hotel at all if you are traveling alone”, or the simple fact that I had traveled through 2 two different continents on my own and in countries where it was not safe for foreigners and much less women.

The point is, I didn’t realize the difficulty of the situation in the moment, because as I said I was just surviving. And I guess I never realized I could do something like that until after I did it. And that lesson is something that I’ve relearned this last year of shit in 2020. My capability as a human far outweighs the capability I think I possess. When we are called to action, when we are resilient and we don’t give up, we rise to the occasion. This experience, just like this year, has taught me gratitude, or moreso the ability to practice gratitude in the moment, and not just in hindsight. It’s easy for me now, to be thankful for the experience and the strength it has given me, and to look back on this year and be amazed and how we survived, but maybe in the moments I was frustrated or annoyed or I thought the thought that we all have sometimes, if one more thing goes wrong I’m gonna lose it, I’m not gonna make it, I’m gonna break down, I’m gonna explode… but then, one more thing does go wrong, and we don’t. We survive. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl

It’s like when you are in elementary/grade school and school starts getting harder or maybe you get some homework here and there and then you complain about it, or don’t like it and wish for no more. Then you get to middle school, and there’s homework every week and sometimes everyday and you say, ugh this is too much I can’t do it all, I have soccer twice a week too or student council meetings and projects (yes, I was a nerd) and I don’t have enough time to do it all. But you do. Then you get to highschool and your grades rely solely on yourself and your ability to keep up with the daily homework and accountability, and you are in sports or activities and have a social life, and you get up early for morning meetings and stay after school for basketball practice and you get home and scarf down dinner at 6:30, and then write your papers til bedtime, just to get up and do it all over again. And then it’s college, and all that time management and discipline taught you to succeed on your own and not only live alone but to be an adult, take 18 credit hours a semester to double major, write essays, thesis’, term papers, work a part time job, to find a job and life that suits you and your future…. and then you think to yourself while you’re sitting in the crowd at your college graduation, “ha, member when I thought middle school and soccer practice was hard?!”

In reflection, that’s how 2020 has felt for me. I’m in college, and a year ago I was in grade school. I never knew I could juggle all the things that I’m juggling until one ball dropped and I realized that that ONE ball used to be the ONLY ball I juggled, or I guess.. more like I just threw it up and down in the air. I once thought my experience being stranded alone was something weird and hard and kind of crazy I went through… today, I realize that it was/is NOTHING compared to being a stepmom, errr, a FULL-TIME wham-bam-thank you-ma’am-overnight parent- kind of stepmom… to kids who are dealing with their own very difficult and traumatic past, whose dad is gone for 48 hours every 4 days leaving me a single parent 35% of the time, a partner to a firefighter whose job requires him to sacrifice his life, and a trauma therapist running my own business. This is a real challenge, this is the real adventure.

So. Here I am, to shed some light into the world of our own capabilities and when those require us to ask for HELP, when we need to give ourselves compassion, when we need to accept the imperative loss that our relationships and time spent outside of our families will inevitably fall in line behind our more detrimental priorities, and when we need to practice gratitude for ourselves and our situations. And most importantly, here I am, to give props to STEPMOMS and the unheard and misunderstood lives that we lead. I FUCKING HEAR YOU.

Some days are hot shit chaos over here. That’s the god damn truth. BUT. Marek just fell asleep next to me after running both of his hands along the bends and curves and cracks of my face. It made me flashback, remembering being a small child and doing that to my mom when she would put me to bed. Maybe it’s the weird empath in us that makes us do such deep sensitive things that shake others to their core…. but, Marek gets me.

It was sleepover night in the big bed tonight. Dad’s gone and every once and awhile, the three of us cuddle in our bed and watch a movie together. They crave this time with me, and as much as I wanna tell them how asshole-y they are being each day, these nights fill me back up. These nights are small reminders that these tiny humans have learned to love me no different than a mom, that they need me no different than a mom, and that while I don’t replace their mom, I am a mom… the kind of mom that doesn’t have a playbook, the kind that doesn’t develop natural mom instincts because of biological connection, the kind that doesn’t really make sense because I didn’t get to see them grow from my body to real people, but the kind that just is. Instead of learned experience and organic momness, my connection to them is just empathic, I understand them and how to do this job on an unnatural but intuitive level.

Before Marek fell asleep he said, “See. Isn’t it better to have me to sleep with, than Dad??” I laughed as I placed my hand on his chest to feel his tiny heart beat like I do with Dave’s, at night. Then he said, “I really love you.”

I’m SaMOMtha… and nights like this remind me that they don’t need me to be anything else… or perfect, or to fit a mold and be a normal mom. Who’s normal anyway?

Taryn, our 11 year old, doesn’t give me moments of deep empathic messages like Marek does, but she doesn’t need to, her love is unwavering. She is hugging me, or nuzzling up against me or laying on me every chance that she gets and not a day goes by that she doesn’t remind me that I am hers, and her love for me is hard and big and brave and bold. She has this intense ability to separate, the way that she loves me is our own and isn’t her moms or her grandmas or her dads, or her loss’, it’s mine and hers and it’s its own entity. While it can be smothering to me at times because of my innate nature to self protect my bubble, and maybe because she is already taller than me, I know that her love is everything. She created this whole new space in her heart for me, and I am blown away by it everyday.

But still, despite the lack of problems surrounding the kids ability to love me and welcome me into this family, I am overwhelmed. Maybe it’s the overnight to momhood with no typical breaks like when the kids in split families usually go to their other parents house every few days, maybe it’s the single parent days when I’m taking care of two humans even though I’ve never done it before and I’m also running a business that requires most of my energy and love, maybe it’s the balance of those two things and trying to have some energy left over for those nights when it’s just the 3 of us and they need me more, maybe it’s the trauma that they’ve endured that shows up as unmanageable days of explosive emotions, anxiety attacks, nightmares, defiance and disrespect towards other adults, disruptive behaviors and off-the wall reactions, raging anger or paralyzing sobbing, maybe it’s missing Dave and the normal fears of his job and his sacrifice, maybe it’s COVID and the secondary effect the helpers are starting to feel- the burden, the heaviness, maybe it’s learning to manage not just my own family but two new ones, who I love so deeply but who all have their own dynamics and strengths and struggles and setting boundaries or getting boundaries broken, maybe it’s being a partner to a firefighter with its inherent difficulties- aloneness, fear, constant transition from 3 to 4 to 3 to 4, the juggling of children on your own, the inability to communicate and the discipline it takes to communicate well and be on the same page, the sadness mixed with huge pride, maybe it’s learning to be a mom in a house that there once was a mom with her own flaws and flows and patterns and imprints on the children that now I’m trying to raise, and maybe it’s the struggle of the stepmom that no one else but stepmoms can understand- especially not your partner who you need to understand more than anyone, and that you had no idea how hard it would be, that you need breaks that you don’t get more than any biological parent does because you didn't choose childbirth, that someone else’s prior life controls your current one, that you need help, as much as you make doing ALL the things look easy, its not, that you need extra love because of the reality of being a stepparent, that when you parent sometimes it feels like you are are forced to fit into someone else’s already established mold, that the entire world puts pressure on you and you are held at an extremely high standard and others are waiting to see you screw up, that you gave up your life to be there for your partner and his kids…

maybe its one of those things…. but … it’s definitely ALL of those things at once.

I don’t want to go back to soccer practice and occasional homework. I don’t want to quit. I don’t want to be given pity. We are killing it. The shit that we are juggling as a family right now its pretty insane. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m staying in “college” and I don’t need to sit here and complain. I just need to remind myself when I’m overwhelmed or sitting in the negative that maybe it’s the kids’ trauma and my ability to understand that makes us whole, and maybe it’s the single parent days that have cultivated a fast track to the immense love they have for me, and maybe it’s Dave’s strange hours and my private practice being my own boss that allows us to have time for each other in the middle of the week and go on adventures with the kids whenever we want, maybe it’s the 2 new families I’ve inherited who have welcomed me and learned to love me just like our kids, and maybe it’s that in our pasts Dave hit his bottom and I’ve hit my bottom so now we can speak each other’s language, and maybe it’s our traumatic losses that bind us so strongly and passionately to each other, and that all those things make our weird family waffle sandwich fit together so perfectly... Our perfectly imperfect selves and lives and experiences are what have made the 4 of us a team.

So. I’m living the greatest challenge of my life. And it’s fucking hard and mindblowingly exhausting. And I love it. And thus, I am so very thankful for it.

And I’m thankful for the blizzard in Turkey,

And for my first marriage that gave me experiences and opportunity and bravery, and brought me to Colorado,

And for my shitty eating disorder and the strength of mind it gave me once I overcame it,

And the trauma that led me to self destruction because from those flames I eventually rose,

And for the resilience of our munchkins and what they are learning about the strength of mind and the heart,

And for the ability to sit with them in their pain,

And for the death in our lives that make us LIVE,

And for my Dave- he’s my otter, my dolphin- and his amazing mental fortitude because of the indescribable storm that he had to conquer,

And for the team we are building while juggling a thousand knives in the air, getting cut, learning when to let go, and learning when to brace ourselves in order to keep them afloat.

I am thankful for all this crap because all of them have led me here, and back to the lesson in this rambling… they led me to understand my capacity to juggle that I never knew I had. Our capacity as humans to KEEP GOING. I’m sure you all have experienced the struggle of 2020 and can relate to the moments of overwhelmingness I describe and that daunting juggling. But you are here, and you are alive, and you have survived. So let’s not be so quick to say FUCK YOU 2020….

Let’s say THANK YOU.

Listen to Full Speed by Mike Pinto. This is our self declared Team theme song because he sings about rising to his own potential and doesn’t look back at those people or things that tried to keep him down. It’s essentially our story, of survival, in a weird eccentric songwriting way.

And for the record…YES, we let our kids listen to songs with profanity in them. We are as real and honest as they come in our household, we’ve had to be… and we answer questions and concerns that, that honesty inevitability brings up. Maybe it’s being honest to a fault…and sure, you can judge us if you want to…. but the truth is, as my Firefighter would say… “with all due respect, I don’t really give a shit”.
:)

shit into sugar

People suck. AND I love them.

We tend to have competing thoughts alot as humans, and in our minds we force a resolution. We typically say, “people suck BUT I love them”. Creating a dynamic of choosing. We must choose to either feel that people suck or we can choose to love them, instead of allowing both of those thoughts to exist. The difference is only using the word AND instead of BUT. It makes room for all the feelings and thoughts.

Since I got divorced, moved forward, and made new choices in my life, I’ve had a ton of competing thoughts, particularly about people sucking.

Something my therapist taught me during the worst of it, was that I get to make my own decisions and choices in my life, and various people will react in various ways... but their feelings and reactions about MY choices about MY life are theirs to own. My attachment to disappointing them was something I’ve learned to let go of. I HATE disappointing others. Yet in striving for acceptance of myself and my needs, people may feel disappointed. And I don’t own that. 

It’s funny how many people I had to comfort when I told them the news. And in fact it’s funny how I even had to deal with friends utilizing my divorce as an opportunity to tell me how sad and upset THEY were about it or about the direction our friendship had gone, which in reality the friendship had been broken far earlier than the divorce was even a question in my mind. 

I am forever grateful for the life I lived, the marriage I had, and the gifts it gave me. It taught me so much about my own weaknesses and areas I needed to work on- communication, asking for help, boundaries and the unhealthy amount I gave myself to others. It ended in sadness AND honor. So, I understand that my divorce was hard and difficult for a multitude of people. AND I understand that it was hard on me, yet not many people responded with compassion for me.... only regret, defensiveness, concern, judgment. Not many wrapped their arms around me,  some made me take care of their feelings and some abandoned me. They judged without asking questions and made conclusions despite what I said, based on their own perceptions of life.

We live in bubbles. Experience gives us opportunities for our bubbles to expand.... for our awareness to grow, for our perceptions to mature and openness to develop. I sit in a lot of people’s’ bubbles, it’s my job. Dark bubbles, with pain, grief, hurt, fear, loss, and because of the stories I hear and the pain I sit with, I understand life in various bubbles. So my ideas and thoughts and ways of moving through life are influenced by awareness and the variety of bubbles I now understand. Thus, it makes sense to me that many of my relationships at the time didn’t understand my choices or decisions because of the constraints of their own bubbles or lack of bubbles. It’s not exactly their fault. They could only understand within the paradigm of their experiences. Yet, that logic doesn’t take away the fact that I was alone.

What hurt me the most was that my support to others doesn’t come with stipulations. I give, hard, and I love, and what I never do is judge, and that wasn’t reciprocated. Just like my dad, I’ve learned to love first then I teach, and only when teaching is what is asked of me.... otherwise I simply listen and empower. So there I was, going through one of the hardest times in my life and not receiving unconditional support from the people I’ve supported and loved without judgment, without conditions. They didn’t want our marriage to end which I understand, but in their path of acceptance what they failed to do was help me, and so... I felt alone.

I’m not writing this in spite. I WAS angry. I hurt. I’m writing this now as a reflection so that I can move on. So that I can find the lesson, so that I can accept my new identity and remind myself I am enough. So that I can be human and share that just like everyone else, I get angry and hurt and shut people out too. To not feel bad that my energy has shifted from giving a little to so many, to giving a lot to a little. 

My therapist has also helped me through my newest transition into my new family. As I’ve fallen in love with kids who aren’t mine, and with a partner whose wife died from alcoholism, it’s been another journey for me to understand more about myself, my needs, and my boundaries. It’s taught me that my home team are the most important people in my life. And that seeing 20 clients a week instead of 30 doesn’t mean I’m not a good therapist, it means I can cultivate stronger relationships with a smaller number and I can be more effective when I’m more balanced. And that I don’t need to be someone for everyone but I can be the best one for a few. I’m the most assertive and bravest I’ve ever been.

Not only was it difficult to manage the divorce, but now it’s been difficult to manage everyone’s reactions to my relationship. For the most part, people have been supportive, but for many it’s a silent support, it’s a, ‘I don’t really want to talk about it’ support, and ‘I don’t really trust your choices’ kind of support. Which quite frankly isn’t really support at all. They don’t get to hear the progress I’ve made or the unlimited love I’m experiencing, or the mental fortitude Dave has taught me, because they don’t ask or care to understand. So the walls they’ve built block their perspective...

Back to the bubbles. A lot of my friends and family were with me during my darkest moments. Ten years ago I was impulsive, unhealthy, unstable, and suffering from a pretty intricate and layered eating disorder. I’ve overcome, I’ve healed, and right now I’m managing and running my own business, solo, I’m a trauma therapist, I help helpers and first responders all over the state, I teach and train and advocate in those communities, I’ve traveled to Africa multiple times to serve, I’ve climbed tons of mountains, ran marathons, and now I’m learning to be a mom and the partner of a firefighter. I’ve earned my badge. I’ve earned respect, I’ve earned trust. Yet, I continuously don’t give it to myself because I’m still treated by many as the 20 year old. They still live in that bubble. So when I ask them to trust my decisions, to understand MY choices are the best for me, they revert back to that bubble I used to live in. And the saddest part is this inability to see my other bubbles prevents them from seeing the happiness I’ve cultivated and the brave and fearless life I’m living... and quite frankly I’m sick of believing them. 

To my clients... I tell you over and over again to Iove yourself, to put energy into positive relationships and a positive mindset. To honor your progress, your strength, to be grateful for the work you are doing. This is my reminder to be a good role model and do the same for myself. If you put the work in, I will give you everything I can and I will put forth my soul to lift you up and to emulate the light you are bringing to our time together. We pour into each other, that is a promise I will always fulfill.

To my friends/family, past and present... this is my truth. This is where I’m at. I’ve felt alone, I’ve been hurt, and I am continuing to move forward. This train has left the station, and it’s full steam ahead, you can either jump on board or not, but I’m not looking back. Adventure is ahead for me and I’ll take you with if you’re willing to go, but I will no longer ask you to join me.

And to the clients, family and friends who are on my team… the new ones and the old ones, who have never left my side, you are my world. You know who you are. Thank you for everything. Let’s live... and do epic shit along the way. Let’s take the bubbles we live in and expand them, grow, adapt, take the dark moments and experiences and learn from the pain. Turn that “shit into sugar” as my valiant firefighter would say :)

No regrets, only lessons.

listen to Banks by NEEDTOBREATHE…it’s about what it means to me to be true teammates (thanks Kel for the song).

Learning to drown

Yesterday morning, I couldn’t get myself out of bed. My limbs literally felt paralyzed underneath the sheets. This intense moment of emotional paralysis set me in contemplation for the rest of the morning and afternoon. It took every ounce of my mental energy to force myself up from my pillow and to face the day ahead of me.  

I had been pretty sick the day before with a fever, dizziness and fatigue. But it wasn’t until I couldn’t move my body out of the bed did I realize the emotional piece to my “sickness”. 

After my dad died, a psychiatrist formally diagnosed me with Dysthymia, and my entire life finally make sense. She explained, after a long, thorough 2 hour discussion of my life, that events had led me to that moment in her office plagued with grief and questioning whether medication was my best next step, and as a sensitive and empathic child, it made deductive sense that I became an adult living with consistent and life long depression. Dysthymia is chronic, persistent, depression. 

When I had the conscious awareness yesterday that I couldn’t drag my body out of bed, I realized that for the last 25 years of my life I have been a functional depressive. It’s no different than a functional alcoholic, a professional gambler, an anorexic athlete, a purging fitness model competitor, or a working 80 hour/week lawyer. We function, but at a high and compulsive cost. My cost is my empathy.

There’s a term in therapy called transference, and countertransference. It refers to redirection of a clients feelings for a significant person or thing in their life to the therapist, and in countertransference.... the redirection of a therapist's feelings toward a client...my emotional entanglement with a client.

We talk a lot about it in our masters programs and about boundaries and self protection for the good of the self and for the client. We learn how to understand, deal with, and cope with both dynamics. These particular concepts are very difficult for me as my work with my clients can be entangled in the sense that my genuine care for them has no boundaries. Our work works, because I care so fucking hard. And the clients that generally come to me respect that about me and need that from me. But. There’s a cost.

When I used to sit in group supervision with fellow therapists and we’d talk about cases and share difficulties and feedback, I always had such a hard time articulating feedback. They could spin off into these specific techniques to try with clients and ways to address the needs of the clients clinically and concisely. In my head my answer to why and how I help clients in particular situations, was always, “well, I dunno, I just love them?”

Empaths are highly sensitive individuals, and highly sensitive to the feelings of those around them. It’s helped me to think of it as having a heightened sense of emotional intelligence. It’s the inherent ability to experience empathy through all senses. We take on the pain of others at our own expense. And hence, the cost, the sacrifice.

Despite every kind of coping or wishing it away, its not a trait we can change... it just is. And it is such a big part of us that it is inseparable from our identity as a human. The struggle lies not only in the turmoil this presents to our lives by internalizing the pain and sadness of those we love as well as strangers we meet in the grocery store line, but in the validation we never receive from the rest of the world. 80% of people don’t understand us. Most believe its just over sensitivity, or that we are weak, or that its just a “phase” we will get over. 

It’s not. This is our life. And our hearts break everyday and our energy is destroyed as we rebuild every night to start over every morning. “I spend nights stitching up the loose threads of my soul and in the morning I’m bullet proof”- Noah Kahan, “Young Blood”.

Some light reading to understand that this is a REAL thing…
loving an empath
the science behind empathy and empaths

Don’t get me wrong... this is the best gift that life could have ever given me. At times it feels like my superpower. Sometimes when I hug people I can feel literally feel myself take their pain away. People pop into my mind at random times and I have on overwhelming need to reach out, and I know something is going on for them, sometimes its good, sometimes its bad... but the minute they pick up the phone and I say hey I knew I needed to call you, the first thing they reply with is, “How did you know?”. As a therapist there is a transfer of energy that happens in my office. I don’t quite understand it, but the most common feedback I get from clients is, ‘as soon as I walk away from you I feel lighter, even if we talk about the shittiest crap in the world, I leave smiling or relieved, or empowered, and then I am so tired I need to rest.’ To me, that’s the energy I suck from them- the bad shit, I take it and I keep it so that they can walk out with a little piece of their hardened heart cracked open allowing light to come in.

The issues it presents for me is another thing, and to be quite honest I have no idea where to even start to explain this struggle. It’s the simple fact that the shit that everyone dumps and leaves with me, stays with me. I own it now, purposefully or not. My client’s shit, my family’s shit, my friend’s shit, the strangers’ at the grocery store’s shit, the world’s shit, and most difficult and challenging... the shit of the people I love. That’s all mine now. That’s just something that I have now. SHIT. All the shit.

Luckily for me I’ve found a way to channel this gift and to use it to do my very best to make people’s lives a little better. To be a small pebble in their road to healing. To combat the negativity I feel from feeling it, I contain it and turn it into sunshine. It fills me up, it gives me purpose, I am my gift. And that’s fricken awesome. You know the scene in the Green Mile when John Coffey sucks the kidney stone out of Tom Hanks and then spits it out as crazy swarms of bees? (Click here to watch the scene)

I GET that. 
But...John Coffey collapses at the end of every bee spewing.
Some days...I can’t get out of bed in the morning.

So what’s my point? A few things I guess, to write this as advocacy for the empaths of the world. I hear you. Fuck. I feel you hard. You can do this.
Also. It’s processing for me. Why am I collapsing lately and not able to recover, I’m writing so I can remind myself of who I am and what I need to do in order to keep bee spewing. Because one thing I know about empaths is that if they are not living in their purpose and in their passion, they are broken. So I’m talking out loud in order to find a greater understanding of my more frequent collapses, and to dive into more of the physicality of this energy and how recently, I’ve unlocked some door I don’t know how to close. 

This is the opened door...
I have a client who is struggling in retirement. He’s come to a place of uncertainty, unknown-ness, loss of identity, built up layered trauma with endless time to sit with the pain. He has come such an incredibly long way and we are kicking ass in therapy. His “symptoms” tend to show up as somatic. Physical ailments that are tangible, instead of an unexplainable intangible anxiety. He gets stomach aches, pain in his body, hurt limbs, etc. Our conversations are very profound and existential. I usually leave him feeling as if we worked on writing a thesis and are slowly chipping away at understanding the point of life. He is one of the only clients of mine that has brought his thoughts about my coping up in therapy. He asked me after one session, “Sammy. I have to ask you something. I always leave you feeling better. Now this doesn’t always last forever, but the feeling I get after our time is so relieving. I feel great and accomplished and hopeful. So I was wondering the other day what does that mean for you? How do you deal with all the crap I just dumped on you? Are you okay? “. Then of course we had a conversation about the transference of energy that happens with my clients and myself and why this is my burden to bear, AND what I get in return. Yes its hard, but its so rewarding to release someone’s pain. A gift and a curse. He was thankful, I was thankful, and we laughed and breathed sighs of release and relief, and gratitude.

At the next session he had developed some intense pain in his left abdomen area. After multiple doctors visits and uncertainty, they finally concluded that it was a painful hernia. 

Not shortly after this conclusion, I started noticing a pain when I ran and when I would do sit ups. Left side, lower abdomen. It continued for quite some time because I am terrible at acknowledging pain or dealing with hurt parts of my body, I just shrug them off, complain to someone who will listen, and then move on. 

It got worse. And worse. And worse. Sometimes its at a point so painful that I can’t lift my left leg up when I’m on the ground. After some time I explained it to my partner who has medical training and immediately he said, well it sounds like a hernia. 

WTF.

The client had to cancel a few sessions because he had vertigo so badly that he wasn’t able to drive or go anywhere. Two days later I woke up about to hop in the car for a camping trip, no shit I almost fell out of bed trying to get up.
Vertigo.
Couldn’t move for most of the morning. Never had a minute of vertigo in my life until this moment. I texted a friend later that afternoon to check in cause I was thinking of her, a soulmate who knows me more than most people ever will, and I told her I’d call her later to say hi... I started talking to her that night about this weird unexplainable and kind of crazy phenomenon I was experiencing with the client... and she almost stopped me in my tracks. She said, when were you thinking about me earlier today? I said, I dunno I think it was like 3:00 or so this afternoon when I texted you, why? She said, because I was having Vertigo all afternoon right around that time, I’ve never had it before and didn’t know what it was at first. 

WTF.

Am I absorbing AND  transferring energy?

A few more weird things have happened with clients- the paralleling of the struggles I’m currently having in my life are showing up for them, almost to the extent that I want to stop them while they are talking and say, wait are we talking about me or you? After throwing this idea around of emotional and physical transference with this friend and loved ones, I knew that I had to process it some more. I ended up sharing it with my somatic client. He was all in on this idea and we discussed it for awhile. A few weeks later I had a weird pain in my left wrist. I’ve had it before after I hurt my wrist, so I didn’t think much of it, except that it usually prevents me from working out the way I normally do for a week or so, then it tends to go away. This client reached out to me as I hadn’t seen him in awhile due to COVID, and said “hey, any weird pain going on lately?” I laughed. “Well kinda, I have a weird pain in my wrist but nothing to right home about or anything, just an annoyance”, and before I could finish my sentence he said, “yup, left wrist kinda of hurts through the index finger and thumb” and began describing my pain to a T. 

He said he just wanted to check and see, and told me to keep him posted in case my next body part starts to hurt so he can have a heads up. I asked him to do the same. 

WTF.

There have been a few more instances recently that have affected my personal relationships. The people I love are hurt, in emotional pain or physical pain. They get something or feel something deeply. Then I do. But the thing is I don’t realize it until after the fact. So is it the chicken or the egg? Am I’m absorbing, or self sabotaging, or unconsciously trying to understand, or is it a bit of both? All I do know about it is that once I’ve experienced the experiences, their pain is gone. 

My next challenge is to understand this. I do know and understand that there have been a lot of differences in me lately. The last year of my life has been challenging and at times tumultuous. And throughout this struggle I have learned a weakness and strength about my current situation and process. Dysthymia plagues me and always will. But something that’s changed for me, as that energy door has opened so has my ability to see my depression for what it is. I’ve learned that for all these years I have avoided my symptoms until they’ve attacked me... functional depressive. I have kept my feelings inside. I saw burnout only once I had completely passed any point of avoiding it, I forced myself out of bed and told myself I am just really tired, then I’d self punish through excessive workout or late hours or less food, I didn’t want to be around anyone but instead I was around everyone, and I’d ask everyone how they were and if I could help, I’d say I was fine, I was irritable and snappy, and I filled myself to the brim with activity so that I didn’t have to think about why I didn’t understand why I wasn’t okay. There isn’t an answer to depression, it just is. But I could never tell myself that.

Now, I wear my emotions on my sleeve and not intentionally. Some days my mood is paralyzing and I can’t move out of bed or get myself to apologize to the people I love due to the immense wall of shame in my way. Emotions come out of me like a rainstorm when the sun is shining, or when five things happen at once and I can’t deal, or when a lot of bad shit is going on and everyone’s emotions are floating in the air around me. It’s like someone opened Pandora’s box, and I’m feeling all the feelings inside a padded room with no escape, and I’m hearing all the sounds with noise cancelling head phones on, my body is carrying the weight of those old scuba diving metal uniforms while running up a mountain, and I’m debilitated with being unable to describe the intensity of what it means to be empathic. It’s like there are no words, yet everyone needs a verbal explanantion from me. It feels voiceless.  It’s like being deaf but being forced to sing. 

Yet. We all know, the deaf CAN learn to sing. Beautifully even. I feel energy, but everyone communicates in words. I’m living in a world that asks me to be black and white, but I can only talk in color. So, how do I sing without hearing? How do I function in a black and white world? 

Although this present moment is very hard and very new for me, and it feels at times like I’m drowning, I know that in order to stay afloat I must learn to tread water, and I know that if I hadn’t taken off my life vest and stopped avoiding my empathetic depression, I would have NEVER EVEN KNOWN I WAS DROWNING. You can’t really tread water without being thrown into the deep end without a vest.

I need to learn to ask for a line. A hand. A bright red paddle to reach out to me in the water so that I can see it when my arms and legs can’t tread any longer. Because I dont think I’ll ever avoid the drowning, or that I want to. When I drown I know what drowning feels like, and for me, that means I can then be the paddle for someone else. I just need to learn to ask for a paddle when I drown, let the people I love know that 80% of the time you won’t understand me, you won’t be able to prevent me from drowning, I dont even want you to, but you can be a bright red paddle and kindly reach out a line... not to take me out of the water or to steer me off course, just to let me bob and take a break for a minute. Because bright red paddle’s don’t talk or judge or fix, they just let you know they are there and remind you that it’s okay to live in color.  

The lessons for anyone who made it through my rambling... they will be different for everyone, it depends on where you see yourself in this story. For my fellow empaths, find your paddles- learn to do things to help yourself and to have people to ask for support. I have lots of paddles, running, hiking, adventure, writing, creativity, but lately those don’t always help. I needed a paddle with feedback, a human person to push me into introspection and to challenge my stubbornness and to know my drowning signs. It takes work to be vulnerable, with yourself and with someone else. But we need paddles. Find yours. Put work into it. I did, and I’m trying. And he’s pretty dang awesome... He listens to this crazy shit that goes on in my brain, pretty much everyday.
For the other paddlers out there, thank you. We need you. Even when we pretend we don’t.
And for those don’t know much about any of this, thanks for reading. Now maybe you have a better understanding of the energy that we all give out in the world and how it can affect others. We all have shit. Check yours. We are all connected on an intangible level, put your good shit first.

Ask for a paddle, or understand paddles, or be a paddle. There’s not many of us out there that are true empaths, that drown on the regular... so if you know one, remind them that while living in color amidst a dark world is a confusing and overwhelming, it brings far more beauty than the darkness. And if you are one, remember, you are the light. You are colorful.

Listen to: Tidal by Noah Kahan

channeling control

I’m gonna get real.

I wanted to make a casserole so I went to the store today to get some mushroom soup for it, and there was none. Not ONE can of mushroom soup. Nothing.

That’s insane right? I mean, I understand we are in quarantine protocol but why are people hoarding mushroom soup… Everyone is on lockdown so it’s time to make casseroles? For the record, every time a recipe calls for mushroom soup I kinda wanna vomit in my mouth thinking about it, cause it’s pretty disgusting and I hate that it’s a casserole necessity.

So. If things are that crazy right now that mushroom soup is backordered, I figured I can get real. What do I have to lose at this point? Not mushroom soup, that’s for sure. Shit is gross.

My career as a therapist is in jeopardy. I cannot go into detail on the nature of this case, but long story short I have been working with a family for a very long time and the relationship between the biological parents of the children, who are now divorced, is horribly tumultuous to say the least. Because I am the therapist that I am, and because I am an advocate, to a fault some might say or at least this situation has challenged me on that, I have advocated in the court system and legal system for this child and for her voice to be heard. Not many therapists would do this, and many would have dropped the case a long time ago when things got rocky. Unfortunately, one of the parents has suffered because of my advocacy, and their integrity, their ability to provide safety, and their sanity has been called into question. In retaliation, this parent has formally attacked me and has recently reported me to my licensing board.

Not only has this problem created a multitude of work for me to go through documents upon documents, and notes upon notes, and pay a lawyer to submit a defense on my behalf to my board, but it has shaken me to my core. I AM a therapist. I AM an advocate. And the very thought of being threatened of my ability and opportunity to perform my job now and in the potential future makes my stomach sink to my toes. This one voice out of the many, while it is only one, and while I know that their voice is untrue and ill-mannered, has spun me into a world of self doubt and stress over NOTHING I can control.

The thing is, I ride on the edge of boundaries. I sit in the space between unconditional positive regard and a real and genuine love for my clients. This particular parent even wrote in their complaint, “I know Sammy loves my children, but…”

I know this about me.

It’s who I am- I’m unconventional, I walk with a limp. I accept that. But when that very reason I connect so deeply with my clients is what I’m being attacked for, it rocks your world. It makes you resent yourself, and your passion, and your empathy, and your bravery to walk that line. It makes me question if I care too much, and if I go out on the limb too far to help… lighting myself on fire to keep others warm. I fricken do that. All the time. But it’s my purpose, and never until this day have I doubted that and it’s importance.

I know the world is in social isolation right now, but for the last 3 months I’ve been in emotional isolation.

Not because of this case, although it has only made it worse, but because for the last almost year of my life I have been struggling in personal aspects, and have more recently made some choices in my life that have affected many people around me, and have disappointed many people because they don’t understand or agree, and it has ultimately led me to emotionally isolate because absorbing everyone’s sadness has been unbearable for me. I feel other people’s feelings. And what I’ve learned in this period of emotional isolation is how much feeling other people’s feelings has led me to shut off my own for a very long time. And now after some time, some deep processing, making choices for myself, I have begun to FEEL myself again. I understand more about why I used to self sabotage, self harm, and self isolate through my eating disorder, I felt too much otherwise. I know why part of me behaves by lighting myself on fire for others, because I don’t feel worthy of my own happiness, I feel like I have to sacrifice, make up for my mistakes, self punish, overcompensate. This moment in time has opened my eyes to my own patterns, to challenge them and to find my own emotional freedom.

Why does all this rambling matter or connect? Maybe it doesn’t for you, but hang in there, there’s a lesson in this. And it comes at the most trying time of my generation. “When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.”- Viktor Frankl

I cannot change that parent’s emotional turmoil and poor decision making that led her to the place she is in and the behavior she displayed which inevitably led her child into my care. I can only choose to respond. And without further thought or self doubt or the fear of the potential outcome creeping in, I will continue choosing to advocate. I will continue choosing the hard way, because for me it is the only way.

I WILL NOT change my belief that is it my purpose as an advocate and a therapist to speak up and to not back down. The only thing I need to change is the way I’ve viewed myself the last few weeks because of this, and the way I’ve put myself down because of doubt. F that. I have been the best god damn cheerleader I can be for this little girl, I will never apologize for that. And if that’s how I lose my license, at least I fucking went down FIGHTING and LOVING.

I cannot change the way others have taken my emotional isolation and the choices I’ve made this year for me. I cannot prove to anyone that I am healthy, and strong, and resilient. I can actively work towards those goals for myself but it is ultimately their choice to respond and perceive things they way they want to and they will have an opinion of their own. But I can choose to keep going. To stay the course. To make my choices that make sure my fountain is fueled and it continues pouring out water, and to be healthy and strong and resilient for me.

WE cannot change this global epidemic. Mostly speaking, we do not have the power to change the limitations that have been placed on our social world. This event, pandemic, crisis, is out of our control. But we can choose how we respond. We can choose to focus on ourselves, our growth, our mindsets, our positivity, our energy that I believe radiates on global levels. We’ve all got time on our hands that we didn’t have or didn’t think we had before…regardless, USE IT. Mold your mind. Plants some seeds. Learn. Organize. Challenge. Struggle. Heal.

To be fair, I didn’t come to this epic Viktor Frankl optimism, err realism, on my own. Truth. I had a few terrible days over the last couple weeks, and a few crappy breakdowns. The stress of my business, worry about my family, my personal life, my emotional isolation, my choices, all came to a head, and I was really shitty to a person that cares about me a lot. And after some externalizing, some crying, and breaking, and self pitying, they reminded me what mattered. I was reminded of gratitude. I was reminded that everyone is in an active shit storm. I was reminded that all I could do was live one day at a time and control what I could control, and focus on the one thing I can always provide and receive… LOVE.

And then I watched Frozen II and Olaf reminded me of it too, that Love is the Permanent.

Even with my license debacle, I know I loved, hard. And even with my struggles, I’m learning to really love myself and accept my decisions despite external dissatisfaction and disappointment. And even in this COVID-Apocalypse, WE can love the world and each other enough to take care of our part it in…and grow. If we grow, so does the world. We can’t change the circumstances but we can change ourselves. And then guess what? Circumstances will be forced to change.

So go… Grow. That’s ONE thing in our control. Channel your energy wisely.

Listen to: : Live like a Warrior by Matisyahu.

The bones

Before you read, listen to: The Bones by Maren Morris.

“The house don’t fall when the bones are good.”

My bones...

They are my Dad.

Lately, I’ve been really struggling. I’ve been having battles in my mind, been fighting my body to get to sleep, restless nights, unactionable worry, self doubt, attacks on my self worth, complete burn out, and mostly a hard hit of depression. Every time I feel myself sinking, or I feel myself lifting out of it, I reach for my phone to call him.

And every time I feel that intense void of him being gone, so strong and so nauseating, I breathe… and I channel him and deep down I know in my heart the things that he would tell me and say to me. Because he built me, us, with good bones.

Our motivations in life are all different. Our pushes, our influences, our reasons for doing things and the paths that carry us. But we all have bones. We all have a foundation, a structure, a guiding force. And sometimes I think that when the world begins crashing down around us, we tend to forget about our foundation, our internal strength, our ability to preserver and be resilient… until we are buried and survival forces us to remember. I know that that’s my own process- burn out. And I know that I’m always actively working on stopping it from getting to a place of being buried- being proactive instead of reactive. And sometimes it’s my friends, my family, my clients who remind me of this force… to remember that if we can return to our bones, our foundation, reflect on our own internal light, we can make it through anything.

Starting my own practice was… is…. HARD. Not only is owning a business a completely new venture for me while maintaining my heavy trauma caseload, but the self doubt and inadequacy thoughts that go along with being an entrepreneur are REAL. I go to a place in my mind so dark sometimes over something as simple as not returning an email in one day, or taking a day off and not fitting in those clients that week, wondering how many I will see the following week, if I’m off by one person, or I’m over by 2, that I didn’t text that person back within the hour, I didn’t finish that note at the end of my 10 hour client day. And then I spiral into am I helping people?, am I even good at this?, is everyone okay?, did I do enough that session?, will they survive?, is that child safe?, am I making a difference?. But ya know what never gets questioned in my mind… AM I OKAY?

And here’s the thing. I’m okay until I’m not. I’m excelling until I’m drowning. Because I see my purpose as something so much bigger than me and making sure I maintain simple necessities in life like eating real food for dinner, or not responding to work texts and emails on my “days” off, and scheduling an hour (shit a half hour) break in my day, those things are sacrificed. And I can do that for awhile, I can sacrifice. I can give and give and give and give, but eventually the world starts crashing and the walls start closing in.

Yesterday, I was having a really hard morning. Sinus infection, fever, 8 clients in a row back to back, 3 new clients to respond to, 3 calls to return, a pile of notes, endless texts from family and friends that go unopened all day long, a new crisis call to manage, and on top of it my own personal struggles and a cloud of depression pouring self doubt. I was overwhelmed. I broke down hard, in the quick 2 minutes I have in between clients to collect myself. And I tried to get my shit together. I walked out of my office to get my next client. As I approached her, and as a fellow empath and survivor she could see it written all over my face. I couldn’t hide it. As soon as we got into my office and she asked me if I was okay and wouldn’t accept my dismissiveness, the tears escaped me, and I cried for a minute. That shit happened.

And in that moment of doing my best to keep it together, be present for HER, she would not allow me to continue without allowing me to release. Because maybe that’s what I do for her? Because maybe that’s why I’m good at my job, because I’m as real as it gets… and sometimes my world crashes, my house is under attack, and the truth comes out that I’m human. So she hugged me. Then, we moved forward with our session.

As soon as she left I talked to my Dad. Part of me felt ashamed, unprofessional, part of me felt unworthy… but I knew that we had still had an important session. That my shittyness, and my realness didn’t get in the way of us connecting and making movement, and that maybe it even encouraged some of our discussion and that it connected us on a deeper level. That despite my world crashing (literally a therapist’s worst nightmare crying in front of a client like that, what is wrong with me??) my bones didn’t break. Before I even opened my mouth to talk to him, I knew what he was going to say. Be vulnerable, be real, be humbled, because baby girl…that’s the only way you do your GOOD.

I saw a friend that night. And she reminded me that as we move forward in the storms of our lives, it’s okay to choose ourselves. To make choices that lead us to where we want to go, and the people, the support, the things that are meant for us will follow. Not only was it a good reminder for self care, but a good reminder that I am strong and worthy of my life and where it’s going. And I can be human. Our foundations won’t crack and while the winds may be treacherous, they won’t blow us over.

When my dad passed away just a few short weeks before Andy’s and my wedding, all of our worlds were crashing but our house didn’t crumble. Our community showed the F up. That entire month of June, we cried together, we broke, we fell apart, we danced, we drank too much, we celebrated. Because he built us, and WE ALL BUILD EACH OTHER. And the people and experiences that have become a part of your foundation- whether they are new or old, distant or present, conscious or unconscious, believe in them, revisit them, remind yourself of them. While our storms in life and our identities are forever fluid and constantly changing, our bones are good.

Thank you to my client who held my tears, you are my bones.

save US.

First, listen to: Save Me by Noah Kahan.

A little less than 10 years ago I felt this way. Broken, unfixable, a burden. I was so ashamed that I completely avoided my true struggles by acting out with impulse, seeking external validation, and coping through numbing and false control. And although I knew that the ones I loved were the ones I was treating the worst, that pain and guilt was so strong that I completely avoided that understanding as well, and in fact subconsciously made it worse. Thus, continuing a cycle of shame, poor decisions, bad behavior, pushing away purposefully the ones that I loved some of which I’ll never get back, and ultimately ending up with a lifelong battle against my own thoughts.

I taught someone about about shame vs. guilt the other night. I enlightened him with this spark-note version that guilt is “I made a mistake, take responsibility, and will learn from it”, while shame is, “I am the mistake, I am the problem, I will never been enough.” I’ve lived in shame since I was a kid. Many of us do. My shame led me down a path of low self esteem, abusive relationships, depression, pain, and then halted as it nearly took me off the edge of a cliff to die, from an eating disorder.

When I heard this song last week, a new release from one of my favorite artists, it all came flooding back. I work daily to combat the negative thoughts inside my head, something I teach my clients to do everyday. For me, its more of an understanding… I’ll always have them, but I can learn to retaliate. And today I live in a world of strong, brave retaliation, and I am okay with that. I am the best I’ve ever been. But I realized when listening to this song— after a week of some deep humbling gratitude from my clients culminating in a conversation with a dad of one of them, who called me a guardian angel for his daughter, and my response was, “I do this because someone else, at some point, did it for me” — something that I knew before and suddenly made such tangible sense in the moment… we are healed because of each other. We save each other. There is no healing alone, there is no gratitude without gratitude, there is no insight without insight, no strength without support. Even in our despair, our brokenness, our healing, we are connected and WE are the answer.

Yes I may have done a bit extra in a small way to support this father and this girl… but the truth is I love her. I care about her well-being and that extra time and care I gave to them outside of our weekly sessions was just the reality of caring for people, for me. I don’t know how to do the one without the other. When he thanked me for that 5th time that week, and I responded with the now conscious understanding that I do what I do because of what has been done for me, I thought about a few things…

I thought about my friend Heather. She has literally known me at the worst times in my life. My darkness, the world’s darkness, she’s seen it all and lived it all with me, we’ve struggled and we’ve come together. Despite the darkness, she loves me unconditionally. She literally would praise me for taking a poop I think, if I told her it was an accomplishment ;) . She loves me with what might look like blind love and support from the outside, yet she’s not blind at all- in fact she’s got 20-10 vision into my life.

I thought about Andy who reminded me all the time how proud Petey (my dad) would be of me. I thought about how he had been the one thing that was constant in my life and needed at the time, and not part of my controlled chaos. It was his acceptance that allowed me to exercise that chaos and he even joined in on it, on our adventures. He climbed five 14,000 ft peaks with me in the first year I lived in Colorado, not against his will per se, but it was an amazing way he loved me through compromise and sacrifice. And I would argue, that some of that adventure and chaos rubbed off on him.

I thought about my badass friend, Brooke. She’s an FBI agent. A later in life friend, she has challenged me and loved me, and jumped in when my world came crashing down around me. We literally argue over which one of us is prouder of the other. And let’s be real, her accomplishments blow me out of the water. Our friendship is so fierce and raw, it’s all-empowering and without her I wouldn’t own my confidence the way I do. Every woman should have a friend like Brooke. (And for the record… I’m prouder ;) ).

I thought about the women in my life- my sister, my mom, my grandma, my godmother. My awesome crew of moms. They’ve ALWAYS been in my corner, and despite at times sitting on the sidelines to the once Daddy and Daughter team, they filled in, played strong, lifted me up, no questions asked.

I thought about Greg, my brother in law. He let me invade their newlywed home and be his and my sister’s roommate during a very dark time in my life. He supported my dad and boyfriend at the time- during an intervention moment where my family decided to get me help with or without my will or permission. He took a step into a storm that wasn’t his even close to being his own. Who does that?? He did, without hesitation. He is one of my biggest fans and I run most of my big decisions in life by him, and he listens and approves, because he believes in me inside and outside of the darkness.

I thought about all the teachers, mentors, supervisors I have had throughout my career and journey, who have told me it’s OKAY to be unconventional. It’s OKAY to love the way I love, AND because I do, I must take extra care of my heart and my soul, and consistently learn to refuel. They were the ones that didn’t tell me I was crazy or too-outside-the-box, or marching down the wrong path… but who got to work and put some streets lights up for me along the way.

I am where I am now because of all those and so many more little big things that people have done for me throughout my life. I am saved because of the millions of moments I’ve shared with others. So maybe it’s not about us being broken, or unworthy, but it’s about knowing that we all are broken and thus all worthy. And that all of us are meant to save each other- with a smile, a hug, a hope, a hello. I can’t tell you how many first responders or survivors come into my office and feel unworthy- feel as those their problems aren’t worth my time or support- they feel silly, weak, guilty. And the reality is, that couldn’t be further from the truth. The realization we must make as a society is that we are all worthy of love and support, and what we must do in receiving it, is learn to give it. The greatest gift a client ever gives me is teaching others what they have learned.

I might be a therapist and my life might revolve around empowering others to save themselves. But there isn’t one person on this earth that isn’t capable of doing the same thing. Maybe our wounds are made for the purpose of healing other wounds. Maybe we struggle so that when we survive we have the ability and insight to help others through struggle- we end up replacing the ones who helped US survive. And the circle of life continues, the broken to the saved, the wounded to the healer. Pay it forward… because in the end, we either have pain or we have purpose.

“The analyst must go on learning endlessly… it is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal” - Carl Jung.

“ A psychotherapist’s own experience of being wounded is what helps her face the suffering client in simple relatedness. So, what does it mean for us to resonate with the archetypal energy of the Wounded Healer? As clients make their way to my psychotherapy office with their dreams, confessions, and tears, it is almost as if there is an alchemical foot-washing taking place. I am washing their feet, not out of a sense of superiority and perfection, but rather from an energetic field of having my own feet washed as well. The primary requirement for becoming a psychotherapist is not the intellectual training. It is not the methods and techniques. It is simply the willingness to kneel and be washed” - Kathyrn C Larsey.

The simpleness of purpose.

It’s been awhile since my last blog post, and in a way I’ve been suffering from a bit of a writer’s block. I think it’s been because SO much has happened since and over the holiday season, that lately its felt like living in chaos, pain, struggle, loss is my norm.. and it’s taken me a moment to catch my breathe. 

But all I needed was a few 3 year olds to knock the wind back into me.

Black Wednesday. The day before Thanksgiving I was shuffling out the door on my way to work when a strange text message stopped me in my tracks. A mom of one of my mini clients who I’ve worked with for almost two years, sent me a text asking if I was “around”, and because this mom is typically straightforward it felt cryptic and my gut was uneasy. Yet in the moment I still wasn’t prepared to then find out that he was on life support and it would be pulled tomorrow, on Thanksgiving. She had reached out because she knew I would want to come say goodbye.

As a therapist, you prepare yourself for death. I mean, death is part of the gig. You talk about death, you help others grieve, you allow space for death to live inside your office, and you even prepare yourself for inevitable client suicides. People die. It’s part of my job. 

BUT healthy, beautiful, joyful, tiny magnificent little 4 year olds don’t just die. That is not suppose to happen, and it’s definitely not something you can ever prepare yourself for. 

I will never forget that Wednesday. Going to the hospital, seeing his lifeless body drowning in the giant bed, covered in tubes and wires, his amazing blonde curls softened and spiritless, his brilliant eyes closed so damn shut I ached for them to open. His mother’s therapist at the time and I went together for support and the 3 of us spent most of the afternoon curled up together at his bedside, on a tiny one person hospital couch-chair. We laughed, we cried, we shook and shivered and sweat… and we said goodbye. 

This little nugget of beauty was one of my favorite people in the whole world. He was 3 when I first met him and he and his mother needed some support to get through a difficult time in their lives. It is impossible to describe him without describing the way sunlight warms your body and the way humor makes you giggle. He was my giggling sunlight. Perfect blonde surfer hair, sweet rosy cheeks, bright eyes that twinkled. He was one of the cutest kids I’d ever met. And his laughter and light was so contagious that I could always sense him coming from a hundred feet away. And as I walked out of my office and turned down the hall towards the waiting room, my heart would skip a beat when he peeked his head around the corner to see me coming, jump into the hallway, flap his arms and bounce up and down in excitement, while ever so kindly and peacefully exclaim, “Sammy!” as if he was sighing in contentment. It used to make my week. 

His death rocked my world. I loved him. And I wasn’t ready for this. Mourning a child feels insane. Mourning a child who you knew the most intricate details about his life and his family’s life feels wrong and unresolved. Mourning a child who you served to protect, one you saw every week to support and love and create safety for, it simply destroys you inside. And yet, you have to go on because, its not like he’s your family, and there’s 30 other people who still need you every week, and it’s just a professional relationship. No one really understands or gives you the time you need to grieve, and quite frankly it’s not possible to even explain to them so that they do. 

*In any case of grief, I believe that to be true. It feels as though the world expects you to move on, and fast. There’s check-ins and consistent acknowledgement following the death, then there’s the occasional hello and thinking of you’s, but then as the weeks go by there’s silence. Partly because unless you are the bereaved, you don’t truly understand the pain, and partly because people are uncomfortable in discussing and reliving and sharing, which ironically, are the only things that the bereaved actually really need. So for my side note here: if someone you know has lost someone in the last few days, or weeks, or year, talk about it with them, share memories, remind them that you don’t expect them to be okay… because they aren’t, they may seem okay because they simply have to keep living.*

After his death, his mom decided she wanted to come see me for therapy. This relationship has proved to be one of the most amazing, growing, beautifully difficult relationships in my life and I am so incredibly thankful for her trust in me and for the time I share with her each week. She is a true badass and one of the strongest women I’ve ever known. Lately she has been finding bigger purpose in her life, following a path of signs and inner drive, and we often talk about signs we receive from our adored munchkin. Our discussion yesterday was quite insightful and moving, and his mom was finding strength in taking a direction toward putting herself first and listening to her purpose, when the large lamp in my office went out. This lamp fills my space with a great deal of light, and thus its abrupt absence made us both notice. In my head, I quickly thought it was strange because I had just recently changed the bulb after it burned out about a week ago. The light remained off as we continued talking, and then maybe a minute later, it flicked back on and remained on for the rest of my day. As I formulated the same response in my mind, as if she was reading my mind, his mom exclaimed, “Hey buddy!”, and we relished in the moment and felt his presence fill my room. 

As the high from his “hello” dissipated when my day neared an end, I began to process. I thought about his short life, his big impact, and the hour he gave me each week and how much it filled my heart. I thought about the shortness of all of our lives, of the losses I’ve experienced in the last few years- my dad, my baby niece, Mr. Chen- my mentor and soulmate, my uncle, one of my best friend’s brother who I didn’t personally know but whose tragic death impacts me as I love her and support her through this time, my client’s baby brother who was run over, my client’s dad who’s cancer prognosis killed him in less than a year, the handful of other clients who see me for grief counseling, other friend’s who’ve lost fathers and mothers, and the other losses of clients I work to heal- loss of their safety, their dignity, their innocence, their voices. Loss is all around me, and life can end at any moment. So how I can be more present in life’s majesty, its beauty, its purpose. One day I’m complaining about how tired I am, and parent emails, and when someone throws plastic into the garbage side instead of the recycle side, and the next day my giggling sunlight has a cold, chokes, stops breathing and dies on Thanksgiving day. Why do I complain? 

Each day brings us the opportunity for purpose. Everyday you have the ability to spread kindness, to give light, to enjoy a walk, to be thankful for your loved ones, to really feel the warmth of the sun. And to me that’s what his short life taught me, to live by purpose because every moment is a gift, so treat it like one. Not every day you get to climb a mountain, write a novel, get married, win a million dollars, travel the world, get a promotion, receive an award… but everyday you can be thankful, be present, make marginal steps towards big dreams and big goals, everyday you can find simple purpose, because that is what life offers you, the opportunity. Somedays it’s eating gummy bears or hugging your spouse for a little bit longer, and other days, skydiving and surfing in the ocean. What is stopping us from practicing purpose in each day? Every life is different, everyone has different chances and abilities and experiences, some are very privileged and some are struggling to survive. But everyone has a purpose, and every day it can be exercised, even in the smallest way.

Somehow in my last 2 years working in Colorado, I’ve become a consistent go-to therapist in our practice for 3 year old trauma victims, particularly girl survivors of sexual abuse by their fathers. I’ve worked with about ten of them in the last year. They are some of the hardest cases I have because of the sheer horror in their stories, the legal system that lets them down continuously, and because at times our silly dancing and playing feels purposeless. 

But, sometimes a child walks into your life, and you know right away that this child is extra special to you, and that your relationship together will move far past their initial safety and stability, and that you will come to know them and their heart as they leave therapy and move forward in their lives. Their moms will keep you posted, they will grow and you will always remember how special they were to you, and they will remember that at one time in their lives, you were their hero. They change you, forever. They remind you of your purpose. I just met one of those a few weeks ago. 

A 3 year old going on 18, she’s the most adorable sassiest sweetheart I’ve ever come across. A perfect combination of sweet and spicy, she’s exceptionally smart and carries on full conversations and insides jokes with me as if she’s a 30-year-old friend and as if she’s known me for years. It is her that has reminded me that our silly play is moving mountains in her heart. And the moments of my safety talk, validating her feelings, reminding her of her strength and bravery, in between sticking marker caps on our fingertips and calling each other, “Madam Gazelle” (Mademoiselle), and calling the color purple, Pouwarple because she said it wrong by accident and we couldn’t stop laughing… she DOES hear me, and I am reminding her of her worth. 

A child who’s personal story is not appropriate to share in this context, and for the safety of you as readers, I will keep it simple. She has endured things that no child ever should and yet her light, just as my giggling sunlight’s light was, shines brightly for all those around her. She is contagious, and my life is changed because of her. 

The other day her mom sent me a video of her opening up a late Christmas present from her aunt. She was told that the present was for her to use to comfort her. As she opens the box to find a doll inside, she hugs it and says, “I’m gonna call it Sammy!”. She brought Sammy in to see me at our next session, and as this miniature 3 year old introduced me to her doll, she told me that she wanted to be like me when she grows up so that she can help other kids who need it, just like I do.

It is MY purpose to hug her every week, to scream as we pound our fists in our sandtray box and bury her “monster” underneath, to shake our worries out and dance around my office, to use marker caps as nail polish and say things like “farting around” and then giggle real hard… and although I may not be changing the system or putting away criminals, I am in her world and I love her with no ultimatum, no attachment to her past, no questions asked. Our silliness is purposeful.

So my big thought that I wanted to share, in these tiny, simple stories of some humble 3 year olds… let’s start living like them. Laugh. Be thankful for the little things. Love. Hug. Think simply. Be present. Be honest. Be clear. Be silly. Put stickers on your forehead and make fishy faces. Stop just living in the big ideas and mentality that you are only one person and therefore can’t make a difference. Stop complaining, or catch yourself and then reframe it. Believe in the moments, in the goodness that comes from the struggle. 3 year olds know this and they keep on living despite the darkness. The darkness may never change, but the way we live in it can. Believe in people, because WE are all we have. 

Purpose is everywhere, don’t go a day without acting in it, because our days, our moments, our connections, our simple actions, they are ALL precious. 

Listen to: US by James Bay.

Passenger

This week I had a shoe thrown at my head. I think that I have this fantasy in my mind after each week or month that somehow my job is going to just magically get easier. I tell myself in my mind things like after this vacation, or after I get to see my best friends next weekend, or after our next 14er climb, I will just walk into the office and people won’t get raped anymore, and people won’t die anymore, and people won’t be suicidal, parents will stop getting divorces and kids will stop blaming themselves, and bullies will stop, and alcoholics will stop neglecting and beating their families, and controlling parents will start listening to their teenagers crying out for love, social media won’t cause kids to kill themselves, and that the people that I’ve come to love, inside my tiny little office in the short hour I spend with them each week, won’t get swallowed up by the darkness of the world the moment they walk out my doors.

What a dream.

The reality is no matter how I spend my after work hours, my work IS darkness, and nothing will ever change that, and truth be told, I do not think I want it to. I have experienced darkness, trauma, hurt, pain and shame, the deterioration of my identify, and I have found my way out… and selfishly, each client, each hour, each relationship I build.. it helps me to help them.

It’s a crazy thing when you realize that your purpose in life, one of your life tasks, is to sit inside that darkness. I wish endlessly that that darkness of the world would change or that what happened to me doesn’t repeat itself, but I don’t wish to be doing anything different than what I do now… because over the years I’ve learned that I do literally nothing better than sit there in the shadow of pain, and pull people back out.

There have been 3 or so distinct moments in my career here in Colorado as a therapist, that have shook me to my core and I was uncertain if I was going to be able to keep my shit together in session…and 2 of them happened this nutty month of October.

I don’t dismiss what experts say about difficult mental health months and how the holidays and winter times cause increased anxiety and deep depression, this is true, but Octobers for me and my clients have been notoriously horrific. Yes, there was the whole shoe thrown at my face thing, but more than that, this month has brought tragic deaths, repressed childhood memories, a handful of new sexual abuse cases, court verdicts, hospitalizations both physical and mental, client outbursts and complete breakdowns, and a cancer diagnosis, just to name a few. But no matter how much I hope, I know that just because this month ends, doesn’t mean the darkness leaves with it.

What I’m thankful for is that I’ve planned our 2nd annual Client Art Show for this upcoming Thursday, October 25th, and this is the light at the end of this tunnel month of darkness. My clients, most of them survivors and victims of trauma, will be showcasing the art they have created with me throughout their healing journeys- art that represents their pain and struggles, their rebuilding, and their growth. And I hope by sharing these 2 stories with you, it may encourage you to understand the importance of this art show and why my clients’ voices are some of the most important things in the world, not only to me and their families but to strangers. These voices will be heard to teach them, to teach us, that hope is possible, and that in the darkness we are NEVER alone. For their voices represent the millions whose voices have been and will be silenced.

A client that I truly care for and cherish my time together with, came in for a routine session this week. About 70% of this cherished time is spent working on real life issues, and the other 30%, laughing and sharing in the beautiful imperfections of life. Fully anticipating our typical purposeful banter, I was in complete and utter shock when she began sharing a deeply personal repression of rape and abuse from her younger years- memories that she had dissociated from and had just two days earlier been triggered by a conversation with a friend. I won’t go into detail, not just in order to maintain confidentiality because I know in my heart that one day this woman will be sharing her survival story for others to heal, but mostly in order to spare you all from what it feels like to hear such pain. I did my best to contain this darkness for her as she continued to explain, and for most of the session I was able to hold the space for her. I encouraged her to use an art therapy directive to externalize this realization and dissociative feeling of dread and despair, and as she completed her trauma narrative we began writing a statement to put a voice to her story and for display in the art show. As I typed the words she formulated, I began to break down. I’m unsure if she saw this happen as she was sitting deeply in her own emotions and being led by the words somehow flowing from her. I was overwhelmed by the strange honor and humbled feeling I had as I acknowledged that she had chosen ME to share this with, that I was the one there to CONTAIN her pain, that I could somehow help soothe this tremendous shame the world had bestowed upon her. I couldn’t fully comprehend it all. And in that moment, not only was I so very thankful for her, but I was there in it with her and I felt it all. I was thankful and in awe that I was given this purpose in life- to transform the darkness.

I’ve been working with a young boy for almost 6 months now after the tragic death of his baby brother. When his father first came and sat in my office and told me the worst story I’d ever heard in my life, I remember reaching out to my sister for advice with a desperate fear that I would not be able to help this family. The toddler was killed in a tragic accident and I was shook for days following my initial meeting with them. But this boy is everything. He lights up my life when he walks into my office. One of the smartest kids I’ve ever met, we have conversations as if I’m talking to fellow 30 year old. I’ve bonded with him so immensely that when I think back to the first day when I felt helpless, I’m grateful that I didn’t give up. He has changed my life and his pain is now mine and so similar to how I feel about my dad, that his healing is OURS. He also created a trauma box for the art show and for him, the pain he externalized was drowning in guilt. The guilt he felt because he was not there to save his brother that day.

Again, as we sat and he talked through his artist statement and I typed away, I sat so fully with him in the darkness that it overwhelmed me. He verbalized exactly what happened that tragic day and his words cut through me like a knife, hearing him repeat it in his own words, in his own thoughts, how he remembered his life stopping for a moment as he learned that his brother died. He continued talking and without hesitation asked the viewers of his artwork to not be saddened. He explained that this was now his reality and he vowed to live fully because that is all that his silly, carefree, happy, little baby brother would have wanted him to do. We cried together.

This thursday, my mini and adult heroes will be sharing their inner most painful moments and the transformations they’ve taken to find light in their darkness. This entry is a tribute to them. To their bravery, to their courage and strength, to their human beauty and resilience. This entry is my soulful gratitude for allowing me to be the container of their pain, their partner and passenger in the darkness, their reminder that their struggle is their strength, and the voice that empowers them to find the light the have inside. To my clients..my survivors..my people (even the kiddo who threw the shoe at me)…MAY YOU RULE THE WORLD.

Denver Locals: PLEASE stop by and witness the amazing art gallery of these heroes at our offices on Thursday, October 25th. Click here for more details.

Others: PLEASE share, be kind, love each other, and continue to hope.

Listen to: Passenger by Noah Kahan

Achieng in the Rain

My African name is Achieng, it loosely means sunshine. All children are given one common surname along with their unique individual name in Eastern Africa, and as I became acquainted with the culture, I was soon honored with Achieng for my love of the African Sun. In Amor Village, Uganda I am known as Sammy Achieng Fiegel, or Auntie Sammy. There is truly nothing as magical and majestic as watching the sunset over the Eastern plains of Africa. It is a giant ball of orange, and coral, golden yellow, and burning bush red that seems to cover the entire horizon as it slowly sets below the Baobab trees. Every evening I found myself in awe of this daily transition from day to night, and I would watch calmly and patiently as the sun set below the water valley of Amor. And so because my African family thought I was a bit crazy for this, as of course for them it is simply the sun which normally sets bold and bright and brilliant across the land, they gave me my name, Achieng.

Not many people have the opportunity to travel to Africa. I have been blessed to have travelled there not just once, but twice, and hopefully soon to be a third time. Once you experience the TRUTH and LIFE of Uganda, it compels you forever. My heart lives there and will always be there.

There are few moments in life that stay with you forever- every sight, every sound, every feeling of that moment, wrapped into one visual image that when you revisit that image in your mind, you feel a wave of utter joy and despair all at once- joy for the heartfelt remembrance, and deep despair for the reality that it will never come again. For me, it was the day it suddenly poured down rain, in a rural bush village, atop a vast hill, on a crowded fútbol field, with a hundred screaming children. It was on a trip, and on a day, when my life at that time was broken and my heart was in need of healing. It was the rain that made me new.

The best part of both of these experiences- the sunsets and the futbol field rain, two experiences years apart, great distances apart, a lifetime it seemed for me in between these memories, is that one informed the other and they both bring me here today to tell the story of the latest undertaking I have begun… to build a well in Amor Village, Uganda and name it after my late father, Petey.

After my first trip to Africa, I was able to see firsthand the work of an amazing organization called Fields of Life. The soccer field was home to one of the sites that Fields of Life was supporting, a village that they had built a flourishing school in, employing local teachers, training local staff, funding sponsorships for children. The Mount Everest Primary School in Kitandwe, Uganda was opened in March 2009 after an honored friend of mine, Ian Taylor, summated Mount Everest to raise enough to officially open the school with Fields of Life. When I visited in 2011, we were graciously greeted with music, love, laughter, hope and most importantly a soccer match. And so, on a hot afternoon towards the end of dry season in Eastern Uganda with no signs of rain and no rain in months, we, the outnumbered Mzungus (the Bantu language’s endearing name for White people) played against the school children. As we ran barefoot in the rugged bush over rocks and pot holes and bugs, we laughed and fell, and chased the ball through the field doing our best to keep up. And as we laughed and panted from exhaustion, we were having so much fun that we didn’t seem to notice the ominous clouds rolling in. And all at once, the rain came down.

Yes, I know there is a song about the African rains, as yes I know the idea of rain coming down in Africa seems cliché and cheesy, but there is no memory more joyful that I have than this very moment on the field in the pouring rain in Africa. We all stopped in disbelief, and as the shock wore off the squeals and elated screams ensued, and before long, us Mzungus and the children were smushed into a big, dirty, wet, bundled mess huddled together jumping in unison, giving body-shaking thanks to the rain and to the heavens.

After my trip to Uganda, I became a dedicated follower and supporter of Fields of Life. The organization currently works in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan partnering in providing sustainable community development through education, water, and enterprise. I now sit on the newly instated USA Board for the organization- working to create more opportunities and partnerships here in the US.

A few months after my Dad died in the summer of 2016, I stumbled across an opportunity to get back to Uganda, and this time I would be merging my career with my passion. I was selected to be a part of a two person team to travel to Amor Village in Uganda, and support children and women through empowerment Art Therapy groups. The opportunity was a dream come true, and little did I know that after this visit my heart and my dad’s heart would find a permanent home.

This trip to Amor Village was truly one of lifetime. I lived in the village alongside the children with their giggles and songs and games, the matriarchs of Pearl Community Empowerment Foundation who support the village through agriculture, community building, and school expansion, and also the free roaming chickens, the roosters who woke me in the mornings, the cows that strolled across the fields to the valley every day, and the pigs that trotted about with their babies. I spent my days using Art Therapy to encourage communication, collaboration, camaraderie, a sense of hope and accomplishment, connection, and compassion. For many of the adults, it was the first time they had written anything, used paint, and cried with eachother. For the girls, it was the first time they opened up or spoken in front of a group, the first time they shared their feelings out loud. For me, it was everything. It was moving, emotional, hard, things would get off track due to language barriers, things would change and morph from our original idea, but we all moved together and we learned to be vulnerable in our similarities. We huddled together in a group hug at the end of each session and we’d sing and laugh in the hot African sun.

I spent my evenings playing games I didn’t understand, and singing songs I didn’t know with the children until my feet were brown with dirt and my shoulders were burnt from the sun. I was welcomed to dinner over the spitfire each night where we talked about our different lives and laughed about the funny things white people do. I felt at home. I felt my Dad everywhere, his love guiding my thoughts, my words, my relationships and I felt him in the strangers’ hugs and smiles that soon became my lifelong friends.

Both times in Africa I witnessed the scarcity, barrenness, and harshness of its dry season. In the bush and villages, water is what brings life and what gambles with death. Access to water, and clean water, is rare and is never guaranteed. I visited the valley water holes where villagers walk miles to everyday and gather the minimal water that comes out of the ground in order to merely survive each week of the lengthy and slow season.

A borehole well would penetrate the ground and allow for greater depth and a constant, clean, and reliable supply of water. My dream is to build a borehole for the village of Amor and the people who became my family. Fields of Life has agreed to build this well if I can raise the ≈$10,000 it costs to make that happen.

The connection of my two experiences is obvious, as my journey with Fields of Life has inspired me to support the village of Amor that gave life and love back to me after losing my Dad. But as I sat down to write this story in preparation for my first attempt at raising a portion of that money, I realized the deeper connection. As I danced in the rain on that field in Kitandwe, I witnessed the purity and immense purpose of rain. To hydrate, to bring life, to renew, to nourish, to grow, to strengthen, to GIVE WATER. And then, in Amor, I was reminded of the dire importance of the rain and of water. My first trip to Uganda changed my life- that day in the bush, on the hill, on the field, in the rain, it saved my life. My second trip to Uganda, reminded me of the importance of life… it brought me back to life. Water is the connection, the constant, the need, my calling.

In one day I will run a half marathon to raise my first $3,000 towards Petey’s well… My first run in almost 3 years, and my first year living and training in elevation. I cannot say that I’m not a bit terrified, but the little, tiny, minuscule bit of struggle I will feel is all for something bigger than me, for the ability to provide CLEAN WATER to an entire village... A village that I love and a life that I miss that will always be a part of who I am. So, I look forward to the pain.

GOOD PAIN because of GOOD RAIN.

If you are able, please donate and help me BUILD A WELL!!!!! I am, and will be, forever grateful.

Listen to: There Will Be Time by Mumford & Sons, Baaba Maal. (We never have as much time as we think we do, so do with it what makes your soul free).

Mr. C.

Has a stranger ever walked into your life and changed it forever? Have you ever had a real, true soulmate? One in which your thoughts and messages were so interconnected that being with them made your heart laugh? Have you ever had a best friend that was 3 generations older than you? Have you ever loved someone who possessed all seven intelligences? Had a conversation with someone so thoughtful and life-changing, but they spoke a different language than you? 

I have. Except not all in different circumstances... all of those things describe one man in my life... I’ll call him Mr C. for short.

And. I just recently found out that he is dying. 

So, in utter sadness, shock, fear, and worry I must process this news....

It’s difficult to me to find a place to start this story, similarly, it’s difficult to explain quite how Mr C. became not only my soulmate, but my family, my grandpa, my hero.

I guess the easiest place to start is with him. His story is one of true epic proportions and how he came to be all those things to lil’ ole’ me still baffles me and leaves me in awe.

-The spark notes summary of his life- Born in China, he was an industrious child, learning new ways to make money through acquired skills and street knowledge. He was a child performer and crafter at a very young age, sculpting, photographing, and being onstage. He traveled hundreds of miles ON FOOT across the mountain plains of China to escape military persecution and war, and to reunite with his family when he was just a teenager. 

He later became a chemical engineer inventing personalized soaps. But he loved theatrics too much to stay settled in factory life, so he started learning videography. 

When Russia invaded, he was just a student cameraboy but was favored by the regime and he was quickly promoted to a Director under their control. This opportunity gave him the ability to learn the trade and flourish as a film director. He later wrote, produced and directed many films and also dabbled in the world of opera and theatre. 

Then he fell in love, got married, and when the Cultural Revolution fell upon his country he was separated from his family and had to survive in a rural labor camp. He is the patriarch of a beautiful family and has literally survived the most difficult tribulations one can experience in a lifetime.

Despite a tedious survival of political and social upheaval of his country, he somehow found time to become a Grand Master of Qigong and a cherished artist of Chinese Painting. He later traveled the world teaching Qigong and his most recent artworks, created in his late 80’s, were showcased in a downtown cultural art gallery in Chicago. 

A genius. The man is a genius. So when this 87 year old Grand Master came to me as an intern on my very first week at my first practicum site, requesting art therapy, it would be an understatement to say that I was intimidated.

As I mentioned, his English was spotty and broken to say the least but at our first meeting he trudged confidently, with help from his daughter, through his entire life story... bits and pieces of which I would hear more about as our time together went on, and bits and pieces I would sit quietly listening to in astonishment digesting his movie script life and heroic resilience. ‘How on Earth could I help him?’ I would think... and quite frankly why me???

Not only was I brand new to practicing therapy with clients, but this age gap and cultural gap seemed incredibly daunting and almost silly to attempt to close. But it’s funny, after day one... we were locked, on each other. Our journey was just beginning and as he left my office, I knew that something magical was going to happen.

Mr C. was facing a existential crisis. For the first time in his entire lifetime, his mind had taken a backseat to the ailments of his body. No longer able to fight his age, his heart was beginning to die and he was losing control. He had sunken into a deep depression and his family was worried about his lack of interest in his usual painting, reading, community. All Mr C. wanted was to feel happiness and light again, and so he looked to me for that spark, that youth, that acceptance of reality. He needed a reminder, an acknowledgement of his ability to still be present, to show up, and to feel LIFE again.

So we painted.

He called me Teacher. And each time he referred to me as that, he did so with his thick Chinese accent, an excited inflection, and a point upwards to the sky. His sounds were some, are some, of my favorite sounds in the world. Our language communication was broken between bits of English, and words of Mandarin and Cantonese, but mostly filled with sounds of hmmms, ahhhs, Ahas!, yesssses, and never ending belly laughter followed by deep sighs. I’ve never communicated better with anyone in my life. We had intense “conversations” filled with eerie coincidences, unexplainable themes and similar contemplations, and our relationship mirrored our souls and also resembled the transference of a granddaughter, grandfather relationship. He imparted wisdom, I imparted life. A granddaughter myself, of a hardcore resilient and wholeheartedly loving refugee, my grandmother is like a alternate-dimension-version of Mr C.. Thus, we understood each other with an understanding so deep and strong that at times it felt we were moving together on a transitory path.

Our art spoke to each other- I taught him watercolor, collage, acrylic, mixed media expressions, “western art” as he called it, and through it we told each other stories of triumphs, defeats, crisis, concerns, existential questions and contemplations, political and socioeconomic worries, traumas, grief, loss, death, life, victories and legacy. We shared, we learned, we questioned, we contained, we processed, we accepted. And Mr C’s heart healed, and mine blossomed. 

As our therapeutic relationship grew to an end, my closeness to his family developed. I became an advocate for them in their communities- supporting moves, financial issues, mental health struggles, medication needs, and with his grandchildren in their school systems. And as I moved on from that job site shortly after, my role shifted from professional advocate to friend, helper, supporter. Our cultural norms and guidelines here in the West don’t always apply to the world at large. As Mr. C had put it, I had saved his life and his soul, and to his family that meant I was family. If I were to abandon my relationship with them the moment I left this agency and we ended therapy, not only would they have been utterly confused, but I would have dishonored them, and they would have felt shamed and hurt. 

While I had no intention of doing so, my ethical guidelines as a therapist had to and have to be adapted and applied appropriately and thoughtfully as I cross cultural barriers and norms, something I’ve advocated before professionally as a culturally competent and diversified Art Therapist. The words we hold ultimate here as rules and regulations, are at times, disrespectful and inapplicable in other cultures around the world. I’ve worked with diverse populations for many years both here in the US and abroad, and the most valuable thing I’ve learned is that you must learn to adapt to maintain integrity, rapport, unconditional positive regard and safety, AND to move with your clients and relationships, and not against them. You must be human, real, AND then professional.

And so, as the few years continued on and I was far separated from being a professional in their lives, they later became my family. 

It was an extremely hard day for me, three years later, when I had to say goodbye to Mr C. He and his wife had decided to move back to China to spend the rest of their elder years in their home country.

I never quite realized the vast extent of his influence in my life until I looked back on our story. He not only touched my life, but my family’s. My grandma, mother and sister shared a Christmas brunch with his daughter and grandchildren, his daughter shared healing energy with my mini nephews, my grandma and mother visited his gallery in Chicago and his daughter’s Chinese New Year’s performance, and my husband and I immersed ourselves in his culture when we decided to visit him in Shanghai. 

One of the most amazing trips of my life was spent with his family in Shanghai. We visited rural art villages and water cities, we ate fancy Chinese meals with him after ‘kidnapping’ him from his senior living center in the hospital, as we rolled his wheelchair across the busy city streets. We laughed in his small room where he refused to eat the provided meals and ordered from the Chinese version of Grub Hub everyday on his phone. I cried next to his bed where he keeps a picture of the two of us smiling brightly as we proudly hold pictures of our artwork up to the camera.

That trip changed my life. It changed Andy’s life- it was the first time out of the country for him. I was anxiously nervous and curious for his reaction. Yet, he was the most at home and calm I have ever seen him to be. One of the only white men for miles, literally at times, in a sea full of people and a culture so drastically different from our own, he broke out of his shell and I saw him change right in front of my own eyes. By the end of day 1, he was endearingly referred to as 哥哥 gòhgō (brother) by Mr. C.’s granddaughter. He ate all the food, talked to all the people, tried all the things. And that new life I saw inside him...I owe that to my friend, Mr. C..

This last week Andy has checked in on me, asking me if I was okay.... I’ve been in my “mood”, I like to call it. My depression. And he always does a good job to notice and remind me so that I can take action and sort through what it is a need to move through it. And sometimes I don’t know where it comes from or what triggers it... but after reflecting today on all this, I know exactly what it is… part of my soul is dying. More grief is headed my way and I’m preparing, I’m aching, I’m scared. Part of me is hurting because he is hurting. Once again, I will be faced living in a world where one of my heroes no longer exists and I needed to release that fear. And yet I must also contemplate how lucky I am to have a relationship so special, so strong, so invaluable that I am un-separated from Mr. C. so much so that as he begins to leave this world part of me is leaving.

The point of this sharing moment... well, it’s selfish mostly... it is an externalization for me to process the loss I am experiencing and to address my “mood”. But there’s more. There’s the reminder that strangers can be our next best friends, that our own self doubt shouldn’t stop us from the ability we have inside to CONNECT us to one another. That is our human gift. Mr C never made me feel inferior, he reminded me that my tiny light had the strength to save his superior heart. There’s the resilience, and the idea that his pain is what brought us together. His final struggle in life is what allowed him to truly process his life’s journey, his legacy, and to heal and transcend from the inevitability and finality of death. There’s the culture, the significance that all of our stories and lives and ways of life are beautiful, and when we are open-minded and share in our vulnerability and different experiences, together we become closer as individuals. The misguided disparity of the world shrinks. And then there’s Mr C.. He is an open book and has always allowed me to share his story because if it was up to him the world would listen and love. So maybe it’s just that simple... his story is part of my purpose, and I must simply share HIM.

We love you 公公 gung gung (grandpa).

Listen to: Everglow by Coldplay

The Flippin' Deacon

When people ask me who my role model is or who inspires me most, the first thing that pops into my head is a big bright picture of my Dad, smiling. They called him the Flippin’ Deacon, because yes, he was in fact a Catholic Deacon at his church in the last few years of his life, and yes in fact after he become ordained he continued to salute his fellow colleagues, friends, loved ones with a good ole fashion flip of the bird- his personal touch on the “hello” and the way his community will always remember him as- real and loveable. 

He was... is... my everything. I’ve experienced some various forms of trauma in my personal life, but the hardest and thus most traumatic thing that I’ve gone through is the day my dad died, and the year that followed.

Just three weeks before I would be heading West for Andy’s and my wedding, I was out of work early shopping for some wedding week outfits (stuff girls do, I guess), when I walked out of the store to two missed phone calls from my sister, and a message from my grandma telling me to call right away. The news was that my dad was in an ambulance outside his church, and the paramedics were “working on him”, my grandma said. I didn’t have the courage to call my sister back because I knew she was panicking and I didn’t have the stamina to respond quite yet... I was in survival mode. 

Driving back to my apartment, my grandma had said to wait for their call, “don’t drive here yet, we just have to wait” (at the time, I lived about 30 min from my family). Apparently, he had collapsed at the church during a break from teaching a baptism class, and that was all anybody would tell me. 

I obviously didn’t listen to my grandma for much longer after no one was calling me back... I couldn’t just sit around. So I rushed back to my car and headed home.

It was the longest drive of my life. I imagined lots of scenarios as I waited for a phone call back and drove the seemingly empty highway road....He was just sick, his heart gave out but they revived him and he’s gonna be okay, it was a false alarm and he just had a dizzy spell... but the one scenario that kept infiltrating my thoughts, and somehow I just knew it was true ... was the one that he was dead, his heart died. 

That’s the ironic thing about Petey having a heart attack... in his death, his heart has never been more alive. It’s in all of us, and somehow reaching more hearts than ever imagined, and beating stronger amongst his community than I could have ever anticipated. He died, yet after his death, his memory and message has truly come to life. 

Finally, my grandma picked up and I could hear my mom speaking in the background... “is that Sam? I’ll take the phone.”

That’s the moment when my infiltrated thought became reality- she didn’t even have to speak, I knew exactly what she was going to say...

“He didn’t make it, babe.” 

There’s nothing quite like hearing the words that the greatest man you’ve ever known, “didn’t make it.” 

They had waited to call me because they didn’t want me driving after hearing the worst news I might ever hear in my lifetime. But there I was, driving down the highway to the inevitable doom that my dad was no longer in my world.

Fiancéeless at the time, Andy was across the country on a work trip. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alone in my life. Sometimes I think about him being there with me instead that day, riding shotgun.... would that have made the void I felt any less? 

My dad was my best friend. A daddy’s girl to the core, my childhood was filled with driving passenger in his car to soccer games, outings, basketball practice, the movie store, picking up pizza, and stopping for his cigarettes, sitting next to him on the couch watching Bears games, shark week, cash cab, and Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. He was my biggest fan- never missed a game, never late to pick me up from literally anywhere I was, ever... always encouraging me to make the bigger jump, think logical but DREAM BIG. I always felt I could do things in life because he was behind me, beside me, carrying me or holding my hand. I was never alone.

Yet, that car drive was the first time I felt truly alone. Symbolic I suppose, as most of my memories muffle together in one image of my dad- an image of us, together, in his car. 

The wedding. After the feeling of immense aloneness flushed through my body, my next thought was of the wedding. I've only said this once outloud before, and to a fellow therapist friend, because I felt and still feel a tremendous and overwhelming sense of guilt to even acknowledge that I had the selfish thought, now what do I do??

But the question of the wedding quickly turned from concern to action... I get married. That is what I do, because that is exactly what Petey would have wanted me to do. And next, it was just convincing everyone else that I could do it.

Everything that happened after that phone call is a bit of a blur of emotional trauma and cold realizations fused together in this black hole I carried around with me in my stomach for the next year... seeing his lifeless body for the last time, his wake with over 1,500 strangers feeling sorry for me and saying over and over “OH your poor wedding!” (their exact words were variations of this, but to me it all sounded the same, repetitive and quite frankly, it made me want to scream and yell at everyone to shut up and get their sh*t together), ...speaking at his funeral to another 1,000 people and trying to explain in 15 minutes how the most important man in world just left us, the actual wedding without him- he was suppose to marry us and perform the ceremony, my father daughter dance with our best man, my mom’s speech, leaving a tumultuous job for private practice without asking him what to do and what direction to take, moving to Colorado just a short 6 months later with him not scoping out homes for us ahead of time or driving across country with a U-Haul like I know he would have, finding a new job minus his pep talks, and basically doing every stupid little thing I used to do with his input and help, without him. 

All in all, I was a mess, except I pretended to be okay as if I had just run a marathon, didn’t shower but used some baby wipes, dry shampoo, and some perfume instead. The stink was still there. 

After therapy, and after a great idea from my cousin who lost her dad, my dad’s best friend, just a few months prior to my Petey's death, I decided to use my dad’s message to get me through this black hole of grief. And now, I honor the monthly anniversary date of his passing by reminding someone in my life they are loved and they are special. A pay-it-forward kind of action. This allows me to continue his legacy of love, and kindness, selflessness, service and to add a tiny piece of action to the humongous footprints he has left behind and that we must fill. 

The point of all this brings me back to the Flippin’ Deacon, and in essence back to the very reason I’ve decided to be vulnerable in my experiences and share my pain with you all.

The Flippin' Deacon to me, symbolizes a need for the balance of humanity and professionalism in order for real love and movement to take shape. The community responded to my father because they RELATED to him. He was far from perfect, a rebel in his early days, a misfit and a mischief... his brokenness became his message. He was the man, everyone's man. I mean, they named an entire Hall after him and built a brand new playground in his honor. He was ultimate in genuineness. Yet, not a day went by that he did not take great care of his responsibility to his people. He was funny, loveable, laughable, real, FIRST.... and then he was a professional.

You can be real and professional, but you can’t always be professional and then real. So as I continue to walk in his footsteps I will continue to utilize my experiences, my pain, my struggles, my learned strengths to communicate my message of responsibility and care to you all as my readers, and to my clients. My dear friend said to me, “You walk with a limp”... as in my scars are present AND they ignite my passion to help. Thus it must be my purpose to share AND to be professional. 

So...you can call me the limping therapist...ah, the wounded healer. I'll own that.

And if that means that I'm unconventional, then there's no part of me that wants to be conventional.

Thanks Petey. #belikePetey

If you feel like crying (I know I always need a good cry, it helps me heal… ;))... Listen to: my father-daughter wedding dance song: Red Robin by Clark Richard

"GOOD rain", what it means and why it matters.

For me, sharing is everything. 

The stories that follow are a collection of what I've experienced which have led me to the things that I contemplate, and ultimately result in what I believe. 

And I believe in two things:

One- Struggle gives you strength--pain gives you purpose-- there is meaning in suffering-- survival inspires courage--without darkness there is no such thing as light--there is GOOD PAIN, and thus, we must embrace GOOD RAIN.

Two- Life is about love in its rarest form--acceptance, respect, appreciation, kindness, care, compassion. Love is what unites us and what gives life to our world. And in the very least, we can all begin with acceptance.

I became a therapist to remind clients of those truths. When they are in their darkest hours and they are blinded by their broken past or fear of a dire future, it is my job to remind them that there is LIGHT. They are the light.

Sometimes the rain must come down in order to make way for the sun.

Listen to: "Good Rain" by Trevor Hall