In Like a Lion, Out Like a Wrecking Ball
The month of May seems synonymous with major change.
In May of 2016, I stopped taking all of the medication I had been prescribed for misdiagnosed asthma and started down the road of natural health/self-healing.
In May of 2020, I gave birth to my son, Graham.
In May of 2023 I got sick. Really sick. As in, I spent almost the whole month in bed. When I finally got better, the illness, whatever it was—COVID, parainfluenza, a nasty case of bronchitis, or some other nameless, faceless, persistent, and all-consuming virus—took parts of me with it.
A few months earlier, I was interviewed by the Coffee With podcast about how to live well with a Chiari malformation without surgery, which is what I do most of the time. Until this time. Until May 2023 when the pain in my head dragged me kicking and screaming to the dark places I thought I left behind in 2016.
Every time the pain receded, before it crept in again, I questioned every choice I ever made that led to that moment, that unbearable agony. More than once I felt like a fraud. I couldn’t control the pain with positive thoughts or the godliest affirmations. I couldn’t see through the illness that kept getting worse every day, when I cried through sleepless nights where I vacillated between coughing and puking, and buried my face in a pillow to scream because my head felt like it was going to split but I didn’t want to wake anyone up. How could I condescend to know how to help anyone else feel better when I was scraping the bottom of the barrel of all the things that used to work, all the modalities and belief systems that kept me humming 95% of the time but that failed so miserably throughout the month of May that I basically threw up my hands and said what the fuck is the point?
Seven years-worth of soul searching and introspection came crashing to the ground, spilling the phlegm-filled bottles that followed me as I crawled from room to room, and leaving broken pieces of meditation, Dyer, Dispenza, tapping, journaling, energy work, and crystal shards scattered around me on the floor. On the other side of May, I felt hung out to dry by who I thought I was, and I realized I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t know if I was right to refuse surgery on my brain or think a few quotes on my Facebook page or a random blog post was going to help anyone else live a better life. Until May 2023, I trusted myself, and that wasn’t always easy. I was used to being questioned, of butting up against friends, family, even strangers who didn’t understand the decisions I’ve made in the name of health. But now, for the first time, I started wondering if they were right.
I was afraid. I was afraid to be let down by these ideas, and in turn let myself down because I was wrong.
Deep down, beneath the despair that began fading as my life slowly returned, I felt a quiet, patient thread of my old self (but somehow better and wiser than before May 2023) that was waiting for the fear to pass. And when it did, I realized May 2023 was a wrecking ball that tore down the house I built from the ideas I gleaned from books and documentaries. All of it was important, all of it helped me live a better life, but almost none of it was mine. I had taken myself and my own wisdom—with rare exceptions—out of the equation. Every time I faced a new issue, be it health or relationships or parenting, I ran to Amazon or Instagram or Netflix or my own dusty bookshelf for answers. I almost never looked within.
During the hardest times, when making it through another day was the best I could do, a Dispenza mediation or comforting Dyer quote gave me something to hope for. They lifted me up when I couldn’t stand on my own. Now, a full year after the demolition of everything I thought I knew about healing, I can see that I needed that wrecking ball because a woman entering her forties can’t rely solely on the wisdom of others. It has its place. But my own inner knowing is just as important—if not more so.
What I understand about last May is that the old ways, the modalities and rituals that got me through a terrible season of pain, aren’t necessarily what I need anymore. Or they aren’t the only things I need.
What I need now, as another May ushers in new wisdom, is a rebuild. The brick and mortar of this new foundation has to come from my own soul, not the pages of a book written by someone else. What I need now is just more me.