I’d like to share an important piece of my story with you.
Two weeks after my college graduation, my beloved Dad left the physical plane. His passing threw me and my broken heart into the deep throes of fear, doubt, and uncertainty.
The loss cracked me open in ways I could have never imagined. And out of those cracks came a hurricane of hard questions that were in constant competition for my attention.
I tried to envision a way forward, but nothing came. Under the heaviness of gravity and grief, I was at a total loss for answers.
One question became particularly relentless in its pursuit of me.
And it wasn’t just a question, it was THE question that would change the course of my life.
“What is it that makes my life worth living?”
Before I lost my dad, I thought I had so many good answers to that question. But after? All I had was this hole where everything I thought I knew for sure used to be. A hole that served as a constant reminder of the inevitability of mortality.
But here’s the thing about the holes that get created when we lose someone or something that really matters to us… they’re portals. And they deliver us to places that we would've never even known existed without them.
My dad didn’t get to live forever, and for the first time, I truly understood that I wouldn’t either. Once I fully recognized the preciousness of being alive, taking responsibility for how I was using my time became absolutely essential.
My portal led me into the depths of myself to search for the things that really mattered to me. Of all my findings, there was one that shifted my entire perspective upon its discovery.
“What matters to me is love. I am here to leave a legacy of love.”
It was the truth of all of my truths, and once I found it, I knew that we would never be apart. It revived me. This truth was the new law of my life, and anything that didn’t fit with it had to go!
I quit my marketing job and opened myself up to the possibility of forging a new career path that would support me on my mission.
By an act of grace, I stumbled upon an Integrative Healing Arts program which included certifications in life-coaching and hypnotherapy, as well as celebrant ordination. As I browsed through the courses, I felt a deep sense of knowing and decided to enroll immediately.
It was the best decision I have ever made!
Today, I am a spiritual coach and celebrant who is living an impassioned life in service of unearthing and honoring the truth.
And not just the easy and convenient truths, or the truths that give us the warm fuzzy feels (though I’m a BIG fan of that kind) but the bubbling under the surface, scary to acknowledge, difficult to swallow, yet totally transformational truths too. It is my belief that our abilities to fully embrace our truths (good, bad, and ugly) will mean the difference between living and just existing.
The late poet, Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote,
“Alas for those that never sing / but die with all their music in them!”
That music he’s talking about? It’s truth! And truth is the sweetest sound in all of human language. Because the moment that we have the courage to acknowledge the truth, closed doors fling open, old wounds begin to mend, and the dark spaces within ourselves and our lives are suddenly flooded with light.
Truth, in all of its forms, is undeniably holy. When we say it and we mean it, we can feel it straight down to our bones. It’s the raw, unfiltered, essence of who we really are. And it can change our lives in an instant.
I look forward to holding space for you as you explore the many layers of your own truth and allow whatever it is you find there to guide you in living your life radically and authentically alive.
