I Continue to (Re)Write my Journey through Metamorphosis

My Story

Born in north Louisiana among the tall pine forests, I now find myself in northern Colorado looking to the Rocky Mountains. Nature continues to be my guide through this life and (re)directs me to living a life worth loving. At various points along my path, I have forgotten my quest in this life as a healer of the soul and soil. I was meant to be a preacher at the altar of Mother Nature.

I spent my early 20s exploring - from Marin county of California, to tracing my ancestor ghosts in Kraków, Poland and western Europe, and teaching in Seoul, South Korea. Then, craving some direction and stability, I started graduate school in Tucson, Arizona, to study higher education and support individuals’ learning and growth. During my PhD studies, I worked full-time as a student affairs administrator. I tried to ‘balance’ work, studies, research, a partner, and what I actually wanted out of life. [Foreshadowing: failure ahead.]

I saw the shiny allure of academia and its sparkly ivory tower. At the time I couldn’t see the shadows, cracks, and dark corners waiting to grab hold. By the end of my 20s adventures, I found myself filing for divorce and entering another metamorphosis of change. I pursued a tenure-track faculty career of teaching, research, and service. I would (re)emerge an intellectual who finally defied her working class farm roots and ‘belonged’ with the fancy folks.

I was full of the constant craving of external rewards and achievements and higher ed was ripe and ready to prey on those insecurities. For awhile, I poured my gifts and purpose in that work that felt like freeing autonomy until I understood it as overworking and overachieving. Yet I gained clarity, skills, and experiences. Through teaching graduate students, I channeled my passion for group experiential learning and mentoring. In my research, I put my desire for social change and impact to work on inclusivity, interculturalism, and exploring women and minoritized experiences. In my service work, I found a way to support meaningful ventures and connect with others across the campus and world.

Yet, I started to wonder about my impact and influence and if any of it mattered. Who was I anymore? The highlight of my 30s though was in 2013 when my daughter was born. She continues to be my deepest spiritual teacher in this lifetime with her continuous messages of Love.

That peaceful break didn't last long. Tenure-tracking, over-researching/publishing, over-caring and preparing for teaching, momming, partnering, and trying to keep my soul alive with hobbies of running, gardening, and beekeeping. At the time, I had to perform each at 100% to prove something to myself and others. I now see the trauma pattern playing out of from childhood adversity where overachieving was coping.

At the age of 39 though, my body started to yell at me to abandon this lifestyle of over-commitments, stress, anxiety, and continuous pressure. My body was suffering. My soul was empty. My relationships were in shambles. Injuries and illnesses plagued me for the next few years until I started to take the messages seriously and implement major lifestyle changes. I needed to undergo what, at that time is my most significant metamorphosis of change - I needed a significant (re)writing of my story.

In this round of transformation, I found life coaching and created this work as part of my calling to share knowledge and help others (re)integrate their internal truth with how they want live and love in this lifetime. I ended up divorcing again (although we never married). We would (re)create it into a healthy co-parenting one unlike my own childhood trauma. I began witnessing my limiting beliefs and old patterns with compassion and replacing them with new ones that fit the life I want to lead. I remembered I wanted to cultivate a kinder, more loving community that continuously wiggles out from under patriarchal assumptions and expectations.

In my 40s, I have returned to my quest by seeking inner peace within myself and through my infinite connection to Nature. I combine my ancestral knowledge of Mother Earth and healing with my experiences in higher education working to unearth stuck patterns of humxn behaviors that lead to suffering and being out of sync with ourselves and Nature. I continue to work to heal my body and to convince my soul and heart to trust that I have learned some good lessons and that I will not keep building more walls around them. Coming on this side of the pandemic, I look back and see myself metamorphosing out of a very long and dark night of my soul.

This is my journey to get back to the important purpose of my humxn existence as a spiritual being and to assist others in getting back to their unique quest. It’s a daily journey. And I wake up each day to take another step in this grand adventure!