Maybe it was just the peak of my sade sati, maybe it’s this year in general, and maybe none of you want to hear about the deepest thoughts and feelings in my heart. Maybe you won’t want to work with me when you find out I’m not perfect, that I am deeply flawed and human. Maybe my master’s degree as an art therapist will be moot once you discover that I can’t be who you project upon me. That I am direct, sometimes unkind, but mostly deeply empathetic, sorrowful, easily excitable, deeply, extremely, unfathomably sensitive, raw, honest, truthful, yet I hold it all in secrecy because god, what if you knew? All the training around marketing speaks to a very different volume of communication.
Maybe this will help you feel more connected to me, and maybe if I just trust the whispers of my heart, to use this app like a personal diary, and share the depths of my soul for the entire internet (or maybe nobody) to read, maybe it’ll work. Maybe it will give you a reason to judge me or hate me, I’ve certainly had that happen too.
The world is a terrifying place at times, but also deeply beautiful, deeply human, deeply flawed.
And if I cannot fully answer the question of who I am — not my likes or dislikes, not my thoughts, feelings, my body, my personality, my intuition, or even my gifts — not that. I mean… who is it that sometimes wants it all to end? I don’t say this from a place of despair, but from a place of honest witnessing. A question I believe many people feel but rarely say aloud.
Who asks what it would mean to let go? Who's the one letting go? Who's being let go of? What is it this life, that is often in question of ending or beginning, as if it were even an option? As if there were an end or a beginning?
Do you even end?
In my experience as a medium, not exactly. But then… who is remembered?
In my humblest knowing — which is to say, barely any at all — I believe I know close to nothing. And neither do you. And isn’t that, in its own way, freeing?
Isn’t it an invitation to stay curious? To stay connected?
It’s strange — it’s really not possible to truly know anything about anyone. Sure, we have intuition. But even intuition sharpens through dialogue, reflection, the asking of questions, the noticing of patterns. And even then… we get it wrong.
Still — sometimes our nervous systems relax when someone validates what we feel. That little gut-knowing, the truth that rises not from fact, but from feeling. And maybe that’s the gateway. We know it’s true because we feel it. And we only feel it when we’re brave enough to keep feeling.
(But not too much, obviously.)
Recently, I found myself turning 32, and grieving my past, my present and my future all at once. 31 was transformative, I experienced having 11 loved ones pass away in a year. Contemplating death is not new for my, I have had 17 deaths in the past 3 years and nearly lost my mom, who thankfully is still here. But grief, matched with mudslides, fires, my car being stolen, bank accounts being hacked, does a lot to the nervous system, to feelings of safety and grounding.
As if life was asking me to find security in myself, outside of my home, my car, my money, my career, my friends, my family, or my partner.
Life even brought me a partner who was everything I ever dreamed of, only to have him switch on me and leave while my city burned to the ground.
Abandonment is the deepest wound I have, and there are times where I feel I would do anything to avoid being alone with the sheer intensity of my sensitivity.
Some people tell me they want these intuitive gifts I have, hell, I know some born-again business coaches that spent years lying to their audiences that they had these gifts, only to come clean once they found Jesus.
But again, what do I truly know anyways.
I know that this level of sensitivity can feel deeply, unimaginably, painful at times.
The fires in Los Angeles took my workplace, my car, my partner, and made me feel unsafe to be home. I lost the tethers to my past four years in Topanga canyon, my future in Barcelona with my partner, and my present career. I lost sight of who I was, and could not define myself or find stability, because these external factors had become my safety. As someone who has struggled severely with attachment trauma, the reason why I got into psychology and spirituality in the first place, losing all that I felt securely attached to all at once was grief in all directions.
It’s in those moments when we feel the most unlovable, that God, or your higher power whatever you believe in seems to come in. A friend came to visit, helped me take care of basic things because I couldn’t take care of myself. Another friend offered me a beautiful home to stay in overlooking the cliffs of Nosara, Costa Rica. How could I truly be unlovable when love was showing up all around me, even in my darkest, lowest moments?
Clearly, I was still lovable, just I know how much I loved all the people in my life who treated me awfully, because love isn’t conditional on treatment (relationships are), but on some core you-ness. Something that seems to not have thoughts or words or feelings or behaviors, it’s beyond it, it’s just a core essence, perhaps it’s the essence that leaves the body when we die, and the body no longer holds that “you-ness” of the person we loved.
I think this is why so many people stay in abusive relationships. Maybe it’s also attachment and cptsd, and there is certainly a behavioral element to it, but on a deeper level, the romantic in me believes it is love. We see something in someone who just wants to be loved, like the rest of us.
Maybe that is the benefit of grief in all directions. It forces us to pause. It forced me to crumble, and claw my way out of the hellscape of my head, to slowly see what the Maharashi’s and the Babaji’s of the world have been alluding to this whole time, only this time it isn’t just words or the correct answer for an exam. This time it’s felt, it’s situational, it’s real. It’s the eye of the storm, as grief washes what’s left of me, in all directions.
As it continues to rain, I trust that I will find clarity, but again, what do I really know. I know that it is raining in grief, in all directions, with moments of periodic partly cloudy skies, and for now, that’s enough. That’s innately, beautifully, human.