The Unspoken Words From The Hero Within.

One of the biggest things I have learned through my recovery is to never give up on myself and always have faith in the direction I want to take myself, and others. You always think in your mind that life doesn't give you enough time to do all the things you want to do, or to become the woman you would like to be. I say let's prove everyone wrong, and I did just so this year. The best way to describe the impact it took me to move forward is to tell you what happened.

Before we dive in, I want to express that I am grateful and lucky to be alive. To all who have helped me along in this incredible journey, I thank you. My journey has not been all cupcakes and rainbows. In actual fact, there has been more darkness than light, but that is what led me here, to a place that I can now use that fire within to grow and expand and continue living my truth. I want you to believe that your darkness can help you to do the same.

On February 2, 2020, my life officially turned upside down. The world as I knew it disappeared, like a burned piece of paper or a candle that had been blown out.

I woke up as if it were any other normal day. I went to the gym and crushed a workout, then came home and enjoyed my tea and the rest of my morning with my best friend, my dog Big Rigg. This was how a typical morning went, but this one particular morning took a turn when I began to feel dizzy. At first I was not too worried, figuring I’d maybe just pushed it a little too hard at the gym. The dizziness turned into nausea, so I decided I’d lay down. Riggs apparently had other plans, he began barking and nipping at me, which was really unusual for him. He continued as I curled up in a ball, trying to find some peace, and eventually jumped on me and actually bit me, which is what scared me into motion. I jumped up quickly and this is when the severity of the situation hit me. I couldn't feel the left side of my body. Big Rigg looked at me with fear in his eyes and I started pacing and wondering to myself, “am I having a heart attack or a stroke? There’s no way, I'm only 31!” I paced the room, back and forth, and Riggs just kept barking and barking non stop, nipping at me. Now I couldn’t feel my right side at all. I looked at him in the eyes and he barked one more time in the direction of where my keys were hanging by the door. I grabbed the keys and looked at him and said, “ Mom loves you, I'll be right back!”

What I didn’t realize at that moment was that Big Rigg had saved my life. If it were not for the love of my life, my best friend and my fur baby, I would have curled up in a ball that day and never woken up again.

I believe to move forward from pain or any part of trauma you must accept what has happened and learn from what has almost broken you. There are always valuable lessons in what we carry within us, and my trauma was just the beginning of a new life. Before I get to how I moved forward I'd like to talk a little about how my life was previous to the awakening I have been living in my present time. I was 31, young, wild and free. I worked hard and was very social, never missing a beat and always on the go breaking hearts, including my own. In fact what I thought was living, was to my surprise the complete opposite.

Living a fast paced life overworked and undervalued, led me to having the wrong circle of friends and meeting the wrong men disrupting my wellness of being. I just wish I knew then what I know now but then again, this is why I am here today with the inner strength to be able to tell others and help them on their journey of living.

I remember waking up and thinking to myself, “where the hell am I? Why can't I feel my body? Why can't I see anything?” I was left feeling scared and nauseous, and I was alone. I had driven myself to the hospital that day knowing that something terribly wrong was happening. As I found out later, the doctors had wrongfully diagnosed me, and I was left lying in a hospital bed 5 days later in the Trauma room.

I still remember this so vividly. So much pain, so much hurt and so much hate is brought to my mind when I think back to that time. All these emotions and agony could have been prevented if they would have listened to me and would have considered that I know my body. I remember laying there not being able to move and telling them that something was wrong. They continuously told me that there was nothing they could do for me and that I was okay, that I should just go home and lay down. Instead they wheeled me out under the lights alone in a hallway in an emergency. I remember the minutes, the people and the bright lights, but most of all I remember the worst excruciating pain of my life as it traveled towards my eyes and the back of my head. I couldn't see, I started twitching and all I could hear was someone say “how long have her eyes been like this? How long has she been having a seizure?” It was like an out-of-body experience where I could see everything and hear everything but my body wasn't allowing me to respond. I was so scared as I was alone at the time and all I wanted was my dog.

Waking up in the Trauma room was horrible. I couldn’t move and I couldn't see anything - but I could hear and smell everything. I had vomit in my hair and was in pain with tears rolling down my face. The doctor told me that my parents were on their way, and was apologizing profusely because he missed the window of opportunity to give me a blood thinner shot to help me. I laid there physically paralyzed, wondering over and over what had I done to deserve this. I told the doctor that I remembered the nurses and people walking past me and that and I knew something was wrong, but all he had to say to me was that he was sorry I’d gone through that. He was sorry?! How can someone be sorry when they're on the other side, while I'm the one that's lying in a bed unable to move, unable to see, and not knowing where my life is heading. How could somebody really be that sorry?

So many days passed and still with test after test, they didn't have any idea of why this had happened to me. The conclusion was that I’d had a cerebral stroke that affected both sides of my body. I was paralyzed on my left side, and unable to feel temperature nor pain on my right. I was partially blind in my left eye, and am still to this day.

For weeks I spent my days waking up at 6:00 AM, eating the same bland food from the hospital and getting the same pills from a different nurse each day. I had daily visits with an occupational therapist, where they would tell me how great I was doing, even though I knew in my mind how different I was and honestly couldn't remember a thing or focus during the appointment. After OT came physiotherapy, as I had to learn how to walk again and use my left side that was still without feeling. Lunch, nap, dinner and then bed. Day after day, week after week, I couldn’t wait to be out of there. I was surrounded by the sad faces of people who were left with worse diagnoses and circumstances than me, and this acted as fuel for me to shift my mindset. I understand that a range of emotions are expected and meant to be experienced, I just knew in my heart that I didn’t want to feel sad. I wanted to choose life, and truly live it. “I am alive, I have love within me and all around me, and I need to shift my mindset to keep moving forward in my journey.”

I remember feeling so defeated in the hospital, constantly reminded by others how different my life was going to be moving forward - as if I wasn’t aware of this. I remember friends coming to see me and my family coming in everyday to help me through the tough ones, but the days were not the hardest to work through - it was the nights, alone with my own thoughts. It was the change from the day's mindset of “I can do this!” to the evening struggles, which sounded like “I can't handle life like this, is this fight going to be worth it.” As visitors tried to comprehend my situation, they often listed off things that I was no longer able to do - this ignited something in me because they truly had no idea what I was capable of. No one knew where my life was headed or where it would turn, or even how strong and determined I was to come out of this. They had no idea how badly I wanted to live.

The minutes went by and turned into hours, then days turned into nights and nights turned into nothingness. Everything ran together; my thoughts, my darkness, even that silly red button that I pressed every couple hours due to pain and discomfort. I couldn’t get comfortable, but I also couldn’t move myself. I was experiencing seizures that pushed me even farther into darkness and lack of control. I always wanted to live. Dying wasn’t an option, and not coming through this on the other side never crossed my mind. I stayed determined through this pain, allowing myself to sink into the darkness and accept where I was at. Since I couldn’t see, I was also experiencing darkness physically, which fit the metaphor of the darkness my mind was sitting in. I had to surrender.

Being a young woman and not being able to bathe yourself, walk by yourself, eat on your own or do anything without the help of others often felt unbearable. As my eyesight returned, I was able to see the way others looked at me. The looks, the stares, the pain in the eyes of others - especially my parents - as if they had done something wrong. All I could do was sit there and witness it all. Some visitors just looked at me and I felt judged, while others just listened to me and supported me as I healed.

I remember the day I had to go downstairs to the recovery unit. It was honestly the most terrifying place; cold, dark, and unwelcoming. I was left in my wheelchair for hours before someone came to talk to me or noticed I was there, and for hours I sat alone and cried. I had called my family saying I didn’t want to be there. I was so scared that I was shaking and close to throwing up. I also remember my family telling me to pull myself together and suck it up - a replay from the words I’d always heard as a child. In the end, I'm grateful for those words that my mom and dad told me when I was younger, because I believe it was the tough love that changed my outcome and kept me determined to conquer this stroke. Through it all, there was something in my mind that just kept telling me to keep going and to fight. Something saying “you're stronger than this, you're stronger than what your mind is telling you, you're stronger than what your body is allowing you.” I listened, and I kept going.

I often found myself recalling things I’d been told or heard while in the hospital, and wondered how people could say some things to me the way they did. No one was able to understand what I was experiencing or how my mind and heart were shattered - how could they? All I needed was love and to know that they were there for me, no matter what. I know everyone did the best they could with what they had. Reflecting on the tough love things from my childhood - tough love can be a great motivator and it can also be really hurtful. It can be part of what pulls us out of the depth of our own hell and makes us the spectacular person we are. Not everyone will have the love required to turn tough love into change, but I did, and still do today.

My days in the hospital were completely life altering for me. My life as I knew it changed instantly, and my truth moving forward has a different tone than before. The darkness, sadness and loneliness in the hospital became goals and challenges I had to face to become strong and wise. To be alone in your own thoughts and emotions I think is something we all fear the most because we’ve been so conditioned to repress our trauma and emotions as we move through life.

One of my fondest memories of my recovery was when I was still in the hospital and I was sitting in the cafeteria with my mom wearing an eye patch, sitting in a wheelchair and looking like a mess. I looked at her and I said “Mom, I want to help other women. I want to help other people and I'm going to do that one day. I want to be an advocate. I want people to know they're not alone and I can do this. I'm going to write a book.”

My mom and I were never really close when I was younger, we always fought.. but she was there for me every single day when I was in the hospital and I had the best time with her. Even though I couldn't do anything, we sat there and listened to music in the dark, we cried together, we laughed and when I told her I wanted to help other women and was going to write a book she looked at me with such despair in her eyes for what I had been through. At the same time she knew that I was going to overcome this hurt and come out on top.

As I write this, it’s been almost three years since my stroke. I was able to learn how to walk and eventually run again. Sometimes it took me days to get out of bed and for friends to convince me to leave my house. It took me writing my way through three journals of hate, love and anger. I laughed, I cried, I yelled and closed myself off to so many people. But the beauty that came out of all my darkness is profound. I’ve made new friends and I’ve become an entrepreneur, successfully opening my own skincare wellness business. I feel proud of my business successes, but truly feel my biggest achievement of all was that I I did in fact write a book! Just like I projected that day in the hospital while talking with my Mom, I wrote a book called Beautifully Empowered: The Gift of Gratitude , which is about moving forward in life and my recovery.

Some of my biggest lessons and takeaways from my recovery and what I bring forward with me as I continue living my truth are things I want to share with you.

It took me the last three years to figure out what life was truly about, and how accepting things for what they are and letting go of trauma and negativity was so important in my recovery. I cried a lot. I had to let go of some of the closest relationships I had in order to focus on myself first. I ended up selling nearly everything in my house as I shifted my mindset away from material things in order to see value in what I already had in my life. It truly took becoming a minimalist for me to see the importance and value of what I already had in my life aside from the “things” I had.

If you undoubtedly want to move forward, you will find a way. I did. I believe deep down to the core inside of your heart that you can and you will persevere, find love, joy and gratitude again.

Letting go of your past mistakes and your hurt or the grief you hold within yourself isn't about forgetting what has happened. It’s about loving it and accepting it. Releasing and moving on from that pain will allow you to move mountains and see the light in yourself once again.

We don't need to forget the people we love or the moments and memories we made with them in this life, but we should carry them as if they won't last because it will make us love everyone even more.

It is important to explore the depths of the unknown and the darkness in your mind. Ask yourself every day, “how much do you love yourself?” If you understand the value of self-love and loving all the dark parts of you and your past, you'll never give up. For me, self-love is a matter of knowing your value. It's a matter of you saying I don't have to do this anymore. You don't have to be in pain or be sad or live in regret. I am an incredible person and I can move forward. I see value in myself. You can too.

There are many people who are going through some kind of recovery, and many are running on empty. Be kind, and be intentional with your words.

I want you to forgive yourself. I want you to forgive any relationship that you ever had that didn't work out. Forgive everyone in your life that has ever hurt you in any way because by doing that, you're choosing love. You’re moving forward. Forgiveness is giving up the thought that the past could have been different and accepting it as it’s played out. It is accepting that it has happened and now asking what can I do and what will I do about it? How will I move forward and live my truth? Forgiving is not holding on, hoping or wishing that it could have been any other way than it actually was. Once I understood this, it took me to the next level of healing and enlightenment, and I became a better version of myself. I learned to not hold grudges for anything or any situation.

Moving forward is letting go so that the past does not hold you prisoner, it does not hold you hostage to your emotions and your thoughts. Whatever experience you're having right now it has not come to stay it has come to pass. The biggest challenge is to know what's happening, that it is a part of you and it's called life and it will pass. You have to be willing to break from the past to have the future that you so desperately desire. You have to have courage and the strength to allow yourself to honor the past as it was, to forgive those who need to be forgiven and to acknowledge that everything led to you to this exact point in your life.

I'd like to finish this blog by asking you a question and I want you to ask yourself this almost everyday and to really think about it. Who is your hero ? Who is it the one you look up to? Who is it that you would die for, even live for ... that you would take a leap of faith for? Who is it that you love the most unconditionally? Tell me who is your hero ?

I am my own hero. I saved myself! The world can be cruel and it can be very tempting to stay in a stagnant place in your life. You can blame others for your misery and stay in overwhelmed situations but the obstacles you face will forever be indelibly remarkable. It may seem rather unusual and it probably is but I do not know anyone stronger than myself. Others have been through their own experience but who is the only person who has gone through the exact same path as you and survived?

At the end of the day you cannot help your children, spouse, friends or loved ones if you are not 100 percent OK in your own skin mentally and physically. Be the version of yourself when you were a child, the child who woke up excited that it was morning and you got to play in the rain, be the heart with no pain or worries . Be the peace and carefree spirit we all lose growing up. Be your own hero and cherish the time you have for tomorrow is never promised and yesterday became a what if.