how i am healing without pathologizing my sadness

“Healing is not linear” is something I’ve heard hundreds of times since getting sober in February of 2020.  And on the intellectual level, I’ve always known this to be true. 

But it’s taken five years for the other shoe to drop — five years to really understand that at any moment, we may return to the exact point of despair from which we once arose.

This time around, the despair came for me in the form of an at-home miscarriage. This traumatic event sent me right back into the place where my real healing journey initially started: grief.

While I started to grieve the pregnancy and the invitation to motherhood, I quickly realized that this loss had some complex layers for me to sort through. And it was time for me to get back to working on myself again, without the noise of the internet and an audience.

Since starting my business, I’ve alchemized my inner world into spirit art and service to others on the path. But over the years, what was once therapeutic and healing for me has become a job that doesn’t always create time for me to keep moving forward on my own healing.

The desire to serve others in lieu of pursuing my own path also reinvokes unhelpful patterns of over-giving, shaky boundaries, and the isolating feeling of being watched by people but rarely ever held.

So healing is looking different for me this time: as in, I’m at the center of it. And I’m staying here for a while.

And here is some of what I’ve been exploring. I am leaving this here to inspire anyone else who may want to heal a little differently this time around.

1. Herbalism and plants as medicine

   I left California and moved to a rural Illinois because I wanted to live with the rhythms of nature and honor my ancestry. Grief fast-tracked that desire by leading me outside and into identifying all the plants in my yard (which I now realize is actually a quite common for people with complex trauma and/or near-death experiences).
   I started intuitively started making teas and infusions with the plants that have quite literally become my friends. It’s a refreshing way to feel nourished, held, guided, and learn to trust the earth. I trust the earth more than…. anything.

2. Breathwork

   For seven years, I woke up every morning and wrote morning pages (a la Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way). It was only after the miscarriage that I started to consider that I’ve maybe outgrown that very strict and diligent morning practice. I replaced it with free breathwork audios on Spotify, mostly by Seek Within, and I can feel new neural pathways forming, stagnant energy leaving my body, and the empowerment to speak truth.

3. Back from the Borderline
   I no longer have to use my therapy sessions to pontificate on the mystery of the Universe because Mollie has hundreds (maybe thousands) of hours of well-researched content that invites sensitive people to ask themselves the hard questions. Back from the Borderline is a podcast that’s appeared in my life at the right time, and now I can use my therapy session to do the personal work. Lol.
   Mollie’s work encourages us to ask “What happened to me?” as opposed to the default “What is wrong with me?” She’s on a mission to inspire folks to take charge of their own healing instead of outsourcing it.
   She reframes the status quo of recovery through the lens of depth psychology (Carl Jung fans, this ones for us) and esoteric mysticism. This resource truly helps me connect all the dots, and when she drops a new episode, I feel like there’s someone out there who finally understands me.

4. Pokemon

   I invited my brother over for dinner and he surprised me by bringing my old GameBoy Color from childhood. He also included our favorite game from childhood, Pokemon.
   The instant I flipped the on switch and heard the magical synthesizer music that soothed me throughout my childhood (ages 8-12 maybe), I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I was amazed by how quickly all the memories of playing it came rolling back and how much information my body has retained about this game.
   Furthermore, it’s also been healing to play it as an adult, with a bit of strategy, as opposed to a child, when I played it with pure emotion. I highly recommend revisiting childhood games as an adult.

A lot of people have been asking me when I might be offering 1:1 mediumship readings, but I’m still working on me.

What I can tell you is that I’ve designed a third edition of Subconscious Signals, my Oracle Deck, with all new descriptions and 12 new cards. I receive the first sample deck sometime next week (May 2025). I plan to take preorders thereafter.

Additionally, our small software team also plans integrate a new feature on the Sunlight Oracle app that allows you to pick a daily card (and maybe even keep some notes about it!). Stay tuned.