Triumph Over Misery: The Beautiful Story of Ruthie Lindsey

Author Jamais Cascio once said, “Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival.  The goal of resilience is to thrive.  I never thought I would need to know this lesson until my life was turned upside down.

-Ruthie Lindsey

Meet Ruthie Lindsey

Today’s post is very near and dear to my heart for several reasons.  Our guest blogger is Ruthie Lindsey (visit her website), a designer, speaker, stylist, and overall inspirer.  She travels all over sharing her incredible story that invites us to a high and spacious place of living beautifully in the midst of painful realities.

  I have known Ruthie now for about fifteen years and have observed from a distance her journey in and out of joy-filled vibrancy and physical/emotional pain, concurrently.  Whereas we will go months without seeing each other, every time we do, I’m reminded of something so lovely and moving.  I am reminded that there is always hope, even in our darkest nights.  She simply exudes life, style, and fun.  If you have met Ruthie Lindsey or follow her on social media, you know exactly what I am talking about.  She takes her pain and brokenness and fear; she holds it up to the light, vulnerably-courageously,  and gives it a name outside of hers.  Unmistakably, she touches the hurting hearts of countless others.    It’s beauty from ashes and that kind of beauty is simply incomparable; without need of filters.

Close to Home

My older sister and best friend, Kristen has dealt with chronic pain due to endometriosis and resulting surgical nerve damage for nearly two decades.  It breaks my heart to watch her in pain; to know she is suffering and no one can take it away from her, definitely not me.  This type of pain is systemic: when she hurts, her community and family suffer as well because we love her and desperately long to see healing.  This overcoming story not only gives me hope in facing my own nasty demons, but also for my remarkably courageous sister who has yet to see the light at the end of her tunnel.

Ruthie Lindsey’s story is not just about chronic pain, it’s about the suffering we all face in our human frailty.  It is about standing smack dab in the middle of our story, pain, loneliness, heartache and all, and writing a new ending that offers life and hope to others.  In return, our cups get filled no matter what circumstances dictate.  Hope is a hurricane of a force.  When we give it away from a place of desperate need, we cultivate sunshine in the center of our storm.  I sincerely hope you read every word of her story.  Your life will be richer for it.

The Accident

When I was a senior in high school, I pulled out in front of an ambulance that hit me after crushing my car door going 65.  I broke three ribs, punctured my lungs, my spleen ruptured and I broke the top two vertebrae in my neck.  I was told I had a 5 percent chance to live and a 1 percent chance to ever walk again.  After I was stable and off life support, they took bone from my hip and fused it into my neck by wrapping it with metal wire.  I was so fortunate to have youth and good health on my side.  After a month, I walked out of the hospital with only a neck brace.  I was able to graduate on time and I honestly went back to my “happy go lucky” life as normal.  I would occasionally get sore if I danced too much (which is often), but otherwise I was able to forget it even happened.  I felt very removed from my story.  When I spoke about it, it was almost as if I was talking about it in third person, like it happened to someone else.

A Rude Awakening

A year after graduating college, I met my very first boyfriend and we were married within 10 months!  A year into our marriage, I was walking out of a Starbucks one day, when a searing pain shot through my neck and into my head.  I fell to my knees and nearly blacked out.  The pain continued with more and more frequency, and would leave me with horrific migraines.  It was so debilitating that I couldn’t function.  I saw tons of doctors, and each time they would order a scan and an elusive black spot appeared on the film.  They simply informed me it was the magnet in the machine interacting with the wired from my spinal cord fusion.  I tried countless (unsuccessful) therapies, then was prescribed heavy narcotics for my pain.  As a result of the pain, and the medication, I began spending more and more time in my bed.  I isolated myself and withdrew from my community and my marriage.  I though of myself as a burden.  This continued for over four years, exhausting money we barely had.

After these four years of mental and emotional exhaustion, I saw a new doctor who insisted on seeing what was under that little black spot on all my films.  A $50 X-ray showed that one of the wires had broken and pierced my brain stem.  What I learned is that I am apparently the only person in the world who has ever had this.  Specialists explained the risk of paralysis involved in attempting to remove the wire, but explained that if we didn’t try, I would eventually become paralyzed anyway.  I was one wrong turn of the head away from never walking again.  Insurance wasn’t going to cover my surgery, claiming my accident as a pre-existing condition.  Two weeks later my dad informed my mother that he was going to sell our farm to afford the procedure.

Loving Well

The night before he came to see me and tell me what he was planning to do with the farm, my dad had a freak accident.  After falling down a flight of stairs he passed away shortly thereafter from brain damage.  My dad’s sudden passing was a massive loss to my family, our community and me.  I remember lying in my bed night after night pinching myself until I bled because nothing felt real.  I felt I must be in a nightmare.  We were all absolutely devastated and heartbroken, but out of that loss something really beautiful happened.  My godfather set up a medical fun for me in my dad’s honor and money and letters started pouring in.  We would get letters that said, “Your dad sent me on my senior trip” or “your dad bought my prom dress” and your dad paid my tuition” or “your dad fixed my roof,” and on and on.  When my brothers and I were kids, whenever we left my dad’s presence, he would always say, “I love you so much, remember your manners, and always look out for the little guy.”  He wanted us to see and love the people who everyone else missed, and that’s what he did.  because he had loved people so well, this crazy amount of money was raised so that I could have this surgery.

Spiral

The doctors were able to remove the wire from my brain stem by taking bone from my other hip and fusing my neck back together with titanium screws.  Although able to walk afterward, I ended up getting major nerve damage in the surgery, and now my right side feels like it’s on fire at all times.  While recovering, I ended up contracting a bacterial infection called C. diff while in the hospital for another minor surgery.  I was so sick.  I stopped sleeping.  I had constant panic attacks and ultimately I had a full-blown nervous breakdown.  My husband was away on tour in Australia, and I had the feeling my marriage was coming to an end, which sent my downward spiral into a tailspin.  I became incapable of taking care of myself, so I moved home to live with my family in Louisiana.

Wakeup Call

My breakdown made me want to change everything.  I realized that I had identified myself with my pain for so long, so that is exactly how everyone else saw me.  Every conversation and interaction revolved around my condition.  When I would see people, they would ask, “How’s your back?” or “Are you hanging in there?” In some subconscious, gross way I found comfort in that, because it helped to justify having resigned myself to never-ending bed rest.

We teach people how to see us.  I don’t know what it was, but something changed, and I decided I was tired of people always feeling sorry for me.  If we lead from a place of brokenness, insecurity or bitterness, that is exactly who they will think we are.  But, if we lead from a place of love and wholeness, with compassion and strength, they are able to see us for who we really are.  I started to speak out loud the beautiful things I saw in people, places and experiences I was having.  I was looking for it an I was speaking it, and what’s so amazing is that as I was looking for beauty all around me I was reconnecting with my community.  The more I made myself get out of my bed and connect and love people, the less I was noticing how much I was hurting.  The very nature of pain is selfish and pulls our focus inward.  When I focused my energy outward, when I was doing things that were life-giving, things that I loved, I wasn’t thinking about my pain.

Energy Shift

The best decision I made was to wean myself off of all the pain meds I had been on for so long.  It took four months to wean myself off of the meds completely.  My marriage couldn’t survive under the circumstances, and I found myself single for the first time in a decade, and as a result of my time in self-exile, the bills were piling up.  I decided to focus my energy on doing little projects around the house to help me reclaim the space as my own.  I didn’t think much of it at first, but friends began assuring me that I had a knack for design.

The Rest of the Story

In short time, friends asked me to collaborate on projects.  I started an Instagram account and began posting the things that I was doing.  People started asking me to help them throw dinner parties, arrange flowers, set tables and decorate spaces.  I learned to say yes.  Around this time I had also started having people who didn’t know me following me on Instagram.  I started getting comments like, “You live my dream life!” And “I want your life!”  And to be honest, it made me feel nauseous.  I remembered lying in my bed for years, looking on Facebook and feeling so depressed, wishing that was me playing with my children and having all of these adventures, instead of lying in my bed hurting all the time.  I needed to give people a context for my joy.  I ended up writing out my entire story and sharing it online.  I remember feeling so vulnerable and exposed when I hit publish, but I knew I needed to give everyone the full scope of what was going on.  The truth was, my circumstances had not changed.  I was still in pain every minute, I was handling a divorce and I missed my dad every day, but I had learned to live differently.

We so often think, “I will be happy once I get, fill in the blank (that boyfriend, a certain job, a husband, baby, that house, etc.).”  But those things won’t fulfill us, until we ourselves are fulfilled.  I learned to find contentment despite my hardship.  And unexpectedly, I discovered that exposing myself made me feel less vulnerable.

Living to Thrive

Suffering is one of the things that unifies humanity.  At some point or another we all experience loss.  Sometimes, feeling hopelessness can give us a new lens through which to see the world because we learn to be more empathetic to those around us.  Now when I interact with someone suffering from heartache, loss or unendurable physical pain, I immediately have common ground to stand on with him or her.  I would never wish what Iv’e experienced on anyone, and I know that there are plenty of people with even more harrowing personal stories, but if telling my story of overcoming anguish helps just one person feel like she or he is not alone in despair, then at least what I went through had a purpose.  It took a long time, but I finally found myself.  It’s not the version of a life that I fantasized about as a child, but it’s better, because it’s a life that I earned in triumphing over my misery.  I’m proud to say I learned resilience from the unexpected, and now my mission in life is to thrive.

Night Moves: Restoring Successful Sleep

Let’s begin by taking a smallish nap or two…

-Winnie the Pooh

I recently listened to a fascinating interview with Arianna Huffington.  Dan Harris hosted her on his clever and well-curated podcast 10% Happier.  Despite what you may know or perceive about Ms. Huffington, I imagine you might find great value in what she has to say in this interview.  The topic of conversation was  somewhat surprising: sleep.  Sounds riveting, right?  Well, coupled with her thick, charming Greek accent and an earthy sensuality that’s endearing as well as childlike, I ate it up.  Dan Harris is the consummate host as well providing subtle if not covert humor so as not to overshadow the guest  with needless, distracting bravado.

As I have shared openly about in a recent blog post, sleep has been illusive if not downright absent in seasons of my life.  Those seasons were drenched in a strong cocktail of depression, anxiety, lack of purpose/identity, and garnished with a twist of pure exhaustion.  I vamp on sleep a ton in sessions with clients from week to week as well; we simply cannot heal without sleep.  When someone plops down on my couch and starts describing an extremely low experience wrought with feelings of confusion, overwhelming hopelessness, and a nonexistent margin of pleasure or optimism, the first question I ask is, “how has your sleep been?”  Seven times out of ten they reply with a frustrated, “what sleep?”

SLEEP REFRAME

Ask any new mom desperately trying to adjust to two hour slices of sleep between feedings on and off throughout the night and they will tell you all about how crazy making sleep deprivation is, often a byproduct of postpartum depression.  So why do we champion the vital need for sleep in a new mother’s experience yet glamorize sleep deprivation in other areas of life, especially the workplace?  We have made “running on fumes” a misguided virtue for the sake of hyper productivity and getting ahead.  This is totally counterproductive.

Well, I value productivity just like the next gal, and in this case, the next gal is Arianna Huffington.  The fact that she just wrote a book called Sleep Revolution as a loud wake-up call (pun intended) and conversation starter to put sleep and self-care back on the throne of successful living may have just made her my new girl crush.  After all, if a woman who has led a company valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars can religiously get 8 hours of sleep and divorce herself from those ever buzzing devices every night, so can I.

CHANGE YOUR MINDSET

First, like in anything, having a mindset of abundance in relation to sleep is clutch.  One of my biggest takeaways every time I watch Olympic athletes compete, performers sing their guts out on a Grammy stage, or football teams go head to head in a championship playoff is not only the hours of practice they have put in, but the mental toughness built over time to strengthen a winning mindset.  Sure, practice makes perfect, yet without the why, or clear belief of significance behind any endeavor, performance only falls flat.

MAN AS MACHINE

Humans began associating massive amounts of our identity with productivity and efficiency around the time of the Industrial Revolution, taking cues from, well… machines.  Thomas Edison’s warped views on sleep may not have helped either, referring to it as a “heritage from our cave days”.  He only got a reported 3-4 hours a night.  If the man who gave us the light bulb didn’t need it, why should we, right?  Um…wrong.

As adults, research shows we need between 7-9 hours of sleep every night and prolonged seasons of decreased sleep result in everything from weight gain to depression to heart disease and stroke.  This idea of working 24-7 is pretty much the same as going to work all liquored up.

We must change our mindset to allow for sleep as a highly valued and necessary part of getting ahead.  Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of amazon.com, is vocal about his 8-hours of sleep a night, claiming it is not only better for him, but also the people around him at work and in life each day.  There is no virtue or honor in exhaustion and sleep deprivation.  We must reclaim a mindset of sleep abundance, not scarcity.

CREATE A BEDTIME RITUAL

Remember that children’s book Goodnight Moon?  I think adults need that book even more than kids.  It’s a blueprint for bedtime ritual teaching us how to disconnect from the world in order to reconnect with ourselves through sleep.  I won’t harp on ritual as it is pretty self explanatory, however I will say rituals  provide sacred structure that facilitate intentionality in our lives.  I love ritual as it brings beauty and enjoyment into often rote or mundane to-do’s.  Here are a few go-to bedtime rituals to get the zzz’s flowing.  Just like Goodnight Moon, bedtime ritual creates the transition we need from our often harried days to the restful night’s sleep we need in order to recharge.  Oh, and if these seem hokey, they might just be.  But who cares, really?

• Take an epsom salt bath
• Use black out shades or a good eye mask
• Light some candles
• Read a book for enjoyment but make sure it’s a hardcopy!  No devices 
• Keep a gratitude journal and write three things you are grateful for from the day behind you.
• Diffuse sleep enhancing essential oils
• Meditate
• Shut down your devices and put them away.  That’s right, you may have to unearth the old alarm clock.

MEDITATION

What’s keeping you awake, anyway?  Chances are, your thoughts are.  Oftentimes, overactive, worrisome thoughts come out and have the dance party of the century when the lights go out.  I’ve got great news for you: If you are a nimble worrier, you might just give the Dalai Lama a run for his money in meditation.  Meditation is simply focused, positive intention.  In my experience, one of the reasons we get flustered by the fixations keeping us awake at night is we have little control over doing anything about them at 3 am.  Meditation is just another way to funnel that energy; one that serves as a conduit for sleep. There are tons of great apps and resources out there to facilitate meditation.  Headspace is one of my favorites.  However, as it relates to sleep, meditation is way more basic and you don’t need an app for that.

7-DAY CHALLENGE

Here is my challenge to you.  The next time you lie wide awake in the middle of the night tempted by the thumping dance party in your mind, try something different.  Find a short laser beam phrase of gratitude, intention , or positive belief and make it the focus of your energy and thought.  Distractions will interrupt and that’s okay.  Simply take notice and return your attention and energy back to the phrase.  Even if sleep levels remain light, energy in our bodies shift to promote different thought grooves in the brain that eventually allow our bodies to shut down.  Practice this for a week and see if you notice any changes.  I’ve been playing around with this and I notice my energy is more positive in the morning when I wake up.  I’d love to hear your experience with it as well.

EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE

If I had read this 10 years ago, I would have thrown whatever device I was reading it from across the room in utter frustration.  If that is the way you feel, fair enough; I can relate.   I am not ignorant to the fact that sometimes we need more than a bedtime ritual and some bath salts for soaking in order to restore broken sleep patterns.  This is not an oversimplified roadmap for curing deep emotional wounds that can result in full blown insomnia and resulting hopelessness.  If you are suffering from prolonged insomnia, please reach out.

My hope in writing this is simply to raise awareness for the invaluable role sleep plays in our daily and overarching life experience.  Sleep is cool.  Toting around total exhaustion like some medal of honor is not.  I love the examples being set by game-changing organizational leaders out there who are crushing it, eight hours of sleep at a time.  There is so much life out there to be had.  Let’s get some good shut-eye so we can be fully present to experience it.

Love,

katie

xoxo

Beautiful Lies: Sexual Abuse & Body Image

The Backdrop

One of my absolute favorite things about my work is getting to witness and hold space for clients’ awe-inspiring stories. It has forever changed the way I see strangers walking down the sidewalk, buying groceries, or getting coffee in the Starbucks line. Now, I like to see those people as walking miracles carrying remarkable stories, oftentimes stories that are overlooked or brushed aside.

Today’s story is a perfect example brought to you by one of the most courageous people I have ever met, Suzanna Hendricks. Suzanna is an Event Producer who was on staff close to 3 years with non-profit organization Invisible Children. She moved to Nashville to build an event production and experience design team for the common good called KAIO. in 2014 and recently relocated to Austin, TX to join the staff of the IF:Gathering team as the Development Manager.
As you can see, Suzanna does really cool stuff to effect change in our culture. Yet her greatest weapon is an unbelievably kind and generous heart coupled with a boldness to champion justice, truth, and love in every room she enters. Yep, she’s a badass.

She graciously offered to share her story today in order to shed light and hope on the stories that you might share: stories of sexual abuse, shame, and a resulting shattered body image. Shame is loudest in isolated and dark places. Today, my prayer is that Suzanna’s vulnerability and courage will start a conversation for those of us who feel trapped, silenced, and powerless in our stories of shame.  Let’s dive in.

A Lost Identity

A piece of my identity has always been rooted in shame for as long as I can remember. As people we all struggle with aspects of our identity. Yet as women, I believe we can walk through the world with an acute different standard and deep hidden pain. I’ve learned in this past decade of life that its when we expose to the light things either caused by or perpetrated in the dark, we are set free.

The women of my family are stunningly beautiful.  Beauty that both stills and draws people to them; a kind of rare magic filled with adventure and powerful energy. But our legacy read storylines of abuse, assault, rejection, abandonment, and my greatest one, shame.

Glimpses of Truth

As beautiful as my family is and as often as I have graciously been complimented for similar beauty, the truth is I never saw myself equally lovely.
Who me?

My first memory of being told I was beautiful was at age 14. It was artist Toby Mac who kindly looked at me in a receiving line post show and said, “God wants you to know that you are very beautiful.” I walked out of that building and my heart exploded with all sorts of joy. Beautiful! Me? Wow!

Thinking back after years of healing I wonder why I was 14 before my first memory of being told I was lovely or beautiful.

That truth about myself didn’t last very long. The greater narrative was that I was a victim of sexual abuse and a youth in painful transition with an absent father and younger siblings who were incredibly beautiful. They were called “Princesses” growing up; I was referred to as “Pumpkin”.
I don’t know the exact moment I lost a sense my identity of worth or equality, but go missing it did.

Body Shame

Ingrained in the expectation of perfection and stemming from both sides of my family, thin equals beautiful not healthy. Numbers on a scale were of the highest importance and beginning intros to most “hellos” during family time. It’s that type of narrative and mindset that leads many to eating disorders and self harm for not “measuring up”. I also grew up learning that our outward appearance if tended to well would draw in the attention of men, something to strive for: that feeling of being seen and adored.

Growing up I was always fuller figured. I hit puberty early, inheriting many noticeable family traits of my beautiful aunts on my fathers side, (aka a large chest). I quickly began feeling the unwanted attention of young and old men, immediately becoming uncomfortable with my body.

Those feelings of body shame were perpetuated deeply by own abuse, and later learning of nearly a decade of sexual abuse inflicted on my older sister by our father. There were other tales of violation: women close to me who were abused and stripped of power. Matched with the thoughtful concern of others as to my weight and opinions on what I should or should not be doing, my worthiness and feelings of shame eroded any truthfulness of my own value or beauty.

Reverse Psychology

I saw how beauty could cause both great celebration and harm so I subconsciously took an alternate route than most with those same emotions. Instead of working hard to meet the cultural and familial standard, I shut down the possibility of being harmed, or at least tried like hell to protect myself by decreasing my physical activity paying little attention to what I ate. Concurrently, I began to feel rather sickly but ignored it assuming I was being punished for my apathy. The scale rose and my self worth plummeted.

All along the way in my early 20’s, no one ever asked if something was wrong or if I was depressed or ok. I don’t blame them, we’re conditioned to think that weight is a result of apathy, or laziness instead of digging around for potential pain below the surface. In defiance to the judgement, I’d drink the coke or added extra sugar to my coffee, subconsciously furthering my deteriorating health. Every time my weight was talked about or suggestions were made to “fix the problem”, a part of me died.
In hindsight, I think it was the only thing I felt in control of. Shame has low blows, and its onslaught of internal warring was constant.

Shame says
See, you’re not beautiful enough as your are.
They don’t mean it when they tell you that you’re beautiful.
That person is only attracted to you because of your personality
No one is ever going to want you this way, but at least they can’t hurt you.
You’re not in shape enough to take that adventure, or do that hike, or keep dancing.
If they aren’t attracted to you, Suzanna, they won’t hurt you. You’ll never be what they expect, why try?

Does your heart hurt reading those lines? Mine does too. Because those lies trapped me for so very long.

To stay safe, I let myself go. I let the feeling of failure become king.

Hustling for Acceptance

But, I found that if I loved people well, poured myself out in service or kindness, smiled brightly, and applied the makeup expertly, I was accepted regardless. So, early on I took that knowledge and worked myself into an exhausted sick mess. By my mid-twenties I barely recognized myself: overweight, puffy face/eyes, fatigued, depressed and so much more. It got so bad I could barely get out of bed to drag my sick body to the doctor. When I did, I learned that for close to 5+ years I’d been struggling with Hypothyroidism and had critically low levels on all fronts combined with other intense damage.

Light Shines Through

Within a few months of steady medication – I began to come back to life. It’s been nearly three years since that diagnosis and a long road of self evaluation and healing.

I’ve lived most of my life hiding from the potential that I actually was a beautiful woman; that I could be wanted. Because the lie whispered to me early on was that if I was wanted, or desired, that opened me up to a high chance of pain and abuse.

I learned to compensate by increasing my charm or finding ways to “wear my weight well”; trying to blend in.

Too Unsafe to Succeed

Looking back, it’s really astounding in the all of years of side look stares, comments, and judgements no one ever asked why?  They assumed it was because I didn’t care or that something was wrong with me, but the truth was I cared so much that I wouldn’t fight for it. Because at the root I felt rejected and unsafe; and there was no way in hell I was going to perpetuate that. The hardest truth of it all is that I did perpetuate it, but in a quite opposite sort of way.

I can’t even tell you how many times over the years I have walked into a room and looked for the best way to make sure I appeared to “fit in”. The best angle of a chair, or path of least resistance to a crowd, not sitting in between very slim people or obsessively checking my clothes to make sure I was “put together”. When I would catch someone’s judgmental stare I’d smile sweetly back, challenging them to judge me. It wasn’t until they’d turn their head that my eyes would lower and I’d let the pain flood my heart.

The Journey Out of Lies

The past five years have been a journey of emotional and spiritual healing, and now its time to reclaim the physical part of me. To find strength and health beyond what I’ve ever experienced. I am not putting pressure on myself through this season, but challenging myself to be braver, authentic, and honest.

We all have our battles; the lies that prevent us from living in freedom. This has been mine. This road may take awhile; the important ones usually do. Yet as you find the courage to start facing the giants and slay them with the truth of who you really are, you encounter new ones, but also a strength you didn’t know was there.

Power in Numbers

I am thankful for the amazing people that surrounded me in this season. They have spoken my worth, beauty, and strength over me, lifting me with their words to greater places of wholeness more than they could ever know.

If I’ve learned anything these last years as I’ve worked through a mountain of pain and depression is that having people and God in your court are game changing. I no longer accept judgement as fair or deserved treatment, or take words, even well intended ones, as truth if they cause harm.

It looks a hell of a lot of self compassion, and hard work.

So, to any of you who have been stripped of your true identity through sexual abuse and all it’s aftermath: reach out for support, keep being true and mindful of how you feel, be gracious to yourself, work hard at your wholeness, and treat yourself as you would your best friend.  Know that you are beautiful.
——————
If you or a loved one is currently suffering from abuse of any kind, please reach out. You can do that completely confidentially here. You are not alone.

Love,

katie

xoxo

Unlocking the Power of Intuition

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow know what you truly want to become. -Steve Jobs

As a thirty-seven year-old slightly stubborn woman with a big appetite for new experiences and opportunity, I have often found myself in some pretty hilarious situations on the journey of both self and vocational discovery. Throughout my adult life I’ve worked in many industries: sales, fashion, education, design, culinary, and thankfully I eventually honed in on music, writing, and counseling. Some may call this confused; I call it well-rounded. 

During the last several years of working in private practice and building a community I am passionately committed to, I have noticed something big, something with staying power. It’s frustrating as hell and incredibly helpful all at once. It’s the thing that absolutely individuates us from each other, yet also brings us together through honest communication and connection. It invites us out of our niceness and into our truth. It is perhaps the most valuable asset to nurture and protect as human beings.

Drum roll please…this thing is, Intuition.

When I was in graduate school, one of my several (but most favorite) jobs was working at a fabulous little boutique called Moda in the very hot and happening 12th South neighborhood of Nashville. With a serious obsession for pretty clothes and a fascination for meeting new, fun people, it was a slice of heaven and a welcomed break from the demands of school.

One Tuesday morning I was at the shop alone and still a little fuzzy on how to confidently work the check out situation (I think it’s called a POS). Out of nowhere, a little burst of business happened right around lunchtime. I noticed one suspect lady quietly mulling around the back room near the sale rack. Something was off; I could tell by her odd behavior. Yet I was still a newbie and didn’t want to get all weird and overconfident.

I smiled a fake smile and stayed in my nice lane. When the hustle and bustle died down and I had a few minutes to straighten up the store, I noticed a few pieces were missing. I was horrified— and super miffed at myself and that sneaky lady! The NERVE! Most of all, I hated to disappoint Meredith, the owner, who entrusted me to man the shop that morning. Thankfully I learned this stuff happens in retail all the time and no lasting harm was done. Phew—irresponsibility shame averted.

What did crystallize in my memory that day was Meredith, my now close friend, saying to me upon her return, “Katie, you have excellent intuition. Never be afraid to use it.” This powerful affirmation landed on me like a ton of gold bricks and unlocked a journey of exploration I still find myself on. I thought to myself, Really? That sounds so powerful! Her affirmation was a lynchpin shift in my psyche, inviting me to pay way more respect to this still, small, or apparently big, voice.

Intuition is extremely powerful, and I believe we all have it. However, we must choose to honor it.

Unfortunately, and as was my case for years, we can be completely disconnected from the voice of intuition and miss it altogether. We miss it when we are spread too thin and living in survival mode. We miss it when we coast on autopilot due to a numbing addiction, apathy, or both. We also miss it due to honest un-awareness. After all, Intuition 101 isn’t offered in traditional schools I know of anywhere.

Last week, Mary Crimmins shared about the invaluable role intuition plays in our relationship with food, allowing us to dial into optimal individual health and vitality. That is certainly a ripe place to practice listening. In therapy, this is one of my favorite often-uncharted territories to explore with clients: learning to be led by that powerful voice. Here are a couple of helpful tools I have gathered in this practice of intuition.

Slow down.

Some of the most successful and inspiring people I know or have observed possess something in common: intention. Living out of intention is like having as a constant permission slip in your back pocket to take the next sure-footed step. Despite a booked up calendar week after week, intention allows for a clear vision of where we are and where we are going, while editing our lives to align with that vision along the way.

In order to edit, one must slow down and look closely. I’m guilty of running—and I don’t mean for exercise. Mine is more of a constant state of moving because it feels productive, yet lacks clear or purposeful destination. Slowing down for me looks like connecting with myself, hopefully each morning, in order to check in with where I am, where I am going, and what I need from day-to-day physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. It doesn’t have to look a certain way, yet personal check-ins create a safe space to practice listening to our intuition, our internal compass.

No is a complete sentence.

This is for all you people-pleasers out there (you are not alone). No is a complete sentence and a very necessary option if we want to honor intuition. Unlike personality or ego, intuition is NOT a people pleaser and has no concept of co-dependency. Our personality, or the way in which we present to the world, learned early on that people pleasing is valuable when this behavior was somehow rewarded. Unfortunately, the wisdom of our intuition is often overshadowed by the alluring silhouette of people pleasing and makes the word “no” a bland if not scary choice. A wise friend gave me brilliant words of wisdom once while grappling with a weighty decision. “There are two answers: yes and no. Pick one.” Easy, right?

As “no” becomes common currency in our daily exchange, our “yes” becomes more valuable, subsequently attracting a rich reality of confidence, desire, and opportunity.

Detours.

We all get off course. We are human. But, as Queen Oprah—I like to call her—insists in a must see video I came across recently, “There are no mistakes because you have a Supreme Destiny.” We are all on a path of destiny— calling. And, we will all encounter detours. However, our detours do not equal failure. Detours nudge our truth to speak up and self-correct, pointing us to the next best decision, and from there the next, and on and on.

So, as my lovely friend and former boss, Meredith, spoke into my life years ago, prompting great empowerment and curiosity, I humbly do the same for you, reminding you of this:

You have a beautiful and powerful gift called intuition. Never be afraid to use it. In fact, access it often. Explore it. Play with it. Celebrate it. It will lead you into wisdom and away from sticky detours. Even when you don’t fully understand or embrace its message, slow down enough to honor it— and just listen. There is hope and safety in the next best decision.

Tactics for Belief

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. -Brené Brown

It seems I’m not the only one around who battles self-doubt and perfectionism. Your response and feedback to my last blog post were proof of that. Thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully engage with your own stories of struggle in this area. It’s that kind of vulnerability and transparency that brings life and light into those dingy dark rooms of self-doubt with a resounding me too.

As often happens when we touch sensitive yet powerful nerves of truth, it seems the universe aligns to keep that flow moving. It’s like getting a new car (or new to you) and all of a sudden, you start noticing just how many of the same model and color cars are out on the road. Our awareness is tweaked and, in my case, there appears a million white Toyota Priuses in Nashville traffic. With such great feedback and a continuous reverberation of this self-doubt/perfectionism trap, I thought we could tease out some practical application; Lord knows I need it.

I went on a long hike yesterday around Radnor Lake, my beloved local nature scape and sanctuary of sanity. One of my favorite things to do if and when I have a chunk of free time during the week is to get out in nature and listen to smart people talk about the strong convictions they hold. This, of course, happens in the form of an audiobook or podcast. Monday, I had this glorious opportunity for the first time in a while…and I jumped on it. Headphones in, a sunny if not toasty first day of summer to venture into, and a little over an hour to kill. Heaven.

I got about twenty minutes into the talk and realized it was not only for me to store away in the “Cling To” file, but it might also be extremely helpful for you, especially on the heels of looking hard and square into the face of self-doubt and insecurity last week.

Moment of truth: did anyone chip away at a personal creed? Don’t worry; I’m not homework- shaming you. But I still believe it is a simple and self-loving thing to tackle. If you think that might be helpful, take a swing at it. If you need help, you know where to find me.

I spent about fifteen minutes the other day on mine. What attributes do I embody? What are my gifts? What am I deeply convinced of? Who am I? Who am I NOT? And on and on…Again, personal creeds are meant to be reminders of our worth, identity, and desires so we don’t fall in the trap of comparison with others, insecurity, and then go numb out somewhere.

What I was so blown away by in this message was how we grow in the conviction of these beliefs. A personal creed is great and all, yet if we look at it once and let it collect dust in the bottom drawer of our bedside table, we have sorely missed the point. It’s kind of like getting

hitched—saying those binding, life-altering vows and then going verbally dark the rest of the marriage. Not a good look. Here are my takeaways, and three crucial applications to help us lock into our creed or deeply held beliefs.

1. Feed the creed.

It may sound like first class cheese, but it spilled out like buttah. Just like we water a plant and lovingly nurture a child or pet, we absolutely must feed those unique, life-giving, truths that remind us of who we are and what we purpose. Quite simply, the best way to do this is to read and re-read it daily, or as often as you need. That laser focus fuels the flame of belief so much so that it burns away the fear of self-doubt. If that feels weird or woo woo, GOOD! We don’t change unless something changes; change feels weird!

2. Don’t stop moving.

By this I don’t mean never rest. Quite the contrary; rest in the propelling reminder of who you are. When I get stuck and fall prey to comparison with others or perfectionistic tendencies, it is paralyzing and I can’t move forward. Thankfully I have wised up to my confusing yet clever enemy and am able to poke all sorts of holes in those messages. Many times this looks like holding up a gentle, more accurate mirror than mine in the form of a trusted friend or loved one. I must admit, though, after years of practice, those slithering lies are tempting, like a toxic old lover.

A moving target is much harder to hit than one that is stationary.

I may or may not have killed a deer in a past life on a hunting trip in high school. (Full disclosure: I am from Alabama and we did eat venison for dinner that night.) I know, haters gonna hate. However, for illustration purposes, I will say, it was fairly easy because I was totally set up for success. The poor guy was in a field, totally still, and I was up in a tree stand taking a break from gin rummy or something. Cake. I can assure you had there been sudden movement involved, we would have had chicken for dinner. Without belaboring the point and completely offending you, I’ll land this plane: No matter how loud those oppressive voices that long to derail our identity, we must dodge the bullet and keep moving forward toward our freedom.

3. Anticipate the struggle.

It will come, time and time again. We can’t be surprised when it does. Feeding hope with a congruent dose of brutal honesty is essential all along the way. We can’t Pollyanna our way through and be blindsided by a random covert attack those old skeletons pony up. Knowing the the sound of alien voices that sneak up and rattle off in our self-talk is key as we keep moving in the direction of our truth.

For those of you I didn’t lose to Saving Private Ryan, keep the feedback coming! This conversation and community is building in volume and numbers, thanks to you. For this I am beyond grateful.

For more on this topic read the previous post here.