Last October, I took a trip to Mexico with two friends. We gallivanted from vibrant Mexico City to the aqua blue beaches of Puerto Escondido. We could feel beauty and magic around every corner and we soaked up every last drop.

Also being there in a month where the veil was thinning and there was celebration of those that had came before us, we received more than one strong message and felt regular energies around death and darkness. So much so that on the night of the Libra Lunar eclipse a black butterfly the size of my hand flew from our balcony into our apartment not once, but twice. The next day we looked up this mysterious butterfly and it was named, “la mariposa de la muerta” or “the butterfly of death.” From our search we learned that this didn’t have to mean death in the traditional sense, but it could mean the death of an old version of oneself, or parts of oneself that do not serve us anymore…

For five years, a large part of my life force has had to focus on continued infections and ailments that were not only bewildering to me, but the practitioners I worked with. I had tried everything to rid myself of mold toxicity, as well as reoccurring bacterial and parasitic infections. For a few weeks or if I was lucky a few months at time I would feel ‘better’.  But, lack of symptoms didn’t mean I was better and this past year that became inherently clear.

Shortly after landing back in the United States, I became sick and this led into 8 months of an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection. In many ways I was pushed to dive into the darkness, and the underworld…My body and mind had been taken over with fever every few days, heart pain and palpitations, depression, confusion, chronic pain... I tried every remedy and nothing worked.

In the spring time, I had let the fear of dying, and the fear of being sick for so long take over. I was frantically making decisions and constantly in appointments, swallowing up supplements, and regularly panicking at how unwell I was. I eventually realized that I had to let parts of me die. I had let go of playing the ‘victim’, feeling bad for why I was a young person and ill and work to accept what is. I had to let the part of me die that was conditioned to gaslight myself into always “being fine”, when I wasn’t. I had to let go of being a people pleases that would push my body above it’s capacity to make others happy.

I care deeply about embodiment as a way of liberating ourselves by being more connected with our internal ebbs and flows and allowing for more aliveness in a numbed out world. Yet, I wasn’t fully turning toward my body, but just throwing anything I could at it. This was partially because it was so uncomfortable to be in my body, but also because part of me still held on to the old paradigm that we have all been conditioned to believe: our bodies are simply an instrument used to move around the world, and not something we could deeply hear and listen to. This part of me also had to die to bring new life forward.

I began to slow down and connect as much as I could with my stressed body, more with the spiritual world, and my intuition. I started asking, ‘ What do I do next?’ I started grappling with the felt sense of my fear and slowly I started being steered to practitioners and steps that had the infection subside. I was so incredibly grateful to myself, and to the practitioners I worked with, but this wasn’t the end of the story…

I felt better than I had, but not well and I slowly learned that I had a number of other underlying health alignments that were impacting my ability to truly be healthy. I wrote in my journal one night,

“I didn’t get this sick out of nowhere. A lot of it isn’t my fault... I need to stop focusing on treating the symptoms and instead work at the root. Of finding and respecting me, my body, heart, and soul.”

Although I am still working through some challenging health spaces, I am proud to say that I held myself through it all day after day and will continue to do so until my body is able to be in the vibrancy it so craves and deserves. That I allowed death to take over, so there could be new and different life than ever before.

We all have our own ‘underworlds’ and although it feels that we may never reach the other side, the darkness is an inherent part of life and a way we can find our true light. We all have disregarded our bodies at one point or another. We have all refused death, when it is the only way new life can blossom. And this is OK, and I now believe the darkness, the missteps, and the confusion is essential to finding ourselves again.

I kicked and screamed my whole way down into the underworld. It was the only way I knew. Yet, I believe every time we let part of us die, a small part of us remembers to surrender just a little more. Next time, I am sure I still will be kicking and screaming, but also maybe remembering to take some deep exhales, and finding moments of conviction , clarity, and calm on the way down. I hope me sharing more of my journey this past year provides solace; if you are going through darkness right now, it will find it’s conclusion, and hopefully on the other side you connected with another small piece of yourself.

As I have continued to heal over this last year, I have become more embodied, I have found depths of myself in the darkness with creative flow, expression, and understanding of who I am. I would have never found these parts of myself if the darkness didn’t consume me and push me to reach new depths. For this I am forever grateful.

All this to say, I had little capacity to hold energy for anyone outside myself over the past year. This is slowly shifting and that is why I am reaching out to you today. It would be a pleasure to come together and move together. Thank you for taking the time to read more of my ongoing journey. Here’s to embracing more of all of our embodied truth’s, with whatever beautiful messiness that may look like in the moment.