A little about my journey and how I got here…
I don’t know if you can relate; but writing a bio (for instagram or a resume) is always so hard for me!
I know all of my strengths and what I’ve done and even what I’m working on; but when it come to writing about it – uffda.
My hope is that this blog serves as an educational space for women to (re)discover their magic through education, support, community, and humor – I’m quite funny!
I’m a bullet-point girl, so that’s how I’m going to map out my journey-to-now in this blog post:
- I grew up in a small Kansas town – kinda sheltered… I didn’t have broccoli until I was at least 21 years old! It wasn’t the smallest town (we had stop lights); but it had less than 6,000 people when I graduated high school. I was a Daddy’s girl (read: always got my way, didn’t have to do chores, and I didn’t get along with my mom), an honor roll student, and a cheerleader.
- My world was shattered when I was 16 and my dad was arrested for murder. You can watch my “kinda like a TEDtalk” for a little more context into that time in my life.
- To cope with the dad-arrested-for-murder part of my life, I disconnected. I could just “not care” like it was my job. I learned that staying busy meant I didn’t have time to feel my feelings.
- I found out I was pregnant when I was 16, just 6 weeks after my dad was arrested… you can probably guess how I acted out. My first daughter was born towards the end of my dad’s trial. I was pregnant in high school with my dad’s murder trial going on – newspapers, tv… it was a hard time. But I lied to myself so hard – I told people for years that the situation with my dad didn’t even phase me, that I had handled it so well. I believed myself for over two decades.
- I went on to have five daughters in total, before ever realizing that I needed to heal or that I even had trauma. My daughters did not get the best version of me.
- When I was almost 40, something started to happen. The trauma was determined to work its way out – it was time. I was working for my church at that time, and I kept getting a nudge (from my soul?) to share my story during our staff meetings. I politely declined. One day, on my drive to church, a song caught me at just the right time. I cried the entire way to church; and I ended up telling my story three times that morning, snot-crying to my boss.
- Around this same time, I took the DISC assessment and also became a certified life coach – both of those helped me jumpstart my healing journey.
- An amazing thing happened next: my boss/pastor asked me if I’d be willing to share my story on Mother’s Day… I’d be giving the Mother’s Day message. (What?!)
- I went from not talking about this, for two decades, to talking {on-stage} to hundreds of people. Zero to 60, right?
- The very next day, I flew to a new state and started a new life.
