Navigating the Valley...lets pick flowers while we are here...

Hey my loves…let me start by saying this blog series may not always be grammatically correct or have great punctuation but it will be heartfelt and honest. I am not a writer but I’ll try my best with publishing these. We are all going through a truly trying time right now and it has been difficult for me personally to find my place in all this. I have been impacted by this crisis emotionally and mentally and anxiety has come to my door with big boots on to kick it in and disturb my balance. These past 3 weeks have been an experience like none other. Anxiety has tried to TAKE ME OUT! Let me say this, I have been down before and I like to refer to times like these as the valley. Valleys are low and sometimes unfamiliar. Valleys can be teeming with life or barren. Valleys are personal and we’ve all have our own experiences with them at different stations in life. As we all know, life has valleys and peaks, it is my belief we are experiencing a collective valley right now. We are all in unfamiliar territory and we are all forced to face ourselves in a very meaningful way. One of my favorite movies is called What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams and Cuba Gooding Jr. and it highlights the reality of death and loss from the standpoint of the way we live our lives, the consistent state of mind we maintain is what our transition to the other side will reflect. In the midst of this valley, I find that all of the unaddressed trauma, grief, and pain are rearing their ugly heads, simply because I have allowed day to day life to cloud my judgment about where I truly stand with them. Truth is, I have grief and loss that I haven’t addressed…I have work to do with my inner child that I have put off because life became more happy and balanced for me overall and made me believe things were better on every level down to my core, distractions had me hoodwinked. With all the life-altering experiences I’ve faced as it pertains to grief, loss and struggle the work I have to do extends past putting bandaids of affirmations and positive thinking on top. I have to WORK for my mental health. Being in this valley has shown me this CLEARLY. If you have seen me for a wax or any of the other services I provide, you know I’m pretty transparent about my life and how I feel about any given topic…during my time in this valley, we are all in I plan to share the flowers I’m picking in real-time. I refer to “picking flowers in our personal valleys” as a way to remind you that in spite of the pain you may be feeling, despite the despair you may feel when you are in a low space, there is beauty in all things, there is healing in the darkest of nights and there is fertile ground in the steepest of valleys. I am here to encourage you to get down in the dirt in this valley, to do the WORK in this valley. Social media is encouraging us to do any number of things during this time and you have an array of “WORK” you can do but the spiritual/mental/emotional groundwork can begin. We no longer have to look over our shoulders for our demons when times like this arise because we will do the work NOW to slay them, not just leave them mildly concussed to return to our lives at the most inconvenient of times. Not only is our physical immune system in need of fortifying, but our Spiritual immunity is also on the line. We are in a valley with fertile ground, we can harvest all the beautiful flowers from here and take it to the peak once we return. This is a collective dark night of the soul for some us..we are untethered from our normal daily distractions and activities..we are faced with our own images and are seeing the truest reflections of who we are and who we are becoming. Not everyone is going through the same things right now and for those who aren’t having this shared experience of battling anxiety, depression or any other challenges, praise and thanks and prayers for your continued overall health. If you are like me, this is calling something inside of you to really lean in and explore your becoming.