Live the Benefits of Healing While Still Healing

I’m not sure when it shifted. It was somewhere deep in the darkness of my own healing…somewhere in the becoming of someone less broken, someone a bit stronger, someone a bit more aware of who she really was…someone strong enough to stand up for herself, enough so she could state, plainly, to anyone who pressed: hey, i’ve been through some really awful stuff, i’m trying, back off. 

It was somewhere in there - in between finding a new strong voice and starting Change of Air and then hearing from all of you how meaningful and impactful this community has been. Somewhere in there, I shifted from someone navigating trauma to someone who identified only as someone navigating trauma. Those are two very different things. And it took me a lot of time to realize I had shifted.

I was so proud of what I had created - Change of Air. So proud, so deeply honored to be of any help at all to anyone who was navigating the same terrain. I had done it - I had created what I wished I had had when I was 14 and aware that my parents were alcoholics and things just weren’t right in my home. I made something beautiful - something without all those ugly Al-Anon fonts and colors. Something that felt urgent and necessary and ours. I am so proud of what I made here - using all of my varied skills and talents to put it all together. It felt right. And it was. It IS!

But as I started to heal yet further, to the point that I wanted to go live my life without talking about The Body Keeps The Score or without thinking about ACES scores or without feeling as if I had to mine my own trauma to produce content…I started to get confused. I started to question my value here…where my trauma and insights about that trauma were sort of required. Expected. 

I no longer wanted to talk about healing every single day. I wanted to go live as my healed self in my life.

Isn’t that why we work so hard to heal? To be able to show up as ourselves more fully, less triggered, more present, more aware of our ish, more firm in our boundaries — so that we can actually just BE? Without a narrative? Without anything to explain? Without behaviors to justify? Without resilient zones to monitor every second of every day?

I needed to go live life as Callie.
Not business coach Callie.
Not Change of Air Callie.
Not “needs to heal” Callie.
Not even: let me show you all the tools that might help you heal Callie.
Just me. Who would I be if I could just be?

Who would I be if I wasn’t mining my own interior landscape daily for your benefit? And did I have value if I wasn’t doing those things? (Tricky landscape for an ACoA people-pleaser, eh?) But I had to find out. I had to know who I really was without identifying as ACoA, helper, guide to trauma, sadness sherpa, etc etc

And just as I started off on that journey - just as I was like “ok, I’m healed enough to really step out of this trauma shadow and just live”, just as I started to really trust that things would work out ok for me after all I had been through, two really awful things happened. My dear friend Gene was killed in a car accident while we were traveling together in Mexico. 

It’s weird to say it out loud even now. It still just levels me. This huge, bright, light of a man, rear-ended in a tiny mountain town while on a climbing trip with us. I spent months wondering “how have I also been given this?” How?

I also spent months deeply suspicious about “things working out” for people like me, with childhoods like mine. After decades of re-training myself to not always wait for another shoe to drop, after so many years teaching myself that she wouldn’t come home drunk this time, that you could trust good things, that it would all work out…this? I lost my faith entirely. I was adrift.

So adrift that it took me months to even remember that I had tools - trauma tools. Healing tools. Because I had only ever thought of those tools as useful for navigating healing as an ACoA. My mother’s death of cirrhosis of the liver when I was 18 - ACoA stuff. My stepfather’s death from cirrhosis just a handful of years ago - also ACoA stuff. And all the messy, dark, feeling so lost bits in between? All ACoA stuff.

I didn’t realize I could use the same tools - yoga, meditation, breathwork, tapping, resilient zone, grounding, ideal scene and so many more - to help me navigate the grief of losing Gene.

That is when I truly halted all I was doing for Change of Air. I could not see how I could possibly help you, when I was utterly adrift. So I was trying to be just Callie - learning who she was for the first time as a somewhat healed person and then I was brought all the way back down. Into the depths. 

I used my tools for many months. Navigating daily life. The tools - they work! 

And then…

I sprained my ankle. It was such a silly thing. I had just finished a huge hike. Challenging, technical. And I met my boyfriend afterwards, in a parking lot in another part of Joshua Tree National park. And I rolled my ankle in the parking lot. So painful it took my breath away. But after 20 minutes or so, I was certain I was fine.

A few days later it was still a bit painful so Matthew insisted I go have it checked out.  Yes, I rolled it, but it wasn’t too serious, all the X-rays showed. I would be fine and heal quickly. All good news. But during that visit, a nurse said to me “Do you know your blood pressure is extremely high?” I had not known that. I had never been told that. That led to months of tests and eventually a new diagnosis around my heart.

Those were scary months. I felt like a ticking time bomb. I felt my body was betraying me. But I also realized that I had to slow everything down and take absolute, utter care of myself. That was the only way back to total health, the only way to strengthen my heart — literally and metaphorically.

In that slowdown came a completely new appreciation for every moment of life. How rare, how special, how lucky we are to live it at all.

I had spent so many years healing but I had not spent very many of those years living.Really living. Full out. Head back, laughter escaping throat, full to the brim with joy and gratitude.

The last year changed me completely. At a cellular level. I began to claim my life. Show up in it. Knowing how precious it is. I began to relish my own joy, cultivate it. Luxuriate in it, without guilt. Without - even - expecting it to end or waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A year ago to this day, I also made the decision to do something I’ve always wanted to do - travel continuously while working. See the things I’ve always wanted to see. Live the way I’ve always wanted to live. 

I no longer have my beloved home in Joshua Tree. I got rid of 80% of my belongings and put the rest in storage. And I’ve spent the past year visiting places I’ve always wanted to visit, living in ways I’ve always wanted to live for a few months at a time before heading to the next place.

When I tell you I NEVER thought I’d do that. NEVER saw myself actually making that happen. But I did it. I am doing it.

And now I know: we MUST live the benefits of our healing, not just the healing itself. What I see now is that we can live fully in our lives WHILE we are healing. We need not wait until we are healed. We need not wait until we are perfectly ready.

We miss so much in feeling we aren’t ready. Aren’t good enough. Aren’t healed enough. I missed so much. So very much. It is brave and courageous to live fully, even as you heal. Even as you becoming healed you.

I’ve come to realize that while it is vital to heal, healing can also become a story, a distraction, a loop we can get stuck in. “Needing to heal” can keep you feeling as if there is always more to heal.

It’s time we shift that entirely. It’s time for us to claim the BENEFITS of all our healing work even as we have more healing to do. It is not one or the other. It is both and. We can do both.

This marks a shift at Change of Air. I’ll be focusing far more on joy, on the benefits of healing, on the what it looks like to live full-out rather than simply hanging out in the heaviness and darkness of healing.

We can do both.
We deeply deserve both.
And we’ll do it together.

I’m so glad you’re here.