You know, I saw the women in my life carry misery like a badge.
It was what I thought we were all destined to carry.
Is the sadness, is the struggle, is the unhappiness, is the not knowing of who we are.
And I did not want to live that way.
And it was hard because when people around you are living differently than how you want to live, it's like, can I even do this?
Can I break the cycle?
Because no one taught me how to do this.
Not my mother, not my grandmother.
I had nobody leading the way for me.
I am leading the way.
I am the matriarch of healing from my lineage.
So I've come to realize something.
We are all healing from something pretty much all the time.
Maybe it's physical illness or injury or harm.
Maybe it's rooted more in our minds, our state of being, maybe it's rooted in the culture, maybe it's all of the above.
But we're all invited into some kind of a path of healing, and we all need it on some level, even if we don't know it or don't want to quite own it yet.
And the question is, well, how do we find healing when we feel like all the odds are stacked against us?
Or when you feel like you take two steps backward for every step forward?
How do we heal beyond the visible wounds and reclaim something deeper, more whole, in ourselves, in our world?
And how do we heal as a path of growth and expression and joy?