“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.
It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.“
-Albert Einstein

I had four surgeries as a baby that left me with two scars on my stomach for as long as I can remember.

The scar tissue held in the parts of me that felt too much — raw, gritty, sassy, wide open, tumultuous, all-encompassing, wild, deep, seductive, aching.

And I, with my scars and clearly-evident-flaws, was not enough.

There was grief, despair, rage, anguish, distress, sorrow, heartbreak, agony, passion, desire, angst, longing, and hunger that threatened to overtake what I “should” feel and express; joy, simplicity, happiness, hope, quietness, optimism, appreciation, deferential. All with an agreeing smile with a demure curtsy.

But there was a dark fire with pulsing magma and messy shadows swirling inside me.

It felt all too much and was big and powerful but I was supposed to be rational, meek, proper, and small. It rebelled against the way the world was and who the world told me to be.

I was afraid of making other people uncomfortable and rocking the boat. So I swallowed my feelings and separated that truth from me.

I didn’t choose that dark fire in me. Instead, I chose to be loved.
(I thought they were mutually exclusive.)

And then, I herniated a disc in my back.

Surgery December 14th, 2012.

It was two months after that that my first ovarian cyst was revealed on an ultrasound.

At that point I had pushed the dark fire down enough that I didn’t feel it anymore… all I felt was shame.

I was fundamentally flawed. There was something “wrong” with the very part of me that biologically made me a woman.

The narrative that my body made me unworthy and unlovable started to weave its tale into my cells. I didn’t see how that “not enough” connected to the “too much” I had buried inside of me yet.

Surgery August 2nd, 2013.

Another cyst.

Surgery November 4, 2014.

Another cyst.

Surgery March 31, 2015.

Doctors said they would have to remove my left ovary if there was another cyst, another surgery. So I saw a naturopath and holistic nutritionist, changed my diet, took supplements, and dove into my mindset and personal development.

I felt the best I had ever felt. I was healing. I started to bring to light all there was in me.

I slowly told people. And the more I told people, the more I learned I wasn’t the only one.

Everyone I told either had surgery or knew someone who had had surgery, more specifically something women’s health-related, and yet no one was talking about it.

We all felt alone and broken. And I began to see the flaws in the systems I trusted to have all the answers before.

The dark fire started burning inside of me and building up.

I started an instagram account anonymously because I needed to get these feelings out of me, let the truth live outside of my body. I started my coaching business to support people’s bodies, emotions, relationships, careers/callings, and stories. I started to open myself up to more and started to live what I had always dreamed about.

And then… He with a capital H broke up with me. June 2018. I cried once.

Two weeks later: another cyst.

This one wasn’t like the others. I felt pain where the other ones were symptom-free. It blocked my ureter and I ended up in the emergency room 3 times because of my kidney. And it ended up rupturing.

Emergency surgery November 16, 2018.

It was too entangled, too messy. There was no way around it. They were going to have to remove my left ovary…

Surgery November 27, 2018.

My fear of being unlovable because of my body became all too real.

It took a borderline benign tumour and a major surgery to finally feel, face, and unearth that dark fire.

Surgery May 6, 2019.

This is what I’ve, ahem finally, learned: what you’ve buried will burn you from the inside unless it’s released.

It’s why I write.

Through my surgeries I’ve learned that I need to write to get the feeling out of my body and let the truth live outside of myself.

I can’t keep it in anymore.

After a double-digit number of surgeries, I believe our bodies tell us the truth.

But we’re told to trust our intellect over our intuition, that everyone else is the expert and has the answers, and we’re taught how/who to be in this world in order to be loved.

So we deny our own feelings, our own knowing, our own truth, and aren’t honest with ourselves or others.

When we swallow our truth to stay small, keep others comfortable, and not rock the boat, it makes us sick and we all suffer.

It took the potential of me dying to finally start living for myself.

How do you expect to heal if you keep lying to yourself?
How do we expect to truly grow and love if we keep lying to each other?

But we’re taught to stifle how we feel, keep it in, suck in our stomachs while we’re at it, and swallow our truths.

Because if we let our dark fire out it threatens to burn the world as we have created it.

That’s why the dark fire in me isn’t just about my story anymore. It feels so, so big.

It’s about love, heartbreak, systems, injustices, hope, and a longing ache inside of me for a more beautiful world.

Sometimes it takes me an overwhelming second (or two) to remember that while it may be so very big, we can be brave. Together.

In a world that tells us to swallow our feelings and stay small, because they might make others uncomfortable and rock the boat, I strive to help you get in touch with your truth and let this truth live outside of my body.

Our world is connected like a body. This is where it starts.

You’re more than just a body, it is all connected, and you’re not meant to do this alone.

Holding back the truth means we can’t really connect with ourselves or others and it limits the potential for healing, growth, and love.

And if we keep playing hot potato with pain, can’t sit in discomfort, and run from the truth then our children’s lives will be worse than our own.

Yes, this dark fire that’s in us *is* dangerous.
It threatens the way the world has been for so long.

So, to control us and keep the power, the world gaslights us.

It makes you question yourself.
It makes you think someone else has the answer.
It makes you doubt whether you deserve something.
It makes you want to be right, “good”, worthy of love.
It makes you deny what you truly want.

Because to express yourself in such a way goes against the roles you’ve played your whole life and makes you confront the very thing that you fear the most.

This world is the one that needs healing. Not us.

And to it, we are evil, “bad”, a villain or villainess.

To that? I say, “YES.”

It’s time to become the fire.

Something I knew deep down to my stitched together core before that last surgery in May was that I don’t want to die with the regret of keeping everything inside of me, well, inside of me.

We are the granddaughters of the witches they couldn’t burn.
We are the daughters of the silent generation.

What will our children say about us?

What will our children not be able to do from what we don’t do?
Who will our children be able to be from what we do?

The tales they will tell of us are the stories we’re living right now.
The tales they will be free to live are the ones we’re creating right now.