"The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all,
and then stands back to see if we can find them."
-Elizabeth Gilbert
More often than I care to admit, I’ve found myself on the bathroom floor, crying.
From the moment I first peered at two blue lines on a stick, to pregnancy losses, or that time I locked myself away from my kids on the eve of our move to the other side of the world - I realize the most important part of a hope-filled story surrounds our rock bottom moments of despair, the fears we so deeply feel, and the doubts we have about our ability to carry on.
I know this, because Elizabeth Gilbert's words were with me each time I felt those cool bathroom tiles pressed against my cheek. Salty tears fell to the floor, but ran into a river of hope flowing forward: one can rise from shattered expectations and eat, pray, love her way to a more enlightened way of being.
Gilbert might have carried on with a pursuit of everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia, but I took a deep dive into the constraints of motherhood: I ate leftover mac n cheese while praying for grace through another witching hour, and showed up with love in the hardest moments.
Motherhood was an awakening, but surrender made it an adventure in spirituality through over a decade and the five children I went onto have.
A Pursuit of Happiness
Across a Decade and Five Kids
I’ve made it “home” to tell you that happiness is eternally hard work. While a shift from self-sacrifice to self-discovery can initiate momentum towards our life worth living, it is a choice we must make both to survive and to thrive. Holding a mindset of adventure helps balance our expectations, because transformation is not a linear progression. Rather, it’s a cycle of life, death, and rebirth to uncover the depth of our strength.
Somewhere on the journey between who we once were and who we have the potential to become, we might realize we are eternally growing through the seasons of life, but have gathered enough courage to own our story. We might share our way from struggle to wholeness for that one person we are meant to inspire, in honor of the stories that once lifted us.
On Resilience, Motherhood & Adventure
(Coming Soon...)