I lost one of my best friends this year.  I am thankful that I have had so many amazing friends over my lifetime thus far.  This friend was one of those friends that was instantly like a soul sister. Over the past few years, it seems all I keep hearing is that this person or that person that I knew had an overdose and died.  It seems like more common news than it’s going to be a cloudy day today… My initial stance on these overdoses was how can this happen?? I have also stated that I have an addictive personality and I did not get into that or why didn’t they try yoga…  I progressed slightly to start saying, “how can I help”… These were my thoughts, good or bad. This tragedy was a lesson in the vulnerability of losing people at the power of addiction~ which I could not see, feel or taste.  With one of my best friends now gone, I had so many emotions.  This was a different level of news for me.  I knew that she had struggles, and I reached out over the years but felt that she was lying to me. And on top of that, I felt that the best approach was tough love because she was hiding so much.  Apparently, that was not the best approach, but to be honest, I still don’t know what I could have really done to make an impact.  I felt guilty like I could have done more, mad at her for not trying harder, mad at her for not choosing her children or family or friends over these addictions.  She was like Teflon.  I would always get caught or in trouble and she would just smile and get off.  It was always the joke, even if I wasn’t there~ the nuns in high school would blame me for her getting in trouble, my reputation of being from the city always gave her an instant out.  Why couldn’t she do that with this addiction problem? Why did she like them so much?   I underestimated the power of drugs and overestimated how delicate we really are as humans, even the ones that seem like Teflon.

The universe had an opportunity to show me a thing or two.  With my own life, there is still so much healing to be done.  There will be plenty of blogs to describe the various stages of my personal healing, but, overall I wasn’t doing enough deep level self work.  I was just putting a quick stucco plug on issues and hoping the dam didn’t break. But for me to truly live my life purpose and to share my challenges to inspire others to heal, I needed to go deeper.  It felt like it was too cold and too dark down that scary alley of self,  I just kept creeping side to side like the crab sun sign I am.  But the universe didn’t care if I had guilt or self negativity – it was not allowing me to create my own punishment. So I got, yet again, another bang.

The universe was going to teach me a valuable lesson through experience.  This time, using one of my beloved dogs- Bean.  My black -slash- brown Tigger replica, lab mix rescue.  He slammed full force into my thigh by accident and put me out of commission a bit for the past few months.   The pain has been unbearable,  some days with no relief. I thought it was sciatic and treated incorrectly, only to annoy it more. Then found out it was quad contusion, glute sprain and hamstring sprain. Which lead to hip misalignment, then for the whopper, the sciatic area became extremely inflamed, like the fireball inferno of the devil, flaring in my tailbone area. Chronic constant blinding pain forced me to give in and take Aleve.   I have a high pain tolerance so this was bad.  I became irritated easily and very impatient. I bless all the people still being around me through this beotch stage.  Then one day,  in my self pity,  I thought~ this is how addiction can start.  Needing something,  anything to dull the blinding pain and not getting enough.  I wanted to take more Aleve at this time, more than I expected I would feel I needed.  Then I stopped.  I got the lesson.  I heard you universe (now stop the anguish haha).   I am just as human and just as vulnerable as anyone.  Addiction does not discriminate.  I set up lots of appointments for my healing, with natural healers, because that is where I do best.  I am in the healing process, but as I tell most clients, these pains are emotional.  So, this healer is starting to heal.  Starting to tap into the dark spaces that just had delicate plugs, beginning to repave these walls to be stronger and sturdier.   As this is my learning, and my mission to share, I will look for ways to help when people are not getting better with their healing process~ integrating my skillsets and gifts to find where the real pain is.  Exposing these holistic approaches, maybe someone can have a relief or a breakthrough that will minimize the desire to add more medications.  Helping people, as we should, heal from whatever is holding them back emotionally or find alternatives to help the physical pain that has been keeping them from enjoying life. I might get more inspirations on ways to help and I look forward to them.  At this time, I surrender to compassion.

In other worlds, Rest in Peace my beautiful friend. I hope I can help others in your memory.  xo