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I’m thinking about worrying this morning.

In truth, I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday and it damn near kept me up last night.

Chris and I had a full-on day yesterday as we re-arranged, cleared out and spring-cleaned for about 11 hours. It’s amazing where your mind goes when you’re scrubbing a toilet or pushing a steamer across a floor. Mine went to worry.

For a lot of entrepreneurs that I’ve had the pleasure of associating with, worrying about the business for one reason or another just happens. It’s inevitable that it’ll come up on the regular. Now, I don’t wallow in it nor do I allow it to consume me or stop me from what I’m doing. By the time I crawled into bed last night though, it had begun to get its hooks in me.

So a took a breath and asked: what the ever-lovin’ hell is this about? And exactly how useful is it?

The answer: nothing and nothing. Worry, it turns out, is completely and utterly useless. It has no redeeming qualities that I can find. As a matter of fact, it has exactly the opposite qualities from redeeming. That cracked me up for some reason. I think it was the idea that I’ve spent so much time over the years doing it and it has made zero difference. It just makes me feel sick, afraid and unable to function effectively.

That got me thinking about what it does when I worry about someone else. Woah…this fucked me up a bit.

I think we can all agree at this point that we are all energy, yes? Yes. Good. So with that being the case, and thoughts, emotions, actions and matter having the ability to transfer through an exchange of energy, what has my worrying done for anyone I’ve every worried about? Logic says it’s made them sick, afraid and unable to function effectively. Fuck.

Here’s my commitment to you, my friends: if I feel worry rise in me about you, I will check in and see if there’s something you need from me. I will then take you at your word. What I mean is, if you tell me all is well I will believe you and I will trust that if in fact, you need something from me you’ll ask for it or have a thing you want to say to me you’ll say it.

I love,
Jill

What I’m about to share is my personal journey with infertility. Parts of it are harrowing and I’m sure difficult to read. For me, it has been such a huge part of my life that I’ve come to embrace it for all of the goodness I’ve received. At one time, I truly believed I was broken.
I am not, and neither are you.

Of course, a part of me will always wish it were different and that I might now, at this age, be playing with grandbabies.

That is not my reality though and I’ve long ago reconciled this so please, know this letter is meant to help those that haven’t had this experience better understand those that have as well to connect my heart to those that have lost babies no matter how far along you were. It is also for my sisters that have never heard the words ‘you are pregnant’ when they really desperately wanted to.

You do not need to hide this part of your life. There is nothing to be ashamed of and you don’t need to protect anyone from the truth. We are all in this together.

In 2005 at the age of 39, I sat in a doctor’s office and listened to words that would alter my life once again: “Jill, it is almost impossible for you to carry a baby to term, and the chances of even getting pregnant are about 10%.” It was a gut punch. He said a bunch of other stuff after that and I don’t remember any of it.

I was never going to be able to have babies.

That’s all that kept ringing in my head. As a matter of fact, it had been impossible for many many years, I just didn’t know that. I had one tube full of scar tissue that had impacted my uterus and a floating ovary on the other side as the tube had been removed years before.

That conversation changed me. You see, for 17 years I had grieved every month that I bled. That is 204 months that ended in grief and I had gotten used to it. It was my normal and it didn’t matter if I was married, single or dating; I wanted to birth a child. It was the one and only dream I’d had since early childhood. Actually, that’s not true: I also wanted to be an Olympic gymnast but Mr. Smith told me how utterly ridiculous that was in the 7th grade. Asshole. But I digress…

The moment this new reality set in two things occurred simultaneously:

1. I was released from an expectation that had me in its grip for 17 years, giving me back my breath.
2. There was deep and profound grief as I was forced to let go of my dream.

Allow me to back up to the beginning if you will.
At the age of 18, I was in a relationship with the man (boy) I would eventually marry. We were sexually active but I was terrified my Mother would find out. Looking back, I am aware that she knew all along, as mothers do. One day I woke up in excruciating pain and ended up in hospital. Due to the fact that I refused to fess up to fucking my bf, they removed my appendix only to discover there was nothing wrong with it. What they missed was the ectopic in my tube that would become scar tissue over time. One tube down.

A few months later we moved in together and then I got pregnant. After going through the hell of telling the parents, (they were not pleased) we decided to get married. The wedding was planned, I bought a pastel pink dropped waist lace dress and forced him to buy a matching pink shirt. Don’t judge! It was 1985. It went with my Farrah Fawcett hair and his feathered style. Also, I was pregnant remember so the style would sorta-kinda hide my belly. My Dad agreed to pay for the booze and my husband-to-be’s workplace, which was owned by his sister and brother-in-law, supplied the food and location.

And then I had a miscarriage.
As you can imagine, I was devasted. It truly messed with me but back then everyone tried to make it NBD. No Big Deal They’d say things like “It’s probably for the best. You’re both so young!” and “There’s plenty of time to have babies.” and “Don’t worry. You’ll be pregnant again in no time!” Fuck off. FUCK OFF! That’s what I was screaming in my head while my eyes welled up and I nodded my head and said thank you like the nice girl that I was. Seriously, fuck off.

We went ahead and got married anyway, me in the pink dress and him in the pink shirt. I got very very drunk.

Less than a year later we were living in Hamilton and once again I was pregnant. We were thrilled! Well, I was thrilled. I’m pretty sure he was terrified. For almost 3 months I would stand in front of the mirror and gauge how much of a bump I had. Did I mention that I loved that I was pregnant? Like, I LOVED it. I felt like I’d hit the lottery of life. Giving birth was the ultimate miracle to me and I wanted the whole enchilada; getting big, having boobs, breastfeeding, actually giving birth…all. of. it.

We were at a friends place when I started bleeding.
I was in shock. This could not be happening again! It was, and this time I was in for a hell of a ride.

When the bleeding started I contacted the gynecologist who told me to come in and then said I wasn’t ‘for sure’ losing the baby and sent me home to bed. Three days and several calls later, my husband finally picked my limp body off the couch and carried me to the car while I hallucinated and went in and out of consciousness. That was the just the beginning. At the hospital, I was given pain meds and left out in the hallway for almost 3 hours until they could do an ultrasound. In the meantime, they wheeled me into a temporary room and the doc came in with several med students to examine me, feet in stirrups, legs spread open and my vagina on display for all to see. I was in so much pain and shock that I didn’t have the wherewithal to object.

Finally, I was in a room and full of numbing pain meds. Exhausted, I fell asleep. The doc came in to check on me and asked how I was feeling. I was very surprised to realize the pain had stopped. “Hurrah!” I thought. Maybe everything is ok! That lasted about 30 seconds as he immediately called in the nurse and told her to prep me for surgery. Mind you, he did this without explaining to me why or what was happening. (Remember, it’s 1987. Or 1988. I don’t remember anymore.)

Turns out the reason I was no longer in pain was that my tube had imploded from the pressure of a growing fetus that was stuck inside it and when that happens you begin to bleed to death but the pain stops.

Guess when I found out what had happened and how close I’d come to dying? Common’…. guess! Fine, I’ll tell you. About 2 weeks after I got out of the hospital and my brother told me that’s why they’d come to see me. They didn’t know if they’d see me or my corpse. (It’s ok to take a pause here. I actually had to get up for a minute because the reality of this hit me hard again.)

Just to give you an idea of what it was like back then, the doctor came into my room the day after surgery, found me attempting to figure out what happened by reading a book and gave me shit while still telling me very little. That’s the same day I almost killed my then husband for giving me shit for smoking.

At no point did the doctor ever tell me the whole story, leaving me to believe that although I now had a missing piece in one tube I was still perfectly capable of conceiving. This turned out to be a lie that wasn’t revealed for many more years, hence the 204 months of grief that followed.

Over the years since, much has happened.
I now have stepdaughters whom I love from my second marriage, I had a hand in raising several others over the years and am at least partially responsible for 2 humans arriving on the planet after their moms had very difficult decisions to make. My life now is incredibly satisfying and full and I’m close to many young people. I adore my nieces and nephews and great niece and nephews and am always happy to have a wee one around.

Here’s what I would have done differently:
I would have told the truth at the hospital when I was a teenager.
I would have been more demanding of answers instead of trusting the crap I was fed.
I would have done the testing that finally happened at 39 much sooner.
I would have gotten help with the massive amount of grief I was carrying.
Hindsight is 20/20.

What I wish someone had told me was that the shame I felt for so long was not necessary. I hadn’t done anything wrong and there was nothing inherently wrong with me.

This was my journey with infertility. Each of us has our own stories whether you lost one and had 6 or, like me, you were never able to carry to term. It’s time we give ourselves room to acknowledge and honor these angel babies, ya? I’m not sure it’s possible to express the full depth of emotion or the roller coaster ride that it all was but I can say this:

The most profound joy I have ever experienced in my life was when I heard the words “You’re pregnant!” and the most grief and pain I’ve experienced is the moment I was told I would not carry to term. For these times I am deeply grateful. It is an incredible gift to be given a chance to feel so fully alive and that was true on both ends of the experience.

What I wish for you is to know you are seen and heard. That you feel validated in your pain and free to speak this truth. I wish healing and love for your heart and peace in your life. I see you. I feel you. I love you.

Let’s be very very clear here: in order to cause any amount of harm to another person requires you to de-humanize them to some degree.

In my mind, any degree of de-humanizing is an act of violence.

So when we witness or perpetrate any act of harm we are choosing to see another as less than human and are the cause of violence.

We are all active participants in this and it buys right into separation rather than oneness. Often it stems from unconscious biases, which we have a resonant responsibility to root out and heal to the highest degree possible in this lifetime.

We are by nature programmed for this. The primal (or amygdala) portion of the brain will do everything in its power to keep us safe. This means that any perceived threat will cause a fight or flight reaction; hence the de-humanizing leading to violence. Do not use this as an excuse.

Society has also programmed us for de-humanizing, through patriarchy dating back centuries and the attempt by colonizers to eradicate POC, particularly black and indigenous in north america and around the world once we could no longer legally enslave them.

We are thinking, feeling and evolving beings with the capacity to change old programming and behaviors. It is, in fact, paramount to our survival as a species.

So today go inward and begin the long and worthy journey of facing all your violence. It is there, I promise you. You are violent to yourself all the fucking time in big and small ways and it leaks out from there. Do this work with urgency and deep compassion. Move through the inevitable guilt and shame as quickly as possible. Its usefulness is extremely limited.

It’s time because #timesup #metoo #blacklivesmatter #indigenousrights

Love,
Jill

What if everything doesn’t actually happen for a reason? What if your soul didn’t call in all the trauma and experiences in order for you to learn a lesson you said you wanted to learn before you got here and the great cosmic plan actually doesn’t give a shit about how it may be affecting you?

Maybe shit just happens. You’re in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong asshole. You turned left instead of right and the other person was distracted and BOOM! they hit you. Your parents were dicks that shouldn’t have had children but they did and you had to suffer the consequences of them having unprotected sex.

Look, why does it matter if it’s all divinely laid out for your greatest and highest good or if it just isn’t? Either way, here you are on the planet, right now with a whole big bunch of others that are also here, trying to sort it all out without completely losing our minds. One thing that remains true no matter what side of the above fence you stand on is that you have choice.

Over and over, the choice is the same: Love or Fear. It might look like something else such as being Kind or being Mean, Compassion or Coldness, Greed or Generosity…you get the picture. Still, it boils down to those two foundations: love or fear.

What I’m saying is it doesn’t matter what you believe about any of it. It matters how you show up as a human being. It matters that you are trying to be a decent human, not only to other humans but to all the other creatures here and, perhaps more than anything, to the earth we’re living on. She will kick our asses off if we continue down the path of fear that we seem so set on.

Believe whatever you want about why what happens, happens. I’m good with it either way and we can be friends. Just do your best to chose Love, over and over again.

Love,
Jill

Sometimes money costs too much. Ain’t that some truth right there.

The pursuit of money cost me integrity, sanity, true connection, freedom and truth. It stole parts of my soul and hid them in places I did not find until all of my being came apart.

I thought the money I made, made me. It became my identity and my worth. I threw it around hoping somehow it would bring love to me. It never did. Instead, it put distance between me and love.

The journey back to my true value has been a long and bumpy road. Still, it makes me question my un-questionable value when I forget to remember. It’s insidious nagging scratches at the door some days, whispering promises of glory and fame. I’m learning to call it in, pour love on it like honey until it finds its place once again.

Money is not my enemy, nor is it my friend. It is a pile of numbers that constantly shifts and moves on my command. No longer does it own me. When I know this it comes willingly to sit at my feet in service.

Love,
Jill

You may have an experience of awakening or an awakening experience. You might go through a trauma or event that caused you to start your awakening. It’s possible to be brought to your knees in a moment of awakening.

But you don’t have an awakening and then you’re awake and your work is done. We must choose it again and again. It is a consistent act of vigilance.

Unless you’re the Buddha, and I’d argue they had to continually awaken too, don’t tell me you had your awakening and now you’re done and can now rest in this.

Keep reading…

What does happen once you’ve had an experience of awakening is that you do not go back to the level of unconsciousness you were in originally. In other words, the contraction is not a match for the expansion experienced. This is true even if you try to go back to how it used to be.

If you are on the path and have had an experience of awakening, you will live differently. It is a powerful shift that occurs, one that has the potential to shift the trajectory of your life. And the ego will fight harder to stay in charge, which is why times and choices of unconsciousness happen and the attention to awakening must continue.

Pray, meditate, take care of your health(s), find a community of people that are also awakening, do your life with a commitment to this path and keep doing these things until you leave this body. Enjoy the ride!

Love,
Jill