Coming home

When we first built our home just over a decade ago my husband altered the plans, which given we built the house ourselves without the use of contractors was easy enough to do.

The house plans had called for a slightly larger basement (family rec room) and a small basement bedroom, too small for the Thai Yoga Massage and Somatic Healing practice I had hoped to open and run from the home we were building together.

So he adapted.

It’s a strength I’ve always admired in him, his ability to consciously adapt. To change with purpose, one that I’m just learning to harness myself.

Walls were moved. Ceiling tiles, insulation, and a door built for soundproofing were purchased and installed.

The hardwood swapped out for a soft, warm cork floor instead.

When the plans someone else had deemed good enough for them didn’t fit our needs he changed them.

Just. Like. That.

At the time, hell, even up until a couple years ago – I don’t think I fully understood – even though I ‘knew’ that you could do that. Change the things around you to work for you.

To fit you and your needs.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a master adapter, however I learned to adapt to fit into the world as others needed it and me to be for them, not in a way that was best for me.

Fast forward to 2024 – I woke up in March unable to control my body, my speech, and with intense body pain. At the hospital 12 hours later, every test and scan revealed the same – there was no physical, mechanical, or physiological reason for the symptoms I was experiencing.

Yet there I was, too afraid to speak or move too much in case I couldn’t control the response.

With no known cause and the hospital physician unable to 100% rule out a seizure or stroke disorder I had to be referred out for further specialized tests. With that referral sent my divers license was automatically suspended, and with it my ability to get to and from our home outside the city to my space in it was taken away.

At the time I jumped back into my survival adaptation patterns. I started searching feverously for a way to support and coax my body back into health – or maybe it was a not-so-subtle plea for submission. And my amazing husband, well, he adapted, changed his schedule and drove me to and from work – adding an additional 2 hours and 2 trips to and from the city to his day.

And yet, the harder I tried to adapt, to figure out a way to make things work better for my body, my business, my clients, and my husband the more control I seemed to lose.

A month later I closed my practice in Saskatoon.

When that sense of powerlessness crept back as I shut the door on my space one last time, I realized I’d been trying too hard. Old patterns had resurfaced and I’d once again been adapting out of fear.

Except this time no one was asking me to or forcing me to. Hell, I was so deep in a shame spiral no one knew.

And yet, I couldn’t seem to step out of that fear, the programing my nervous system knew all too well long enough to really listen to my body.

It was calling me home.

Asking me to slow down.

I believe the body speaks to us. That our symptoms aren’t random. Aren’t the cause of some unknown thing trying to take us down – however a lifetime of learned beliefs, habits, and that ability we all have to get through the day on auto pilot if needed make it challenging to listen to her – to our body.

When you spend your life contorting yourself for others what you’re really doing is handing over control.

When you adapt out of fear it’s often because you feel you have no other choice – had no other choice in the past.

However, not all cause and effect happens simultaneously, especially when it comes to the body – it’s not like holding a match to paper and watching it instantly go up in flames.

Within the body things accumulate, the body adapts, it works to disperse and carry the load – but it can only carry so much, eventually something’s gotta give, and it – your body – will find a way to be heard.

Like that incredibly healthy person who throws out their back putting on their socks. It wasn’t the socks, and it wasn’t that they ‘moved the wrong way’ – it was the result of many previous causes – the little things that went unnoticed and added up over the years.

In my case it was the accumulation of thousands of moments in which I gave away my control. In which I adapted to keep the peace.

To make others happy.

To be accepted.

To be loved.

It was the way I had been taught to exist in the world.

Then one day – with no medical reason for it I woke up with no control.

I had literally given it all away.

After decades of my actions being made to align with and for someone else’s I could no longer properly control my own.

After years of not using my voice for me, all the times I agreed when I didn’t, said yes when I wanted to say no, smiled when I wanted to cry, scream, or say fuck you – every interaction in which I didn’t speak my truth, state my needs, set my boundaries, or share my thoughts….

It’s no wonder I woke up that morning in March confused when no matter how slowly, purposefully, or consciously I tried to move – tried to articulate my thoughts, to verbalize what I wanted to say I had no control over what came out.

I’ve been doing this work – healing, coming back to my body for decades and thought I was almost ‘there’ – wherever ‘there’ was. And then I lost control, just when I was starting to feel like I finally had some.

I felt like I had failed.

As though I had done something wrong.

And I felt like a hypocrite.

How could I continue to speak to healing, listening to the body, tending to and loving the self, guiding and holding space for other women… I mean, who the hell was I really helping when I couldn’t seem to help or heal myself?

It took me months of support that wasn’t about fixing me, or making it better, or creating another way for me to adapt to realize I hadn’t failed.

It took finally finding the support I’d been giving to others. Finding someone and a community that was able to hold space and meet me where I was, and to be reminded that where I was was where – and who – I was meant to be in that moment.

And I found myself wondering if maybe, just maybe the work I had done is what allowed for my body to fully speak her truth. For her to take back control on our behalf and for me to be able to listen to her in a new way.

That beautiful room I spoke about, that my husband lovingly built – at the time, it never became the healing space I dreamed of. Instead, it became the spare room someone else had designed it to be, just a bit bigger and with nicer floors.

My husband may have built it – adapted the plans from a place of intention and control – aware that we could in fact make the choice to build our home to fit us and the life we wanted – yet for some reason I wasn’t ready. Wasn’t aware that we – that I really could.

And then one day – my body decided for me.

It took losing control for that room to become what it was always meant to be.

It took losing control to finally – literally and figuratively – come home.

Curious on what your body has to say – it’s waiting to be heard in a Root Cause Session.