Wow!  I feel like I have so much power and freedom just having a venue to write and possibly have people read what I write.  It’s also a bit scary for me to possibly have people read what I write, so this right here is taking a lot of courage.  I decided to start this blog after thinking that maybe I could write a book.  People tell me often, “you should write a book.”  Who me??? That feels really big, so this is like a step down and a place to start.

I have had an awakening over the past several years.  We’ll say it started about 2010 (but looking back, it’s been a lifelong challenge) when I was diagnosed as having a nodule on my thyroid.  After testing and finding it to be a non-cancerous thing that just hangs out in my body, I started going to acupuncture to try and help the cause.  At acupuncture I found out that based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, having a growth like this in one’s throat is said to be a result of unresolved anger or unexpressed emotions (or all of that).  Makes sense, right?  Like people say, “having a lump in your throat”, when a person cannot speak usually due to being highly emotionally impacted.  Based on Western Medicine, there’s no theory like that, it just happens and who knows why.  Poof!..All of a  sudden you just have a big lump on your throat.  Really?!?

So, if I remember correctly this was shortly after my ex-spouse came out to me as transgender.  (I’ll probably write more about that in later posts just because it relates so much to finding one’s voice.)  For the first 6 months of this coming out, it was a very hush-hush kind of thing.  I was super confused, not knowing what the future would bring and feeling like before my very eyes I was losing the love of my life.  I’ve never experienced such heart-wrenching pain in my life EVER.  Having no idea what to do, how to tell family, friends or even how to talk about it out loud, I would spend my evenings in the bathtub sobbing and I just kind of kept my feelings all tucked inside the bubbles in the tub.  I felt like my heart was being tortured.  It was somewhere in all of this, I was told I have this lump in my throat.

I’m not going to pin these things together as direct cause and effect because I have always been a people pleaser and overall an agreeable, easy to get a long with person.  Sometimes that comes at my detriment when I don’t speak up for myself and don’t honor my own needs and wants.  If nothing else, getting this thyroid nodule has brought light to the very important need to express myself.  I know now that emotional pain and stress, when not dealt with manifests in different ways. It’s different for everyone.

I am so happy to be on this journey to finding my voice.  I call it an art because it takes practice to be heard and be graceful.  Sometimes it gets messy and people get upset or I get hurt or all the other human things that happen with humans trying to communicate.  It has not been easy, but life isn’t like shopping at Wal-Mart, as my acupuncturist would say.  The most important thing is finding how to be true to myself.  Honoring and respecting myself as I journey through this life.