Have you ever reached a point in life when your foundation quaked, cracked and slowly, but powerfully swallowed everything you had known? It may not have happened all at once, but something much bigger than you was culminating.

Today, I want to talk about transformation as I have deeply contemplated it, earned a MA degree, coached clients for 30+ years, and lived it, profoundly, over the last five years.

I have taken many road trips in my life--it's part of my DNA. When I was very young, my family vacationed in FLA. My mom would fly with the youngest siblings and meet my dad my two older brothers and I in Fort Lauderdale. Even at that age, I preferred traveling by road rather than by sky. The sun and air coming through an open station wagon window, the wind having it's way twisting my arm and hand, Stevie Wonder on the radio--life was a dream.

My father was the headmaster of a boarding school in Wisconsin that had weeks-long Winter breaks when students returned home to their families. My parents would pre-arrange that our teachers give us 3 weeks of homework. A loving shout out to teachers--I still vividly remember beautifully organized and precisely instructed packets. My earliest remote job ;). I (always) digress.

In 2019, a road trip of a very different kind would result from seismic shifts in the tectonic plates holding the shape of my world. I asked a trusted colleague, a Neurological Chiropractor to take an Xray. It confirmed what I most feared, the head of my right femur was severely eroded, appearing as a crescent moon instead of a ball in the socket. I couldn't hold back the tears, in his office. I was sad, shocked and scared.

As an Integrative Neuromuscular Therapist, I had helped people avoid these types of musculoskeletal conditions and/or supported their recovery for over 30 years. Now it was me, who needed someone like me. How could this be happening? What did it mean? The helper, now needed help; the healer, needed healing; the one who inspired, now needed encouragement; hyper-independence was giving way to physical weakness and pain with no insurance coverage.

I was as terrified of the treatment, as I was of the condition. We would finally be pulling up stakes to move to the Sierra Foothills where it was more affordable. I would be fortunate to retain two clients, a couple, who'd been regular clients. I drove an hour to see them in Sacramento, in a spare bedroom that became a dedicated bodywork space. I didn't have to lug my table and supplies to and fro as I had done by choice in my beginning years.

My partner had just come out of the hospital in late September, after a sudden cardiac, a 6-day coma, now with epilepsy. We packed a truck and left the Bay Area January 15th during one of the worst storms in CA history. Slowly the transformation would build all the way until the present with unpredictable grace and hardship.

Pain and Passion Help Us to Evolve on the Path of Transformation

As my surgery date approached, I began swimming to strengthen my body and lift my spirit. It also helped me to do the inner work needed to transform my fear and resistance into willingness. I had been a record-setting swimmer when I was younger and it gave me a sense of lightness and youth that made me feel instantly resilient. I would swim breast, and free and back-stroke, I never mastered butterfly, but always thought it was the most beautiful.

On the October morning of the surgery, after a moonless, dark night, I calmed myself by listening to Bing Crosby singing Yuletide songs--it reminded me of Christmas mornings and being in my father's protective aura. In the year that followed his passing, I had become acutely aware of a feeling that became conspicuous by its absence. I used to feel as long as my dad was on this plant, everything was going to be ok. Reflecting on it now, I realize the life-changing tremors had begun in the summer of 2011 when we took his last breath. Here I am in 2023, 12 years later and I'm still imagining what is home, stability, safety, and security. The process of transformation is ongoing and evolves as we more deeply understand and trust what is for us, and what no longer serves. Only the individual can say what their wisdom is, or as William Blake wrote, "Wisdom is peculiar to individuality." Anything and everything will provide opportunity for deeper knowing, being and doing as we discern our lives.

Pema Chodron wrote The Wisdom of No Escape and When Things Fall Apart, I highly recommend them. Look for my future Tibetan Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation Class in 2024. We will sit together to practice gentleness, precision and letting go.

I leave you with this poem Alone by Maya Angelou 1928-2014

Lying, thinking

Last night

How to find my soul a home

Where water is not thirsty

And bread loaf is not stone

I came up with one thing

And I don’t believe I’m wrong

That nobody,

But nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires

With money they can’t use

Their wives run round like banshees

Their children sing the blues

They’ve got expensive doctors

To cure their hearts of stone.

But nobody No, nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely

I'll tell you what I know

Storm clouds are gathering

The wind is gonna blow

The race of man is suffering

And I can hear the moan,

'Cause nobody,

But nobody

Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone.

From Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well By Maya Angelou. Copyright © 1975 by Maya Angelou. Reprinted with permission of Random House, Inc. For online information about other Random House, Inc. books and authors, visit the website at www.randomhouse.com.