And honestly, it’s hard to know where to start, but here’s the gist of it….

Before the pandemic, my work, my life, my health… everything lined up seamlessly and beautifully. I found the man of my dreams – who continues to make my heart swell with joy and tenderness. I had just accepted a full time faculty position for an undergraduate program in Ayurveda where I received my graduate degree from. At the beginning of 2020, I even had made the goal to teach more online.

Well, we all know that life has it’s peaks and valleys – and I am one of those people that really knows about these peaks and valleys – these cycles of life…. but I honestly didn’t think I’d dive this deep into a valley for as many months.  In March, I started facing a (what I know now of as a recurrent and chronic) feminine health issue, which I have come to believe is a psychophysiological response to the grief I have felt around losing my work, and around trusting my newfound relationship for support.  It is about re-establishing a boundary with others that comes from the re-establishment of intimacy with myself.

Because the majority of my work has been in person, I’ve been able to lean into my new faculty position and my continued work with my clients and students, which is now online.  I am so incredibly grateful for our online community.  I started out in March with a bang and offered a program online to my clients/students outside of the university. But, I noticed I was operating from fear, so I quit it and slowed my tempo way way way down.  I continued my offerings but at a pace where I could really feel and sense into what was happening.

I went into my practices. I leaned into my relationship.

And, I can’t tell you how many millions of tears I have shed since March. It’s felt like an identity loss or something – and even though my work is all about pointing us to our insides, for power, rejuvenation, strength, receptivity and health – I was so caught in the outside. So I just cried and held myself. I watched and witnessed but I also felt like I had no way out. I knew where I was, as I had been there before. But the difference was, I didn’t think I would ever emerge.  I really didn’t.  And don’t get me started with the current state of affairs… that just compiled and compressed me into a deeper and tighter place, feeling very hopeless.

Thankfully, my amazing partner did a lot of holding and helping me remember what it feels like on the outside to be tenderly cared for in whatever state I’m in – his intimate support helped me see what I needed to offer myself.  And this is the exact something I teach my students and clients to do.

Anyway, I knew I needed more support on the outside, so I could remember what it feels like – I suspected I needed a group of women to lean into. I needed to really go towards what I grapple with on the inside – which is a lack of confidence.  Ask anyone on the outside and they’ll say, “What?! Meredith seems so confident!” But what I have learned from Swami Coronavirus is that my confidence has mostly been dictated by the outside – not by my inside.

I kept receiving whispers that my troubles were about my sense of Self-Worth, about my sense of Self-Value. I dove into a whole weekend about Value. It started to melt the edges. But, honestly, I didn’t really know how to go towards it because it feels and felt like such a blind spot with a lot of shame built around it.

After being a part of a supportive and loving community, I have been blown away and been resting in a lot of contemplation and hints of new found freedom. I feel my sense of openness returning, which feels so so so good. And what a relief! It doesn’t feel so blind anymore!!

And, I have been realizing that a part of why I haven’t been able to put myself out there (pandemic or not) (and have been completely dependent on referrals – which built my very strong and successful practice in Ayurveda and Yoga Therapy) online is because I’m scared. I’m scared of what people will think.

There. I said it.

I want people to like me.

But the funny thing is, after just a short time in a supportive community of women, I said something out loud to myself and then shared it with my partner. I said, “You know, it would be selfish of me NOT to share my gifts and what I know with others.” And then when I shared it with my partner, he mirrored back to me, “Wow, Meredith. That sounds very self-appreciative. I think I will try that too.”

Since then, which has merely been about 3 days ago, I’ve been resting in that sense of appreciation for myself. It comes and goes, but I can still feel it’s tether into my heart, into my soul – and I’m so grateful.

Today, I’m going to continue on with more diving into myself, committing to myself…

And I suspect and envision that you’ll see me in the future recording videos, sound healing mp3s, even more blogs and sharing more offerings with you for you to learn – all from a place of loving myself, of vulnerable expression and without a need for your applause.

I am so so so incredibly grateful for this opening into and towards myself, once again.  Here comes a peak!

Thank you to all of you, my partner and family, my beloved community of students and clients, my community of ladies… to all of you whom offer support. And I say thank you to my heart for finding the courage to go for it.

Much Love,

Meredith