How I Turned Pain Into Passion: From Lost & Broken to Purposeful & Fulfilled
Helping Others Know They're Not Alone Through a Self-Love Blog
It was somewhere between dusk and dawn. I was somewhere between dream-state and waking when the word dropped in with more clarity than anything in my life, “BLOG”.
I’d been moving through another intense dark night of the soul. I often wonder, “Does the Universe thrust other people into this many iterations of feeling completely lost, questioning everything, anxious, depressed, and sick?” They seem to always hit me all at once. Initially, I want to burn down the world. Then I want to crawl into a hole, curl up, and die. But then I remember that every time this happens, I come out on the other side healthier, more resilient, knowing myself more deeply, feeling aligned with my path, and feeling closer to Creator than ever. So, I pulled up my bootstraps, or in my case, got barefoot, and returned to my roots: the tools that have helped me more times than I can count. I have two beliefs that carry me through the darkest moments. This won’t last forever, because it never does, and I will come out on the other side of this feeling more free, joyous, and at peace than I ever have. When I feel like I can’t do anything else, I’m at least able to listen to meditations and process through journaling and writing poetry.
Here’s the first poem I wrote as my dark night of the soul was beginning:
Meditation has saved my life. I create meditation playlists to listen to at night. Whenever I’m feeling out of sorts, be it anxiety, depression, health, lack of self-love or self-acceptance, confusion about my purpose, karmic patterns, heartbreak—you name it, YouTube has a meditation for it. It’s important to be careful about who you allow into your subconscious though, as it is highly susceptible to influence. I always listen to the full meditation in a waking state to ensure the meditations I listen to use conscious language, so I’m not programming negative thoughts while sleeping. Paying for the premium membership is a non-negotiable for me. I definitely don’t want ads for god knows what playing while I’m sleeping.
Michael Sealey and Kenneth Soares (now PowerThoughts Meditation Club) are my two favorite YouTube Channels.
It was this habit that brought me to start my Substack. After I heard the word “blog” in my half-awake, half-asleep state, then I started hearing things like, “This allows you to live your life as you already do”, “You can be 100% authentic”, “You don’t need to have it all together”, and “You don’t have to worry about sleazy marketing”. As I “came to” more, I realized the meditation playing was a hypnosis by Michael Sealey, Finding Your Life’s Purpose.
I jolted out of bed and began writing everything that was coming to me about how blogging was the way for me to serve a higher purpose in the world.
An important part of my story is that I was a Conscious Love & Women’s Empowerment Coach for the last five years. Also five years ago, I had multiple hospital stints. I would go in with excruciating pain in my abdomen, they would pump me full of antibiotics and painkillers, talk about taking out organs, and eventually send me on my way with no answers and more lingering problems. I developed achy joints, sharp pains in my gut that felt like someone was stabbing me with an ice pick, tension headaches, extreme bloating that made me look four to five months pregnant, fatigue that made making it from my bed to the couch a huge triumph, and brain fog that made it feel impossible to help others. I loved empowering people, but I often felt trapped, pretending everything was fine even when I was struggling with my health. I saw my cycles of anxiety/depression and flare-ups as signs I wasn’t suitable to help others. It was a constant battle.
When I moved from Mexico to Austin, planning to launch a group membership program to make coaching more affordable and accessible, everything came crashing down.
I believed social media was the only way to reach more people. There are two problems with that. Social media causes me to place my worth into the hands of strangers, a pattern from my teen years on HotOrNot.com and FaceTheJury.com that I do not want to repeat, and, the coaching industry’s way of manipulating people into buying by using people’s pain points and fears made me feel disgusted. I didn’t feel like I could do it—and the Universe made sure I didn’t move forward with my plan. Not even a week later, I had my worst flare-up since 2019, I began to question the coaching industry as a whole, my anxiety was running rampant, and depression was coming in at a close second. I finished my client contracts and fully stepped back from my coaching business. Thus my dark night of the soul began. I was terrified to think about starting over again, but I knew I couldn’t continue work that didn’t feel aligned with my values.
That was a harsh lesson I learned in my near suic!de attempt of 2017 when I could no longer handle the soul-sucking nature of my corporate job.
So, here we are! Me writing my first post, and you reading it. A place where I can express myself without the pressures of being perfect or having it all figured out. If you’ve made it this far, I hope we become friends =). I’m Becca, by the way, a 37-year-old yogi, artist, and hopeless romantic with a deep love for travel and exploration. I’m just trying to navigate this neurotypical world as a highly sensitive person with ADHD, chronic health issues, and cycles of anxiety and depression. From quitting drinking to finding a better way to deal with my emotions, to getting off meds to feel like I had authority over my own body, to turning away from Western medicine to find alternative ways of healing, to switching to all organic food and natural products, to leaving my Southern Baptist roots to find a God that made sense in my heart, to quitting my corporate job so I could do work that felt purposeful.
The fight against the “norm” hasn’t always been easy, but it’s worth it. Living an autonomous, aligned life means listening to my heart every time.
From a young age, I found solace in journaling and writing poetry to navigate confusing feelings and express my emotions. I still journal (almost) every day. My journey has led me through challenges with self-esteem, complex trauma, ADHD, anxiety, depression, chronic health issues, relationship difficulties, and uncovering what spirituality means to me.
Here, we will explore:
How to Love Ourselves so We Can Feel Connected, Peaceful, & Worthy
Alternative Healing Modalities for Mental & Physical Wellness
Spiritual Concepts & Practices for Acceptance & Trust in Difficult Times
Dating & Relationships and what it means to have Sacred Union
Clean Living to Help Our Bodies Thrive
I will share my personal experiences, challenges, and the questions I ponder, while also providing you with alternative tools and resources to empower you with the knowledge to decide what is best for your mental and physical health journey to holistic—WHOLEistic living—mind, body, and spirit.
Join me as we embark on this journey together, navigating life's twists and turns, following the path, following our Wild Hearts. My greatest hope is that in reading what I share, you know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Consider a paid subscription to get weekly journal prompts. The support to share my heart and wisdom is deeply appreciated <3
Feel free to follow me on Instagram and TikTok for more poems, tips, and life outtakes:
https://www.instagram.com/wildheartsjourney/
https://www.tiktok.com/@wildheartsjourney