Who Are You Made Of?

For years I have heard the famous saying, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” by motivational speaker, Jim Rohn. Also, “show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.” This concept has never sat well with me. When I first heard it my immediate instinct was that it is yet another shame tactic wielded at us by toxic positivity culture. It literally felt like a blow to the gut. I got the gist of it. I knew the person quoting it was well intentioned and has a heart the size of Texas. But, still it felt like a bit of a blow. The psychology nerd in me began analyzing the essence of the statement and trying to discern if there was perhaps a bit of an egoic angle that this phrase was birthed in. I also felt it was a very unfair and uninformed statement. What about someone who is part of a dysfunctional family and they live in poverty? Maybe they don’t have access to higher education. Maybe they don’t have a vehicle and so they are at home most of the time with the dysfunctional. And, where they live is a high crime rate but they can’t get out because they have no car and no money. Naturally, they’re going to spend the most time with these people. And, if you’ve ever been poor you know you don’t have the privilege to just up and switch the company you keep. You can’t go from living in the projects to rubbing shoulders with Harvard graduates all because you decide to. It’s not that simple. There is no straight path for this societal transition typically. So, you can see why I felt this statement was a slight moreso than motivational. It takes time, effort, money, opportunity, preparation, and so much more to bridge the contrast between these two worlds.

But, it’s in the liminal space of those two worlds where I find the most motivation, true progress, and the magic of alchemy. For me it’s neither the projects nor the prestige that hold my attention. It’s the thresh hold moments. The crossing. The journey. It’s not the 1st step or the thousandth mile that impress me. It’s the 500th mile. That place where you’ve exhausted all your anticipation energy. The place where you realize you’re a long way from home but still have a brutally long way to go and you’re running on fumes much earlier than you thought you might. It’s where you simultaneously experience the fear of being finally and fully outside your comfort zone but your destination is no where in sight and you’re not sure if you will ever feel safety again. Where you question your resilience and your resolve. Where your self-defeating thoughts bite into your skin because you’re forcing them out of your mind but your heart feels alive with fervored and fevered hope. Where adrenaline wraps around every cell in your body urging you to either fight, flee or freeze. That is the place I am most impressed with. Not the summit. Not the valley. The slopes. The narrow windy paths where you trudge past the bodies of those who didn’t make it. Sounds intense doesn’t it? That’s because the journey of life is intense and because the degree of rewards it offers to those who dare to journey far surpass the degree of the depths suffered. It’s the risk/reward factor. Some of us play not to lose. And some of us play to win. This was a huge mindset shift for me. Super recent so it’s still very fresh in the energy of the motivation it carries.

Now, back to the statement we are unpacking. Recently, I traveled to Turkey. Solo. Me! A person with a history of prolonged and frequent trauma. A person with a history of panic disorder and generalized anxiety. At this moment a middle-aged woman who is overweight. A woman with sleep apnea and hypothyroidism. A woman with Epstein-Barr. A divorced, child-free woman. A former evangelist who became disillusioned and burned out from the pressure of full-time ministry and a full-time sales job that is commission only. A woman with a wild life experience and even wilder dreams and desires. Me.

If you’ve ever traveled through the Atlanta airport you have probably heard it is the largest airport in the world. However, Istanbul airport has expanded and is now larger than Atlanta. This is where my breakthrough came. In Istanbul. Alone. Surrounded by people who couldn’t understand me. Surrounded by signs in a language I didn’t understand. On my way to a paradise called, Antalya. My belief was that what awaited me in Antalya was going to more than make up for enduring my 11 hour flight, 36 hours of no sleep, little to no food, slight dehydration, anxiety, confusion and my F3 responses. I could have never known that it was in Istanbul airport that I would not only conquer those obstacles that existed in the moment but all the fears that had defeated me and stood in my way for a span of 42 years. All of them.

As I landed in Istanbul I fully expected to hop off the plane and experience the relief of a simple journey to my connecting flight. Wow was I seriously uninformed. I come from a family of engineers, addicts, and chaos. When I tell you that I am a planner when it comes to disaster planning…know that I am the epitome of that. I have always been forced to figure out how I’m going to survive. So, I research. I look at all angles and scenarios that could possibly happen that I might need to guard against. Because of this those closest to me feel I am a bit of a pessimist. But, I’ve lived worst case scenarios so often that that thought process had formed a well-worn groove in my brain. For some people missing a flight isn’t a near insurmountable pressure unless of course there is a serious emergency. But, for me to stand in the massive space of Istanbul airport, fighting anxiety, not understanding the language, switching a 20 lbs duffle bag (that had no wheels, ugh) from one shoulder to the next and the strap chaffing my skin, not being understood by anyone I asked for help, knowing that if I missed a flight and had to sleep in the airport with hardly any money to change my flight, not having my cpap machine and a history of sleeplessness….it was a big freaking deal.

So how did I get through this? It certainly wasn’t my planning skills. They were totally out the window upon stepping foot into that airport. The sense of doom I felt was palpable. A man who pretended to be a good Samaritan but ultimately pressured me to give him my money or else was the icing on the cake. I literally stopped in the middle of the airport and doubled over crying. What I didn’t find out until later was that in Turkish culture they believe it is bad luck to panic or express duress. Much like the law of attraction they feel it only draws more duress and effects everyone around who is witnessing it. So, I must have appeared like a walking bad luck charm, ha ha.

So many moments I had to stop walking and drop my duffle bag (which I ditched before I came back home. I would have burned the damn thing if I could have.) I would do breathing exercises and just allow myself to cry and not think about what the masses of people around me thought about my breakdown. I would fix my mind on my future. I would have moments of veil-piercing clarity where I could hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, of God, and Jesus. I could feel the promptings of angelic presence pushing me to keep pressing and getting me unstuck from my freeze response. I began to dig down deep and all that I had learned in my life and believed about myself, whether positive or negative fully surfaced into my conscious mind. All of it. All at once. I was having a life-shattering awakening in the middle of hundreds of people who had no idea who I was or where I came from or where I was going. Nor did they care. My support team of friends and family and ANY person I could have summoned as a safe space or protector was approximately 6,000 miles away. And it was in the ice cold shock of that full realization that my mind began to sift through all of the progress I’ve made concerning healing from trauma and anxiety over the last 3 years…and those who were largely responsible for my enormous growth and healing. The people I had surrounded myself with.

I began to inventory all those I had spent the most time with over the previous 3 years. Before this I had spent several years in isolation from friends and family because I was reeling from the reality of leaving my husband, hating my job, resenting religion and suffering tremendous mental, physical, emotional and financial hardship. I’m like the dog or cat who when they get sick they wander off to die alone. Where no one can find them or see their pain. After facing a life-threatening cancer scare with the brother I grew up with (and whom I loved like a mother because I had to protect him as best I could from our mother) I had exhausted every single tool I had. I was on Paxil and a beta blocker to help me fight anxiety and depression and keep my heart rate under control because the stress had gotten to me so much I was tachycardic. Especially in my sleep. Intuitively I understood that my uncontrollable adrenaline, and inability to socialize was a result of a burned out nervous system. But, as someone with no college degree and no medical training I had NO idea how to understand what my nervous system was doing, how to help it, or if recovering my mental and physical faculties was even a possibility. ALL of what I was learning was initiated by my intuition alone. I began Google researching the nervous system. And by some miracle (or because Google collects our searches and then presents us with content they think we might utilize) I came across an ad on Facebook for some new vitalistic chiropractors in my city. They were advertising an event that was donation only (thank God because I was broke) called, “Dinner with the Docs.” And get this…the event was all about learning about the nervous system and a promise of the ability of the body to heal itself once the nervous system is unblocked and its bandwidth increased. Wow!! What an opportunity! What timing! At this point I had been housebound for almost 30 days waiting on the Paxil to kick in so I could fake normalcy when I finally did have to leave my house. The fatigue from stress had my entire body hurting. My eyes hurt and burned and were super dry all the time from stress. Weird I know. But, it was a symptom for me. So, venturing out to this event was something I perceived as a risk. It could be catastrophic. I could get there and have to walk further than my pounding heart was comfortable with. I could get there and have a panic attack in front of a crowd of strangers. I could get there and they could turn out to be all talk and unimpressive and be peddling a bunch of bunk. And then all that precious hard fought for energy would be wasted. But, the nervous system. If I could learn even a basic function of it I felt confident that I could lean on my intuition to help me gain the knowledge and education to see if there was hope for recovering and feeling even an ounce better than I did. So. I went.

When I arrived they had some great food set out. I remember the pasta salad was on point! ha ha. There was a good crowd of people and I shared a table with several strangers. I sat uncomfortably and on edge praying I wouldn’t panic and that I could stay through the entire presentation. Suddenly some high energy music came on and I knew it was leading to a likely intro to the doctors. I felt immediate skepticism and the high energy music filled me with dread. It was almost triggering for me. Dr. Matt Smith ran out onto the stage high-fiving people with a huge smile on his face. My first thought was, “must be nice to have all that energy.” He spoke only a few moments and then requested that we all stand and lift our hands in the air. He told us to smile the cheesiest smile we could. He told us to lightly march in place. I was like, “c’mon man, really? It’s all I can do to appear sane and now I have to smile and exert myself??” After we did this he instructed us to scan our bodies and see if we didn’t feel at least a measure of more energy. I reluctantly admitted to myself that I did, ha ha. He started out with the first law of thermodynamics that states that “energy cannot be created or destroyed. Only transformed from one form to another.” I was now on the hook. He spent the next 45 minutes explaining in simple terms how the nervous system works and…how we can harness its power. I will never forget one of the lessons I learned about my amazing body that day. He explained that within each human nervous system there is enough electricity to power the city of Chattanooga for 30 days. I knew in that moment that I must have untapped resources within myself in spite of the burnout. My life trajectory changed that day.

The next 3 years I spent the most time going to see him and his amazing wife, Dr. Monica Smith. I also had connected with an amazing counselor that my cousin and best friend recommended. And, she also moved in with me during that time. Later on I met the family members of Dr. Matt and Dr. Monica who are also vitalistic doctors and a functional nutritionist. Every week I was learning something new about the resilience of the body. Every month I attended some extra function or class they offered about neural integration, manifesting your dreams, neuroscience, meditation and breath work classes. I began exploring yoga at a local studio, also at the recommendation of my cousin and connected with more heart-centered and wise healers.

As I stood in Istanbul airport I thought back to every word that Dr. Matt, Dr. Monica, Dr. Loren, Dr. Erica, Dr. Bryan and his wife Stephani had ever said to me or that I heard them teach. I thought on all the times my cousin prodded me into optimism by saying, “anything can happen.” Instead of reflecting on the toxic traits of my family of origin I began to think about their remarkable survival and adaptation skills. My great grandmothers who were pioneer women. My mamaw who raised me and has suffered at least as much trauma as I have if not more because of her age and exposure and how she has lived 86 years and only been to the doctor maybe 3 or 4 times and has never taken medication of any kind to help her cope with the catastrophes that seemed to constantly abound. Miraculously she is a kind and mentally and emotionally stable person. Her fortitude is awe-inspiring. I thought about my mother who in spite of all the pain she caused us and herself probably has the strongest will to live and physical bounce back of any person I’ve ever known. She has overdosed and died at least a half dozen times. She hasn’t taken care of her body. She’s been on ventilators and in ICUs her entire life. She stands at about 5 feet tall and is no bigger than a minute. Yet she has fought off men twice her size and been beat till she bled out into shock. I come from a line of women who seem to defy the laws of nature when it comes to survival. This is my DNA. And, even if those things couldn’t be said of my lineage I am a part of the human race!! There is nothing that has come at us that we have not only survived but thrived in the face of. Blights, wars, famines, plagues, pandemics, astronomical events…and we march right on.

This is where preparation met opportunity for me. My preparation was a combination of my heritage and the people I had surrounded myself with 3 years before I stood in Istanbul airport. And the opportunity that laid before me was to conquer every fear I had ever had. This was about so much more than taking a much needed vacation in an exotic country. I had a dawning realization that I had surrounded myself with the best, brightest, most intelligent and loving doctors and healthcare professionals this world has to offer and they had become friends to me. Confidantes. Allies for my health goals. Allies for my cautious optimism. All I had learned from them was being put into action. Their wisdom, their education, their training, their own intuitive insights, their friendship and support.

In spite of my initial discomfort with that famous statement coined by Jim Rohn I realized in the airport it had become an auspicious truth for me. My gratitude soared in spite of my hampered steps. I looked back and realized that I had gone from being house bound to traveling solo to one of the most wildly interesting countries on the planet. Where east meets west. Where European style is customized by Middle Eastern influence. Me. Little ole stressed out me from Tennessee.

I will never be the same woman I was before I landed in Istanbul. I will never be the same concoction that I was before I met the amazing team at Rev Centre for Optimal Living. I am now enjoying my discovery of not just what I am made of…but who I am made of. And, I pray that you get to experience the same cataylistic power.