My senior year of college, I made this art piece to represent the word “joy”.

While I think it’s a fair representation of the word, I think a better word fits…

Resiliency.

I’m only now connecting this word to this creation.

Only now after fully liberating myself.

Bryce and I had been dating 3 years at the time I created this (2006). We were already engaged to be married the following April. My whole undergraduate experience in school for art therapy allowed me to, gave me the space to, creatively and artistically express our evolving relationship.

Now, almost 20 years later, I look at this art piece (and other similar ones I’ve created since…) And I’m realizing a few things….

This heart is not healed.

This heart is wrapped in wire (representing chains), has holes punctured in and through it.

It’s wrapped in plaster of paris, which if you’ve ever used, you know that shit is hard as rock.

It’s also a box. A box that I wrapped over and over again so that it could never be opened.

Then, on top of it all, I gave it away. I left it in My Father’s House.

I didn’t even want to keep my “joy”.

I never realized all the symbolism until now…and how incredibly telling and foreshadowing it is.

When I made this art piece I had Bryce in mind. Nineteen years ago I fell head over heels for him, and not even two months into my first adult romantic relationship I was planning marriage and forever. That’s all I ever wanted. Something that would last and something safe and stable. Something better than what I had as a kid.

I was on my way to making that dream a reality. I thought he was the reason I felt joy, the reason I was radiating. I thought he was the one who helped me shine. And while there is some truth here, it’s not the whole truth.

Side note… ironically, our wedding song was “At my most beautiful” by R.E.M. … Here’s some lyrics…

I’ve found a way to make you
I’ve found a way
A way to make you smile

Here’s me ATM….

Why did we pick this song? Seriously? My nickname almost everywhere has been something smiley of sorts… people always comment on how much I smile. Why would we pick a song whose lyrics say ‘i found a way to make you smile’??? Two words.

Cognitive Dissonance.

Sometime after high school (2002 or so) I painted this at church during worship.

I was still attending The Father’s House in Lewisburg and they offered lots of different ways to experience worship- one of them was painting. I will always take advantage of any opportunity to play with paint ❤️

Bryce and I weren’t yet dating when I created this 2002 piece.

As you can see, I have a theme. Both art pieces obviously represent a radiant light bursting out from the inside of a wounded heart.

There’s a saying that goes,

The scripture is also just so perfect:

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” Isaiah 60:1

I remember picking this verse. I obviously didn’t know what my life had in store. But it’s just so absolutely perfect for today, for my new journey.

I had no other choice but to believe Isaiah 60:1 as a girl becoming a woman. I had to believe that God’s light would shine in and through me. I would be dead without this belief, I know it. God’s love and light has ALWAYS been alive and well within me.

The box light, “Joy” was created after I had found “the love of my life”, the man I was planning to marry.

So… why would I create an art piece that looked like I had experienced more pain and was in more bondage than the painting I created even before I told someone about my childhood sexual abuse? You would think that my heart would look more healed after sharing that weight and beginning to heal. You would think “grief shared is grief divided”. You would think that joy would look more whole, especially because I’m engaged and planning a wedding! But my art doesn’t depict this.

A picture really does say a thousand words.

There’s all kinds of ways to pick this apart and you can think whatever you want but here’s the truth:

My art showed more pain because I was in more pain. My art revealed more bondage because I was in more bondage. I just didn’t know it.

Bryce is a good human and I don’t want to shame or humiliate him. That is not the intention of my writing. My intention is to share my heart, MY experience, and why it took me 19 years to come to this realization and decision.

He was and has always been loving towards me, supportive, and has cared very much about and for me. He is a good father, a good human, and he was a good husband. I know he loved me the best way he could. But… things happened. As they do in every relationship. Nothing serious, nothing major, but… I’m a sensitive person, an HSP, an empath, and I have a lot of feelings. I needed someone who could care for my feelings in an attentive and gentle way. I now know that I was created to experience a deep soulful, emotional, transcendental love.

When I was 20, with all my trauma festering under the surface, and in desperate need of a knight in shining armor, Bryce was right there. I splashed him with a puddle of muddy water and he paid attention to me. We both did the best we could with what we had. We both really really really tried.

But the heart I gave to him was first scarred by abuse in 1994 and then hardened and chained by betrayal in 2004. I realize now that my heart never functioned the same after that betrayal. I’m resilient and I have the Love of God alive in me so yes, I still shine. To the world I looked fine. To me I felt fine. Happy. Blissful even.

Cognitive Dissonance.

I’m a happy person. That might be a personality trait or it might be a survival skill, maybe both. Be happy or someone will notice that you’re dying inside. Someone will see that I was broken and I had no soft place to land. So, what’s a 23 year old to do? I had no idea how wounded I was. I had no idea how hurt I was. I had no idea what Love was. I was starved as a child so breadcrumbs felt like Shady Maple. (Look it up.)

I didn’t know I plastered my heart and wrapped it in wire and chains sometime in 2004. And then made art to represent the truth but called it “joy” instead. But I did.

Cognitive Dissonance.

My heart stayed that way until fire and gasoline and Love set me on fire and set my light free for a minute in 2012. I wasn’t supposed to…. But I fell in Love. Real Love. Transcendental, Divine LOVE. It took me ten years to realize that what I experienced with him was NOTHING like anything I had ever experienced before or after. This. Is. Special. This love healed my heart. This love set me free. This love inspired me, ignited me, raptured me. This love brought me back to God.

But as soon as I set myself free by choosing myself for the first time ever in my life, I had to deny myself again. Because I wasn’t allowed to have it. I had to surrender Transcendental, Unconditional Love. I already had “love” and I “need to be happy with what you have”. “Stop wanting more.” “What you have is enough.” “This is God’s will.”

But my heart was exploding. My heart was breaking free.

I thought I lost this photograph. Abraham Hicks says You can’t find something you think is lost. If you believe it’s lost the universe will align with you and keep it lost. You have to believe it’s found. I wasn’t looking and BAM there it was. I looked and looked for this photo in July. I found it while looking for a different photo last night.

I painted this in 2012 or so, in my bed, next to Bryce while he slept. This painting was me giving myself permission to feel my feelings. My therapist at the time told me I wasn’t allowed to feel my feelings (!!!😵!!!) but I think I might have died if I didn’t. I HAD to create. I had to get it out of me. I was exploding with Love and grief.

I had so much love energy…so much passion…I just had to create. I pulled paints and brushes and just sobbed and slapped paint all over the canvas…all over our bed. I screamed and cried and my husband slept. This is a pretty telling example of my emotional experience in our relationship.

My heart found Unconditional Love and I wasn’t allowed to have it. I was in Love and then I was forced to grieve an untimely and premature death. I was in Love and no one would listen. I was in Love and I was forced to kill it. We created a perfect Love…and I destroyed it.

It wasn’t long after this that I started shutting down my feelings again.

I took this photo of my painting before I cut into the canvas and stabbed the heart with a railroad spike. I’m glad I took this picture… Because look at it. No wire. No plaster. No chains. Just a huge explosion. I think this painting is more similar to the one I painted in 2002 than the box I created in 2006.

Before I decided on divorce, I felt so much pain in my chest. I even went to the ER. Of course they sent me home fine, a clean bill of health. But I knew what was wrong. My heart was broken. I lost touch with Love. I thought it was breaking because of someone else. That’s not true.

There are two truths about my heart pain… 1) my heart was waking up, reactivating, remembering Love. Like being shocked by an AED 2) my heart was breaking. I was and had been grieving the end of my marriage for a very very very long time.

In fact, I think I’ve been in the bargaining stage of grief for well over 10 years. Like I said, we really really tried.

There are moments between 2009 to the present where I lost touch with my heart. Like, I couldn’t find the Love I’ve always known… My resilience, my radiance….it faded in and out. Sometime between 2012 and 2022 I almost completely lost touch with Love. It’s like I was spinning in space, further and further away from my Source.

Over the past ten years, I’ve become increasingly angry, arrogant, depressed, and like… Dead. I’ve often wondered…why can’t I cry? Why can’t I feel? My feelings would build and build until they exploded. I kept attracting relationships that would end chaotically. Then and only then would I be able to cry… But I wouldn’t cry. I would bawl. Hyperventilate. Spin into suicidal ideation.

For ten years I recreated in most of my new relationships (and several existing) the devastating loss I experienced in 2012. Losing people was the only way I could feel anything. I’m just realizing this now.

After my heart exploded in 2012, I went away on a mini weekend retreat and painted again.

While away on my “MEtreat”, I received a vision while meditating. The vision was of a healed heart in the clouds, like heaven.

I went to a Catholic college so the sacred heart was displayed everywhere. I never really noticed though how much it resembled all the art I’ve created through the years. I think my art, like Sacred Heart art, is divinely inspired. Actually, I know it is.

So, I began painting. I started with the clouds and I knew I wanted to paint a healed heart in these clouds.

But… There was one problem….I was thinking about someone else. Buuuuut I was married to Bryce.

The GUILT was consuming. How. Dare. I. Love. Another. I’m Deplorable. Vile. Adulterous.

But…

Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon quotes like “don’t follow your heart for it is deceitful above all things”. And “marriage isn’t supposed to make you happy, it’s supposed to make you holy”.

So, because I believe the Bible and those in spiritual power, I began to forsake my heart, kill love, and stab myself with ice picks (migraines) and my side with thorns (chronic bladder spasms). I also chained my mouth shut (TMJ). I carried the weight of grief and condemnation on my shoulders (chronic shoulder and back pain).

In 2013 I was still in Love’s presence and the vision was still alive in my soul. But still, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get the vision to leave my brain, my soul, and flow out of a paintbrush. I couldn’t bring paint to canvas. The desire was there. The will was there. The image carved itself into my brain. But I was blocked. I couldn’t find my heart.

It’s interesting how this painting actually shows that. Just a blank space where something is supposed to be. I’ve held onto this canvas for 10 years. I almost threw it away this summer but Liam convinced me to keep it. He said, “you’ll figure it out mama, I know you will”. Oh Liam, you really were shaped by Love when you were in my tummy ❤️ He knows. He gets it.

Almost two months ago I was still in crisis. I couldn’t sleep, eat, function. I stopped working because I COULDN’T. It would have been unethical… I couldn’t do it. It’s hard to explain. I wasn’t depressed. I was….stuck. I now know that God put a hold on me to get me to WAKE UP.

And I did! Thank you Jesus! He left the 99 and he came for me. He brought me home, fed me, gave me a warm bed and clean pjs. And began breathing life into my dry and dead bones.

In June, I set off running on a feeling journey, a journey back to my heart, back to Love. It has been…. interesting. There have been twists and turns and distractions and decoys. I’ve also experienced a lot of miracles – like completely resolved migraines that I had almost daily for 10 years. Completely resolved TMJ. Completely resolved chronic neck and shoulder pain. No changes were made except I got HONEST about my FEELINGS.

February 2004-October 18 2022 was a classic case of extreme cognitive dissonance exacerbated by a warped belief system full of dogma, judgement, condemnation, lies, and bullshit. It took me four months to unpack 10+ years of confusion and pain. In the process of unpacking, I tried everything. I even tried exploring polyamory to resolve my “problem” 😂 I can laugh at this now because it’s just so silly. What I really needed…

Was to end my marriage.

So I did.

Looking back, I can see that on 6/26/22, my heart couldn’t handle the lies I kept telling myself and it just cracked open. Just like it did in June of 2012, almost exactly 10 years earlier.

It took four months for everything that I kept buried deep inside to come out. And then, finally, once I got it all out… I had an epiphany. And asked myself….”how would you feel if you got divorced”?

The answer?

Relieved.

Devasted. But relieved. I never allowed myself to consider divorce. It was off the table. I didn’t use that word. Instead, I allowed myself to become suicidal. I would fantasize disappearing. Like I never existed. No one would mourn my absence, I wouldn’t have to bother anyone with my death. I would just POOF be gone . I understand now that there was a part of me that was screaming HELP! Get me out of here! LEAVE! But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It wasn’t an option.

And…to boot… Our marriage was pretty good! Not terrible. But somewhere along the way I realized that some needs…needs most people don’t talk about…had never been met. Except for that one time in 2012. And now that I was allowing myself to consider that moment as something GOOD, it all started to click together. Like Clark and his Christmas lights…

Ten years of pining and thinking and wondering and crying and nearly dying…. I figured it out.

I love Bryce. But I was never IN LOVE. I know, it’s surprising. Looking at us you’d think we were.

We’re both very easy going people, very kind people. We have a good friendship. We work well together. I’m a very loving person, especially when I feel safe. Bryce rescued me from my family of origin, parts of which were physically abusive. I have always felt physically safe with Bryce.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illustrates that people cannot grow or actualize until basic needs are met. Physical safety is a basic need.

But I’m more than just a physical person. I’m an emotional person. I’m a sexual person. I’m a spiritual person. I had no idea that safety in these areas, all areas, was possible OR necessary to make a marriage not only work, but PASSIONATE.

There was no passion in our marriage. There was no shared depth of emotion. There was love, there was fun, there was adventure, there was conversation, there was friendship. But we did not have passion. We did not share deep emotion. It takes two to tango as they say….and I’ve been trying to tango alone and drag him along for 19 years. (funny because he doesn’t like to dance)…

There was more than that missing/problematic, but that’s as much as I’m willing to share publicly. You just have to accept that my marriage was not healthy for me anymore. I outgrew it as I grew in some extremely foundational areas.

I don’t owe anyone an explanation. That’s not why I’m doing this. I’m writing this because I KNOW I can’t be the only one. Everyone deserves Love.

Soul mate relationships are nice. They are cozy, warm, basic. No drama. But, in soul mate relationships, you don’t really grow. You get stagnant. Bored. You gain weight, lose hair, collect a ton a shit you don’t need. Most of America exists like this. But just because it’s normal doesn’t make it right.

Everyone thinks that just by identifying as a Christian that they’re not conforming. But have you been to a mega church? Have you talked to a conservative Christian since 2020? I think Christians have a knack for conforming, too.

I think this Romans verse is better lived out by those who go on a true spiritual journey back to God. A wild, crazy, amazing ride back to the heart of God, back to Unconditional Love.

God woke me up in June and poured out his all encompassing and consuming Love, Wisdom, and Truth faster than I could process. AH says that God doesn’t usually give humans a flood of downloads like this because well…we can look and feel a little crazy. Apparently this process is called Kundalini awakening .

As a result of my spiritual awakening, I discovered Truth, Peace, and Love again. The fire was relit in my soul. But, it was like a turbo burst and I needed to get control of all of this new and wild energy before I could really get grounded and rest. Chill. I’m now enjoying peace and clarity and Oneness with God and others ❤️ It’s beautiful 🥰

I’m painting again, and received s new/updated inspiration for my 10 year old canvas. It’s not finished yet… It’s missing something, I’m not sure what… But I know I’ll know soon 🔥

I chose divorce and my heart has been set on fire. My heart is healed. It is whole. No more chains, no more scars, no more darkness. Just Love 💘

The inspiration continues as I find my way back into the world. I know when I’m aligned with God, with Love, when I can turn my visions into reality. I know I’m following God’s call on my life when the fruit of the spirit blossoms from my life’s tree. Since ending my marriage I have reconciled multiple relationships. I’ve passed my licensure exam. I’m envisioning my future and making my dreams come true. There is no longer a shortage of love. Some marriages are not meant to last a lifetime and that’s okay ❤️

Please don’t apologize for our divorce. We are both happier now. This is truly what’s best for everyone.

When you choose Unconditional Love, everyone wins. Love wins. ❤️

Honest. Kind. Shine.