This post is for those of you who have made a choice, a big choice, maybe recently, and regretted it.

Let's talk.

Image credit of Westview Photo Studio, @westviewstudiocr

I am going to start with that controversial place. That place I never go out loud in print. That place that could lose me readers, friends, get-me-banned. You know the place I am talking about. I know you do. You might be afraid to read more. You might be thinking I am going to say things you won’t like.

I don’t think that’s the case.

But it could be true.

So it’s up to you to read further.

But I can tell you this is not going to be about taking sides or judgement.

What it is about and for are the people that I wonder about a lot. The group I could so easily have been a part of and am not.

The group of people who did their best and maybe went against a tiny whisper in their heart that said, “don’t do this thing.” And because the world told them to, because the media told them too, because their friends and family told them to, because they did care about other people, because they did want their grandmother to live regardless of what she did or didn’t do… They ignored that whisper and they rolled up their sleeve and they complied.

For most people things have become polarized, as they so often are. There are those of us who complied and now belong to a group of others who complied. Those people, many of them I imagine, still want to and maybe do feel good about their choices. There is no judgement in this from me. I am simply describing a dynamic I see.

Then there are those of us who didn’t. We too have a sense of belonging because we are in the other group.

I imagine both groups may tell themselves why they are smart or better. Or lucky.

But what about the ones in the middle? What about the people who did what I wrote above and then, after they did the thing, took the thing….whatever we are calling that moment now, they started to read different news feeds? They started to look around and see things and they were thinking…that something didn’t feel right. And that little whisper they had that had told them not to do it got louder. And they started to feel like they might have made a terrible, terrible mistake?

Some of those people started belonging to the second group of non-compliers with the quite knowledge and maybe even the shame of being one of the ones who were not completely “clean,” safe, and dodged-the-bullet. Yet they resonated with the non-compliers. They found their way to alternative news sources.

In a world of so much un-belonging, where do those people belong? How are they doing? How are they feeling? Are they full of shame and regret?

If you are one of those people, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you first, because I could so easily have been one of you and secondly, because I want you to find your way out of whatever you are struggling with around that. I want you to start right now, fresh, renewed, and on track to live this day, and each succeeding day, with no regrets…until you get to your last day. We are all going to get to that last day, regardless of whichever group you are in. We, you, are a soul on a journey. Period. And you, beautiful soul, are going to survive this journey no matter what choices you have made. The only delusion is that this life is all that is real. This life is only an experience and you are experiencing it and you are doing your best. That is enough. No more is asked. You are wiser than you know. You are less broken than you think.

I remember the day my teacher called. I had studied with her for at least three years. She was a chi gong Grandmaster. She called herself a witch. I paid her $300 an hour to teach me and for me, that was a lot. But she had taught me. She had shown me frequency states that I felt in my body, that were powerful and divine. She had taught me to trust myself again. She had taught me three phrases I have written about: “Not my stuff. What can I learn from this situation? If it doesn’t feel good, it isn’t.”

Then there was the day we had our phone call. The Grandmaster’s father had been in the CIA. She was older now. She had quit talking to her father I assume, before the age of 20 and he had since passed away. But her family had a connection to the CIA.

So when the recent stuff was going down, and I could feel something was coming…something big that did not feel good or right to me, the Grandmaster and I had a little talk.

“Terra,” said the Grandmaster. “A friend has called me from the CIA. They told me that you do not want to catch this bug.”

And I, who still had a lot of fear hidden in deep crevices in my system and a lot of personal power and determination in me as well, decided that bug that she alluded to, that bug, was some kind of bioweapon. And that probably frightened me. But I didn’t notice the fear much. I did what some people do when faced with something big. I got proactive and I got determined.

I was earlier than most in how proactive I was.

The Grandmaster stopped seeing clients in person. I did my best to stop being close to people. I went into seclusion big time.

No one could get N95 masks. But I prayed, talked to a guy in a paint store, and ended up with two. Not the white paper kind people run around in now. My masks were real. They had filters on them and made me look ready to go into toxic hell and come out alive.

Someone was doing work on my house and I remember standing outside in the open air wearing my mask and trying to communicate with them. They couldn’t hear my muffled voice. It was stuffy behind all those filters. I took it off and I made sure I was far away from them. I tried to be farther than six feet. The bioweapon was not going to get me.

My refrigerator broke in the midst of this.

I had to have people in my house to deliver a temporary fridge and then a new one. By then, new appliances were becoming hard to find. Supply chains were slowing. Things were getting more weird.

One delivery guy showed up with no mask on. It bothered me.

I sprayed the house and my new fridge with rubbing alcohol (which I had purchased a case of) when they left. It left white spots on my beautiful hardwood floors which I later struggled to remove.

I ordered and picked up my groceries. I wasn’t going into the store where all those bioweapon germs lurked waiting to get me. My friends at the grocery store shopped for me and brought my groceries out to the trunk of my RAV 4, where I sat outside ready for a quick get away. I felt slightly guilty they were swimming in the bioweapons to help me shop and I mostly ignored the guilt. There was nothing I could do about it.

When I got home, I sprayed my bags of groceries with more rubbing alcohol.

And I went to my favorite place to hike almost every day, alone. I would sit on a rock in a big field and tell myself this was going to be like some Zen spiritual practice and I could do it. I was going to get through whatever I felt was happening in the world and I was going to be proactive.

But then the next thing happened and the Grandmaster got the thing. You know. The media-recommended-thing. And my tiny voice, in that moment, started to scream. She told me to get it. I asked her a few questions about different varieties of the thing-we-are-talking-about here.

But at this point, I had an advantage. I had a past with such things. I had a son who it took me five years to realize, had been and was being injured by such things. I had a second son that I had rustled up everything I had to go against what anyone told me or thought. I had never vaccinated him. I asked myself if I could live with myself if he died from one of the terrible diseases vaccines were said to prevent. After my personal life experience with my older son and a lot of research, I decided that I could. I felt the risks were less to not vaccinate than to do so. I became a rebel.

In many ways, at the time, I was still trapped deeply in codependency and a lot of faulty beliefs and behaviors it would take me years to find my way out of. But when it came to what I knew and had experienced around vaccines, my second son mattered more to me than what people told me or thought.

So when the Grandmaster talked to me the second time, I knew it was time to dive back in and educate myself again. It had been a long time since I did all that research. I had given away the books I used to have about such things.

I knew if I was going to go against this human tide, including my current teacher I had unconsciously put on a pedestal once again, and to not do this thing, I needed to be really strong within myself to withstand it.

So I started searching for alternative information and I found my way to the second group, pretty early, in the big scheme of things.

My first son never got the thing. He was right in the alternative media space with me. My younger son, who was “clean” wanted to go to Europe during all the crazyness. He listened to his stepmother and her son. I assume he listened to other things as well and he, sweet young man, ignored what I was sending and took that jab. Despite all my efforts to keep him “clean” he was the one I loved who got it.

All this has been quite a journey.

I am telling you my story, but not to make this about me. This has been quite a journey for you. I know it. You have just as strong if not a stronger story than me. And your story matters.

But I am going to tell you more because I hope, in the end, that these stories help you. I think about you in the back of my mind a lot. And I really do wonder how you are doing? So here is a bit more I will share with you.

I have another moment with my younger son that has troubled me for most of my life. It is slowly losing its grip. A recent mushroom journey helped. But it is still there. I know it because I was telling a couple young women the story again yesterday. They are getting ready to have babies or thinking about it.

Both my birth stories were hard for various reasons. But my younger son was born at home. Again, the older one took some hits that taught me a lot and helped me hold my ground for the younger one.

Nevertheless, after I had complied with my midwife’s suggestion to drink a cup (yes, one cup) of castor oil, I was in the midst of a very fast labor, at home. I found myself in so much pain, I went literally out of my mind. My only thought was a wish for someone, anyone, to cut to pieces whatever was causing me so much pain and get it out of me NOW. I couldn’t think. I wasn’t a mother anymore. I was simply lost in a sea of overwhelming, unimaginable torture and the my only desire was for it to end.

Motherhood is held in such high esteem. Mothers would give up their lives for their children. Mothers love their children. And the start I had with mine, was this wish, this terrible wish, to cut to pieces the thing causing me so much pain and make it all end.

My son was born soon after. They placed his naked body on my sweaty chest and he snuggled into me in peace and bliss. They wrapped him in warm towels to weigh him in a sling.

And I told myself over the years that he must have felt that moment. He must have known my horrible, unimaginable un-motherly selfish thought. He must subconsciously hate me for it, just as I hated myself.

But I don’t think he did or has.

I have talked to him about it. I have apologized. I have done energy work and tried to heal it.

But in the end, that is all simply silly.

A drowning person will reach for anyone to survive and push them under in order to get a breath of air. They will go out of their mind to breathe. It isn’t conscious. It is simply what can happen when one is on the brink.

I was that drowning person.

Before I became pregnant, I could feel the energy of my second son flitting around me asking to be born. I wasn’t so sure I was going to have another. The first one, with a difficult hospital birth, the vaccine issues, the first year of his life spent almost constantly crying… Well, it had been hard. But things were starting to get easier. That is when I felt the spirit of the second one asking...

And I decided to comply. My husband at the time was more than willing.

This time I provided a home birth. I wasn’t budging. There were no vaccines. There was no circumcision. All those things my second son could choose to get in the future if he wanted them. (That is what I told myself and anyone who tried to contradict me).

In my mushroom journey, I was shown that both my sons wanted to be born to me. They wanted to be on this life journey with me and to learn from me.

I was shown that that birth moment was no big deal at all in the grand scheme of things. Even not “in the grand scheme of things,” it was no big deal.

I was shown that I could quit worrying about it.

And the story is still in me, a little painfully.

So what does this have to do with you and the topic I started writing about here?

Well, you may have wishes or regrets about things. You may be struggling with things you did or choices you made or where you are at now. Maybe you even have health issues you attribute to some of those things.

But what if you are not wrong for any of it?

What if you have not made a mistake?

What if all that is offered to you or asked of you is to give yourself some love and do your best for yourself, with what you know now, and move forward with this day with as much self-love and reverence for the gift of you and it, as you can?

What if that is enough to change the world? To change all of this?

What if you, making a decision and then changing your mind about it later, is a tremendously courageous thing?

I imagine a lot of people are too afraid to look at decisions they have made and then pivot and make a change. That takes balls.

Let’s take a moment here to salute your balls. To high-five them. To HONOR them.

Let’s do that, OK?

I have another story I was telling you as I lay in bed this morning and as I type here now, it feels less necessary to go into the details. I feel it is more key to tell you what I learned.

This story is also about physical pain. I had a surgery that I later regretted. A small part of my body was suffering and needed some care. I allowed for some extra “trimming” of this body part. I knew in the midst of the “trimming” that it was not feeling like a good idea so as I lay on the table, with the area numbed, I asked the doctor to stop. He ignored me and I heard the scissors do one final snip of the skin in my nether regions.

That was the beginning of my year of pain.

I could hardly walk at times. There was a moment I truly wished for death. I went to an acupuncturist and had her put needles right where it hurt. I tried anything and everything to get through the day.

Then finally, I decided to try the unthinkable.

I had done everything to solve the problem. I had tried to heal it. But really, I had spent a year doing everything possible, in a desperate effort to simply get rid of it.

Then I had the strangest thought.

I thought, “Terra, you have done all that. I wonder what would happen if you felt it more?”

My mind yelled. “I have been feeling it! I have been feeling it and it is terrible! What are you talking about you stupid thought?”

It was such a strange speculation. But I was desperate. So, the next time I found myself pausing on a hike I was determined to take despite it all…the next time I was literally hunched over in pain on the trail (which I had to do multiple times)…I closed my eyes. And I drifted closer to the sensation of pain so I could feel it more.

It was a tight ball of dark energy and as I moved towards it in my imagination, it got worse (but this was not just happening in my imagination). It got more intense. I could hardly stand it, but I could. And I kept feeling it more.

Then the thing happened.

This thing was pretty sudden. It didn’t take long. That tight little ball suddenly softened and released.

I stood up, amazed.

That was all I had to do? To feel it MORE? To get closer to it with some care and love.

Yep, that was it.

I did it again whenever the pain came back and it kept working. Soon, my year of pain was over.

It had taught me a lot.

On a soul level and on a human level, it had taught me.

And if I look back from a zoomed-out viewpoint, I didn’t make a mistake getting that surgery. And that doctor gave me a gift with that extra last snip of my skin.

Because I learned to get closer to pain and to hold it gently, with care.

I learned that when I do this, things can feel more intense for a short time.

I learned that sometimes, the counter-intuitive thing is the answer.

So all this is to say that if you are in pain in some way, if you are frozen somewhere, or a part of you feels trapped or alone or wrong or bad… Maybe sometimes the answer is not to solve anything, but to get a little closer to it and offer some love and care? To know that it might be really hard, and even physically painful to do that, and to do it anyway, as long as it feels aligned for you and right for you. Only you can know that.

Sometimes we need support with such things.

Sometimes what I am saying here may not be the answer for you

There is no “right” or “wrong”. No black or white or grey. There is a journey and you are on it. You are doing your best no matter what your mind says.

And you are not forgotten by me. I am glad you are here and I wish you well.

Once again I will end with my favorite quote…the last words of Dr. Sean Stephenson, the three foot giant, public speaker, with a Phd, who dealt with feeling like he didn’t fit in. Who dealt with a lot of physical and emotional pain.

Who sat on a little massage table in front of a group of entrepreneurs with some yoga blocks and weights next to him, some pumped-up tunes, and told them and me that there was no excuse for not having a self-care and workout routine. Then he pumped some iron and did some push ups for all of us.

Sean was dang inspiring.

And after his new wheelchair tipped over and he got another concussion that was going to kill him, his last words were “This is happening for me, not to me.”

So what if that is true for all of us and you are not as alone as you think?

What if you didn’t make a mistake? What if it is all going to be ok and you are ok, no matter what?

What if….