My story.
I have lived my entire recollected life taking care of others and seeking approval.
My greatest aspiration, the fire beneath my feet that kept me going, has always been the desire to be “good enough.”
When I was 4 years old, my mother injured her back. I have memories of pulling a chair into the kitchen to cook mac-n-cheese and freezer meals while my baby sister slept in her bouncy seat and our mother rested on the couch. I was such a helpful, precocious little girl.
When I was 7, my baby brother was born and I helped take care of him when our mother lost custody. I remember being told by so many adults, “You are such a mature young lady.” I walked around with a baby on my hip and a snaggle-tooth grin, not even realizing that I was still a baby myself.
By the age of 8, I had lived in several foster homes, amongst relatives periodically, and ultimately ended up in a “shelter home,” where a dozen children lived together because we had nowhere else to go. House mothers lived with us in shifts, to make sure that we were properly taken care of. We were warm, clothed, and fed; we were also largely forgotten. We would roam the streets until curfew, often finding ourselves in situations that I shudder to think of now, knowing that we were unprotected and forming views of the world by our unsupervised experiences.
“At the age of 9, I went to live with my father, along with my brother who was then 2 years old. For the first time, I was shockingly introduced to a form of punishment that was physical and harsh. I had been spirited away from my previous world of forced independence and fending for myself, while not truly having any control of my surroundings, to a new reality of criticisms and unfamiliar expectations. A similar state of having no control of my life, but this time accompanied by a constant supply of demoralization, which I learned could be even more harmful than the absence of praise and encouragement. ”
As a teenager I was called many things: moody. distant. angry. rebellious. withdrawn. impulsive.
I hurt myself on purpose. I tried to lash out at others but it only looked like self destruction at the time.
At the root of it all, though, I was still a “good girl.” I was innocent and naive, with a 4.0 GPA and the world at my feet academically.
When I was 16, I was molested by my dad’s best friend.
He shattered my innocence, and when I finally told my story, it became something that I had done. I had slept with an older man.
It brings me to tears, to imagine my baby girl going through this and feeling the way I did.
I can’t help but wonder if my years of painful cycles, my history of heavy bleeding and vicious PMS might be related to this trauma.
But to me, at the time, it was just one more drop in the bucket of life.
All of these experiences I wore as a badge of honor for many years. Adults would tell me, “You have been through more tragedy in your years than most adults see in their entire life. You are so smart, you can go to college and be anything you want.” And this became who I was.
I was strong. I was resilient. I was nurturing — I protected my siblings fiercely and I took great pride in taking care of them.
I was also an overachiever, and my greatest accomplishment was my intelligence. School was my safe place.
I got my GED at age 17, moved out and immediately enrolled in college. I took several semesters of science based courses: Anatomy and Physiology, Medical Terminology, and pretty much any form of Biology available. I took a particular passionate interest in the Fundamentals of Nutrition and Medical Nutrition Therapy.
I dabbled in Psychology, in Sociology, Human Growth and Development, Early Childhood Education.
I excelled in English Composition, in Creative Writing, in Oral Communication.
I became a Physician’s Assistant. I sought certification as a Registered Dietician. For 7 years I threw my heart and soul into my studies.
Anything I could do to help others, to understand people, to know what makes us tick and to reach into those far corners of humanity to find some kind of connection with someone. To find something within myself to offer, that would feel like it had meaning or value. Like I had meaning or value.
Throughout the course of this journey, I also found other avenues of seeking self worth:
I jumped from relationship to relationship, a serial monogamist, enveloping myself into my partner’s personality, as if knowing each other deeply would allow us to become one. Two parts of a whole, each of us with pieces missing, and me mistakenly believing that this was the perfect roadmap to true love: molding myself to fit into others’ missing parts so that I would feel whole myself.
I wrote blog after blog, chronicling my journeys from Alabama to Arizona to Mexico and back, detailing my descent into an eating disorder that left me absolutely skeletal, six feet tall and 118 pounds. I found a community of girls who also suffered from this absolute monstrosity of an illness. We loved each other and we supported each others’ need for control, for perfectionism, for self deprecation.
I suddenly and unexpectedly became a mother at age 20, and again at age 21, and I realized that giving birth filled a longing within my soul— labor and delivery, to this day, are something that I would do every day of my life, if I were able. I became a surrogate mother to twins, then again to a baby boy. I had another child of my own at age 25, and another at age 29. Between the ages of 20 and 30, I gave birth to 7 children and I gave my body willingly to this process: my uterus, my abdominal wall, my breast tissue, the veins in my legs, my mental health and hormone levels, all of my body systems wrecked and neglected in double time, instead of lovingly revered for this awesome gift of life.
“I fell into the arms of narcissism time and again, pouring myself into the care and love of anyone but myself, willing myself to be exactly who and what I was needed to be. Believing that I was “too much” for wanting to have love and attention, help inside the home, respect and honesty in my life. Feeling my blood boil with anger every time I was forced to swallow my emotions and accept something that I came to believe was normal. A storybook love. The picture perfect couple. Violence that “didn’t count because he didn’t actually hit me.”
I went to couples counseling, where I was told that I needed to listen to my husband’s needs more and criticize less. I went to church, where I was told that I needed to serve my husband as I serve God. Be a submissive wife and give God my burdens so that I could keep loving my husband, even in the hard times.
I went to the gym, where I learned that I could lift heavy weights and load my body with more protein, more protein, more protein, until my squats were as low as my expectations and my abs were as rock hard as my heart.
I got a boob job and highlighted my hair, so that I would look exactly like all of the other girls who I competed with so fiercely for my husband’s attention.
I started my own sales business and lived my life in the public eye for 6 years, fawning on live video and prancing about as if my lifestyle were exactly what others should want in their lives, if they wanted to be successful and happy. I drowned in mountains of debt, trying to buy my way into feeling satisfied with life.
I was so lost.
I look back on that person now, and my heart aches. My spirit cries out for her, and for all of the people she affected in her pain and wounding. I have always carried myself like I know what I’m doing, like I know exactly what path I am following, like I have any idea at all what it means to thrive in this life. Unceasingly pouring love into others, offering words of encouragement and pleading for others to see the good in themselves and just keep loving, because there is a light in every tunnel.
The sad truth is that none of that love that I poured out, ever circled back around to me. And it was all an empty charade.
See, the downside of all of my resilience as a child was the sacrifice of my connection to self. I stifled my emotions, I ignored my instincts, I lost my innate ability to express my needs, because I didn’t even know what they were. I was never allowed to have them. I focused all of my energy onto everyone around me— taking care of others, making sure that nobody felt like they weren’t loved, smoothing over the emotions of others so that nothing could be my fault. If everything went perfectly well, then there was nothing to feel guilty about. If I always over performed then I never had the chance to let anyone down. Maybe if I accomplish enough, my mom will want me and my dad will be proud of me. Maybe if I just try harder to love my husband then he might magically realize that my feelings matter to him and he will take care of me and protect me like he’s supposed to do… right?
These are the musings, the pleadings, of a small child who is seeking desperately to be loved.
And this is the place where all of our inner children reside, stuck in their feelings of loneliness and unworthiness, occasionally rearing their heads in times of distress in our adult lives.
Sometimes, it’s not occasional. Sometimes, we live in this state of unlovingness longterm, until we feel devoid of joy and stuck in a never-ending cycle of work, chores, lament, sleep, repeat, until our lives feel decidedly meaningless and we see no way out.
As an adult, I find this feeling similar to the ones I felt as a child which I dissociated from because they felt too lonely for my wide-open heart to contain. I am working on connecting with my inner children more and more, to access these feelings more deeply so I can sit with them and release them naturally. For now, I welcome the glimpses into the soul of that little girl who wanted so badly to be helpful and brave.
I have learned that these glimpses come in the difficult moments:
When I keep myself busy with house cleaning or rearranging furniture or planning the next big event in my life, I am actually often running from the fears of that little girl, fears that she is not doing enough to be useful or that she might feel pain if she stops moving long enough to be present in her body.
When I find myself overcome with the feeling that I am not doing enough as a mother, that I need to multiply myself in order to show each of my children the attention they deserve, when I cry on the kitchen floor because I don’t understand how I am supposed to accomplish everything in a single day and still find the patience to be loving when I am overstimulated and emotionally maxed out, that little girl is crying out inside of me for the love and attention of a mother. I never received it, so it feels overwhelming at times for me to keep giving it.
When I give every ounce of energy I have to being a good wife, when I anticipate every need my partner might have and meet it before they even have a chance to recognize it, when I feel unloved because I’m not the most important thing in their life and I feel resentful for their attention to their phone or the TV rather than to me, I am failing that little girl because I’m teaching her that she needs someone else to be happy. That her existence alone is not enough for me to feel emboldened and meaningful. That she is not worthy of my attention, but everyone else is. That someone is coming to save her, when in reality that someone needs to be ME.
I began to see a way out of my pain in 2015, when I first left my husband. I left him several times and always took him back, as is common in a cycle of narcissistic abuse. It was excruciating for me, to be alone and feeling like I had failed my marriage. My children were young and unfortunately I had no idea how to find comfort in my time with them. I had grown up knowing that I should be seen and not heard. I had not yet learned how magnificent children are, when we truly pay attention.
When I finally separated from my husband permanently, I realized the damage I had done to my children by going back and forth with him, fighting over the years. Giving my attention to him instead of to them. My eyes slowly began to open and my confidence grew as a mother.
My identity was no longer rooted in being a wife, but rather in being a mom and a business owner.
Still not quite accurate, but progress is something to celebrate.
My behavior as a wife left much for me to sit with, as well — the worst of us can often come out in uncertain times, there to teach us a lesson if we can open our eyes and see the truth of what we are doing.
I actually got married again, and in my eyes this was the most picture perfect relationship. I felt as if I would never be able to match the level of love I felt for this person. My life began to look quite different from before, with happiness and fun being at the core, rather than anger and resentment. What I failed to see was that drinking alcohol every Saturday and living my life for the weekends was not actual happiness.
It’s easy to see life as fun when you are numbed to the emotions and focusing on the next distraction to get by.
In 2020, after several miscarriages, a uterine fibroid and ovarian torsion, six months of hardcore pain prescriptions and a fear looming over my entire pregnancy, I gave birth to a baby boy who was immediately rushed to the NICU for surgery. He was diagnosed with Hirschsprung’s Disease, a neural tube defect in which the nerve endings of the colon never form properly and the body is unable to expel waste. Without surgery, the condition is fatal. My baby boy was at risk of wearing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life, and never being able to use the bathroom on his own.
This was devastating to me. Much of 2020 was a blur. He was also malnourished and we battled the threat of “failure to thrive,” a diagnosis which also equates to “failure as a mother” for many people, as we feel our one job, to keep our babies alive and healthy, has been stolen from us. This was also in the midst of Covid, where anyone in a hospital setting was effectively isolated from any support system and completely dehumanized in the process. I felt like a shell of a human at this time.
This was a turning point for me. I could no longer wallow in the shame and fear that had gotten me here, if I was going to be strong for my baby.
I decided to lose the 50 or so pounds that I had carried with me from a few pregnancies back. I started exercising again, in ways that were gentle on my body but also left me feeling like I had accomplished something. A healthy balance of exertion and grace, rather than the full blown shredding and bulking of my earlier years. I made the decision to supplement my baby’s diet with formula, something that I had fought against for months but ultimately decided would be necessary if I wanted to be present for him and have my mental health remain intact. I actually shaved my head at this time and began to shed the skin of this person I had slowly become, determined to unearth who was actually hiding underneath.
I found my teacher, Liana Shanti, sometime in early 2021. It was a random happenstance, a fluke on instagram, and I honestly cannot fathom where I would be right now if that hadn’t happened.
I purchased her core wounding course, Healing From Narcissistic Relationships. I listened to the sessions while I worked in the evenings, and within one month I felt like an entirely different human. Boundaries became a concept that made sense to me. I was able to see where I had failed to define my own boundaries, with my relationships, with my children, with my extended family. I became aware of the fact that I have needs. This was shocking to me: what were my needs as a child? How does it affect me now, not having those needs met in a healthy way? What are my needs now? I slowly awakened to the idea that I am in control of my own life.
What happened to me was very sad, and at times it seemed like more than any child should have to go through. But it does not actually define who I am, and it does not have to keep me shackled to the idea that I’m a helpless victim who needs to be pitied and taken care of. What happened to me, all of my experiences, brought me to this exact place where I can now learn and grow and uncover who I am.
If I hadn’t made that mac-n-cheese when I was 3, I might not have formed that foundation of resilience that propelled me forward into survival and self-defense. I might not have formed that shell around myself that allowed me to nurture a baby at 7 years old and protect him from the outside world. My baby brother might have been more neglected, reminding me that I never know what role I am also playing in someone else’s story. That propensity to protect might have kept me safe in the environment of the group home, where children left roaming at night would often get into precarious situations, and I was able to remain detached rather than succumb to peer pressure to try dangerous new things.. Surviving all of those things and coming to live with my abusive father might have been necessary, to form that seed of self doubt which kept me searching for myself in all the wrong people, leading me finally to my narcissistic husband, who thankfully helped me create my children. The beings who have shown me what it actually looks like to unconditionally love.
Without my children, I might not have had the courage to leave him once and for all, I might have continued to drink more and more alcohol until it progressed into drugs, until I ended up addicted.. or dead..
If I hadn’t met my second husband, I wouldn’t have given birth to my youngest child in the time of Covid and chaotic hospital stays — an eye opening experience which led me to face my recurring postpartum depression from a holistic viewpoint, rather than instantly turning to antidepressants and mood stabilizers, which only made my dependencies worse.
If I hadn’t thrown myself into books and learning to escape the realities of my childhood, I might not have found my passion for science and the human body and emotions and nutrition, and I might not have found myself here, pouring out my story for you, a reader who might possibly be in the same position of questioning,
“What am I actually doing? Why am I here? Why do I feel so helpless? Why does my life look like this? What can I do to change it?”
I might never have found Health Mastery Institute, and I might never have been able to connect the dots of my *LONG* yet admittedly fascinating story, to get me to a place where I can admit without shame, that I still have no idea what I’m doing half the time. I still seek love. I still seek validation. I am not 100% healed and I don’t think I ever will be, or else why would I be in this human body where I am blessed to be able to make mistakes and learn from them? I am not better than anyone, nor do I deserve to heal any more or any less than the people I may come in contact with, because we were placed on each other’s path to learn together.
I know that my passion for writing, my desire to communicate with others, my relationship with words, has been holding my hand every step of the way, waiting for the right moment to reach out and touch someone. My interest in nutrition has allowed me to get in touch with my own body, to clear away so many of the toxins that have kept me from feeling present in the moment. So much of my past has been stored in my body as pain. So many medications over the years have blocked my natural processes and left me numb, zombified.
I know that my own path of spiritual healing led me full circle back to my passion for nutrition with a distinct purpose:
To reach back and help others climb their way out, too.
We are NOT our stories. And we are not fated to be trapped in this sense of helplessness or dismay.
We are worthy of being looked at from a new perspective, illuminated by a new light that comes from within. We can be stripped down, scrutinized, and put back together again, a process we undertake ourselves, lovingly, to meet the person who we know we are capable of re-becoming.
We are strong enough to do this. It is our birthright and our absolute privilege to do this.
And we are not alone.
It is my honor to be here, to support you every step of the way, in writing your own story, analyzing it, FEELING it, integrating it, and rewriting your future into your most blessed and abundant reality, as you also help me rewrite mine.
Mind, body, and spirit. Integrative Holistic Wellness. You are already whole. You CAN reclaim your power. And so can I.
So much love and aloha,
Ashana. <3