How a radical personal transformation led me to start a clothing brand - part 1 of 3
Everyone keeps telling me that my story is my best asset. So here goes. In October of 2022, I was supposed to have a gallery opening in a ChaShaMa space at 266 West 37th Street in NYC, for my headpieces. But it wasn't coming together at all. It didn't feel right. My husband at the time suggested I simply postpone it; I'd been working on it for a year and the idea that I could simply say "not now, later" felt outrageous, but in the end it was no big deal. Phew!
My life opened up suddenly, and I thought...well...perhaps it's time I do some personal growth work. It had been a minute.
My daughter was 4 & 1/2 and despite our gorgeous connection, I'd felt stuck in so many ways for several years. I was having strange health issues - mild migraines, recurring styes in my eyes, constant colds, and about 15 lbs extra weight that just wouldn't budge since becoming a mom. I felt emotionally shut down, too. I kept making wearable art but it felt mechanical.
There was a week long retreat/workshop thing that a bunch of my friends had all done, to rave reviews. Even my husband had done it, a few months before, and it seemed to have a positive impact on our relationship. I was curious. I realized this retreat was being offered at the same time my just-cancelled show was supposed to open, and when I was able to postpone my show, I registered for the retreat.
The morning of my flight, I was crying. I felt like something was really going to shift and I didn't know what was on the other side, I just knew that I was losing my vitality and sliding into a dulled version of myself that I didn't recognize. Hey, at least I won't have to cook or clean for myself for a week, I figured. I got on a plane by myself for the first time in almost 10 years and flew to northern CA to spend a week in the woods working on myself.
It was a marathon of somatic trauma-clearing exercises and more. I danced, I journaled and meditated, I cleared what felt like a few lifetimes of trauma, from my childhood, from my mom, her mom. On the 3rd day I felt like a different person. But then I kept feeling like a different person again and again, as the second half of the week continued. So many repressed feelings came up. So much psychic weight was lifted off me. I can't explain it.
On the 4th night I was sitting on my own, away from the group of 60 participants, with a candle, just kind of praying. I've always felt a connection to something greater, I call it Goddess but we all have different names for it. I said, please, I want to be the greatest version of myself I can be in this lifetime. Please guide me, I don't know how to get there. I'll give you everything, I'll put it all on the fire, anything and everything that needs to change - you can have it, take it, just leave me my daughter. "Don't worry, you can keep your daughter" I felt something say back, and I had the sense that I'd been heard. The message was, "of course, I'd never take your daughter. And...buckle up." The week culminated in more intense exercises. I spent a few days at Harbin Hot Springs, decompressing with new friends from the retreat, and then I had to go home, in shock.
The changes were radical. I'd cleared so many blocked emotions out of my body and nervous system. The migraines and styes vanished, the extra weight melted off in 2 weeks and I returned to my pre-pregnancy body. If you ever doubt the mind-body connection, doubt no more.
I felt like a 3.0 version of myself. But it created an earthquake in my life that eventually ended my marriage 9 months later. I never intended for that heartbreaking thing to happen, but it was clear to me that I needed to be free and start over in order to grow the way life wanted me to. I felt that there was a better partnership out there for me somewhere, but most importantly, even if I never found it, I wanted to be married to myself. That's it in a nutshell. I peeled the band-aid off slowly, trying to cause as little pain and disruption to my daughter and her father as possible. I held to a hope of us being friends and allies in the future. Prayed a lot. Cried a lot. Didn't sleep much for a long while.
That was the first half of 2023. I spent that summer in Oregon, going through the first months of my separation, lying on the floor alone in my mom's house, or making art, preparing for my solo gallery show which was now happening in October 2023. It was an excruciating time that took a lot of faith to get through. I made as many new headpieces as possible, tried to sleep, started marketing myself for the first time in my life. I went on some first dates but mostly just made art, cried on the floor and talked to god in the ceiling.
Then it was September and time to go back to NYC, start my daughter in kindergarten, and present my art and my new self in the garment district.