My Personal Transformation
Hi, welcome to The Women’s Empowered Health Blog Episode 1!
I am really excited to start this new phase of my journey with you!
I was going round and round about what my blog should be about and how I could be of service and share my message with the world.
I came up with this idea…..Start at the beginning….😂.
Once upon a time….ok, not what I was thinking.
How about I save the first 25 years of my life for my About Page and start with the few years that led up to my transformation.
I am Rose, hear me roar…Rarrr! I am a spiritual being having a human experience (remember that for later 😉).
I am on a Hero’s Journey. Actually, well into the 2 digit and counting number of said journey’s. If you know, you know, if not, you’ll hear about The Hero’s Journey another time…put a pin in it.
I arrived where I am in life, on my path for a reason beyond my control. By going with the flow of life, driving with my wrist. (You’ll hear about this in a later blog post.)
Years ago I had no idea what my path was.
Honestly, I didn’t even know who I was. I knew my name, my gender, my birthdate, and what I was ‘being’. I was being whatever my job described me as. What I didn’t know was who my authentic self was.
I always identified myself by what I did for a living. I think a lot of people do.
I’m a motorcycle mechanic,
I’m a Yoga teacher,
I’m a farmer,
I’m a cook…
I think you get the jist.
All of those examples above, I have ‘been’. For nearly 17 years I had a passion to keep people safe on their motorcycles. But, I inherently knew that there was more to life than turning wrenches in a world where it felt like everyone with a Harley had a neighbor with the last name Jones and needed a bigger, better, louder, faster bike than their neighbor.
Not to mention, I was gorging on the attention and respect I would get by being one of, if not the ONLY, female technician at any shop I worked at and the only female instructor that worked for the Harley Davidson University program.
I turned a lot of heads with my 5 foot, 115 lb stature, test riding the largest of Harley’s models down the street.
This feeling of being somebody important gave me a sense of purpose and meaning when I needed it most. I was compensating for something I was lacking but had no idea what it was at the time.
As years passed, I gained more life experience. I started to learn that there was more to life than this.
I knew that I was meant to serve others, but I felt it was meant to be from my heart, from my spirit.
Once the excitement of being a rare commodity in the biker community wore off, I would spend hours behind the wrench going through the motions and daydreaming of a life less greasy.
Years prior I had acquired a Wiccan book. Let me rephrase that… it was a borrowed book from 15 years earlier that I forgot to give back, sorry Jennifer 😬!….oooo the karma from that has cost me sooo many books…hahahah….but I continue to loan out books to those I feel could benefit from them 🤷🏻♀️.
This book was my gateway to finding ✨spirituality (which I had long forgotten after running away…literally, from my religious upbringing).
Ooooo…witchy! Not really…I considered myself a student of paganism…living as one with the Earth and all things natural.
In this book, I came across a quote that pried my mind open, “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” Which basically means live your life by your rules. Do it with love in your heart. Don’t harm anyone or anything in the process.
This is what I would daydream about. Life by MY rules? What are MY rules??? You mean I can do whatever I want? I don’t HAVE to be a motorcycle mechanic forever? Oooo…what do I want to do? What do I want to BE? There’s that word again…
I thought I had to BE a description of something. I still didn’t know that I could just be my own authentic self. That word wasn’t even a part of my vocabulary! I thought ‘authentic’ was some ‘one off’, tangible item that was made by someone’s hands…”It’s an authentic Persian rug from blahdie blah blah era”…
Back to MY rules and daydreaming….I know what you’re thinking…”great, she’s daydreaming while working on a motorcycle with only two wheels that a person is going to be riding 😱.” It’s not like that! I had it down to a science…the tasks that I could allow daydreaming and those that needed my full attention were clearly written in MY rule book. (I don’t have an actual book).
Let’s just say, when you’re doing the same thing over and over again day in, day out, year in, and year out, you just know when you can let your mind wander.
After about 4 years of daydreaming, I tried to leave the industry…’tried’. But I still didn’t find my authentic self. Maybe because I was unemployed, selling my paintings, handmade jewelry, used motorcycle tire purses (basically anything I could make with my hands) at a bar while drinking my problems away.
I went back to what I knew best…for 2 more years.
During these 2 years, I started to dabble in herbal medicine and go deeper into a previous hobby of gardening. In conversation with a friend, she mentioned the word SWIHA (its actually an acronym for Southwest Institute of Healing Arts). I went to the campus to checked it out.
I enrolled back into school at the age of 42!
This is when my life started to change little by little. Baby steps.
I started in the Western Herbalism/Holistic Nutrition Associates degree program with the 200 hour Holistic Nutrition course. However, this school teaches all things WOO, so I had to take classes in other modalities. Chinese Medicine, Polarity, Cranial Sacral, Hypnotherapy, etc.
I was overwhelmed with the options and dropped Western Herbalism and switched over to the Transformational Psychology AOS program, which had mandatory classes of its own.
Whatever the reason was that the Universe sent me in this direction, I had no idea at the time. I was just along for the 2 year, $20,000 ride.
All I knew was that I was birthing a passion for learning new things. Subjects that I had never thought about learning, but had a growing interest in.
Life Coaching, Psychology of Addiction, Alternative Psychology, Public Speaking, Creative Writing, Life Coaching, etc.
I also attended the Urban Farming Program and thought I wanted to farm for a living, got a job working on a small urban farm at a persons house in the megalopolis known as Phoenix AZ.
Whew…that is some hard physical work, and after 17 years of hard physical work in the motorcycle industry, I was not wanting to put my aging body through THAT anymore.
That’s when I found the Yoga Teacher Training Program!…What!? You mean I don’t have to move to India and train for years under a grip of gurus to be a yoga teacher!? Sign me up!
Now we’re talkin’! I could be a Yoga teacher and get paid to care for my body! Ugh! There’s that word again…”BE”.
Why hadn’t I learned yet, that I don’t have to BE a description of a profession to matter to anyone else, or more importantly…myself?
WHO is Rose?…Who is beneath this human carriage named Rose?
Well, it took me 4 years at SWIHA, which consisted of…800 hours of Yoga training, 200 hours of Holistic Nutrition, 200 hours of Urban farming, 120 hours of Life Coaching and countless hours of Transformational Psycology to discover that I am a spiritual being having a human experience.
I have tried, my entire life, to be perfect, to do perfect work, to say the perfect thing, to strive for overall perfection in life. I had no idea how exhausting that was until I learned how to stop “thinking & doing” and start feeling & being”.
Not ‘being’ as in the description of my profession, but rather the kind of being as in “existence”. Existing not only on the physical vibration level but on the ‘Etheral’ vibration level….
EVERYTHING….literally everything is vibration…different frequencies of vibration.
From a smooth textured river rock tumbling along in a flooded stream, to the sand beaten shard of blue beach glass tumbling around in the gentle waves….vibration.
From the thick, red bark on the trunk of a California Sequoia, to pointy green needles at the top, reaching 300 feet closer to the Sun than I....vibration
From the cerebral spinal fluid flowing along the Sushumna (energy center along the spine which houses the Chakra energy centers), to past traumatic experiences and their accompanying emotions stored in tense muscle tissue all throughout the body and Aura…vibration.
Even our thoughts and emotions are vibrations! From 1-1000 with the lower frequencies being that of shame coming in at 20Hz, fear (what most people with anxiety live in) at 100Hz and anger at 150Hz. Imagine living in Peace at 600Hz, or enlightenment at 700-1000Hz! WOW!
That’s where I want to exist..in PEACE! So that’s where I set out to get to. After living for more than 2 years in a state of addiction to drugs and alcohol, I made a commitment to myself to quit living in that toxic vibration. (😬I wonder what THAT frequency was!) Now, 23 months of sobriety later, I’ve really been enjoying my existence in Love & Peace (7/8 of the time. I still have human experiences and need to breathe through them.)
It wasn’t until I enrolled BACK into school at the age of 49 to become certified in Cannabis Coaching (WHAT?! That’s a thing?!!), that I discovered how Cannabis paired with these other modalities really helped me become and sustain sobriety.
I still try not to say that I Am (insert job description here). But It slips out when someone asks me what I do for a living…Darn human experience 😉.
Every day is a practice. I can try, each day, to be a better person than I was yesterday. I can try to be more mindful of my thoughts, words and actions each day. I can, no matter how hard it is, slow down in life long enough to go within and ask my Higher Self for guidance and patience with myself and others (it really works).
I am learning how to make this human experience brighter, happier, healthier and with more freedom. Freedom from mental anguish, freedom from fear, freedom from suffering (mostly anyway), freedom from addiction to stimulants and alcohol.
I am blessed to experience bliss around 7/8 of the time because of what I have learned and what I practice on a regular basis.
I Have successfully been BRIDGING MY GAP FROM BLUES TO BLISS! I persevere through the sometimes challenging practice of consistent self-awareness, with a metric ton of gratitude sprinkled in to sustain this state of existence.
There are many practices that I have. Many tools in my proverbial tool box (not the same toolbox I used to use).
So back to the question…what is my blog gonna be about?
In this blog…Women’s Empowered Health Blog, I will be writing about my tools, my experiences with these tools. And about my Hero’s Journey. I will probably go off on tangents or get squirreled by an experience in the moment, that I just need to share.
I will try to keep your interest peaked and bring you the most up-to-date information on cannabis and other healing modalities that have helped me sustain sobriety, lessen my menopause symptoms, and maintain my overall happiness without the rollercoaster of emotions (balance in body, mind and spirit) for 23 months to this day!
Here’s your forewarning that it’ll be what it is at any given moment. If you would like to come along for the ride, your ticket is free my friend! Or as my email addy reads “RosesRfree”!
Many blessings to you and all the good things coming!
Thank you for being here, I appreciate and love you!
In much Gratitude,
~Rose🌹