Healing Us - Volume 1
HEALING US - 2/2/23
I plan to use this Healing Us monthly to share personally from my heart, unpack important mental health topics, and announce upcoming events.
In addition to my private practice and studio rituals, I am pleased to announce that I have begun expanding my restorative rituals within corporate business environments. This is in alignment with my goal to offer my unique approach of mind body connection to a wider demographic and support company cultures with their mental health initiatives.
2022 was by far the most transformational year of my life. I began the year heavy in grief as it was the first new year to follow my sister Heather’s death and spent hundreds of hours supporting my own mental health while facilitating the growth and care of others. February 22 (2/22/22) brought about a tremendous shift in my life. On that day, what felt like a breakdown I can now gratefully view as a profound breakthrough. My body quite literally shocked me into new action.
With the support of my family and closest friends, I developed my own intensive outpatient mental health program to effectively address my acute grief, anxiety, and depression. I paused accepting new clients within my private practice, removed my IUD, began daily therapy, implemented psychiatry, had weekly acupuncture, enrolled in a 10-week functional neurology program, explored a ketamine treatment, and amplified my yogic practices. February, March, April, and May were some of the darkest times of my life. However, as I prioritized my own emotional processing, I also stepped into an entirely new version of myself.
In September, I began my 30th year surrounded by my core people in Massachusetts, at my childhood home. I finally felt the impact of the commitment I made to my own internal well-being. For the first time since my sister passed, I felt genuine happiness.
I feel grateful to have the opportunity and courage to take ownership and walk the walk of my own mental health struggle. My mental health is the most significant resource I have for the career path I have chosen, and I have never approached this profession blindly. What I most gained from 2022 is an appreciation for the complexities of our emotional and somatic experience that is uniquely gifted to us as humans; Liberation is possible for us when we give ourselves permission to feel fully.
2023 began intentionally slow. As I write this, I am surrounded by my mother and brother-in law in St. John USVI to spread my sister’s ashes and celebrate what would have been her 34th birthday…it feels like a blessing to be sitting in the soft sand among the pristine aqua ocean where my sister felt most alive.
I am looking forward to embracing this year with a sense of freedom, curiosity, and to trust the divine timing of my life. If you’re still reading this message, I hope you find yourself in a hopeful place. Please know I am always here to support and share my heart with you in any way I can.
With love + gratitude, Hilary