Hi guys,
In honor of the great Hashimoto’s Institute Online Summit, where 27 other experts and I share the pathways to healing for Hashimoto’s, I am doing a two-week series.
This is an amazing resource for you — you can sign up here for the FREE summit that goes from September 15-22.
My talk is on the first day of the summit and I share about being empowered during your diagnosis. It was a really valuable and inspiration-packed interview with my friend, Dr. Izabella Wentz.
It’s going to be great!
Onto our lesson….
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It’s September 11th and normally, I write out this whole hairy story of our 9/11 experience but this year, I will use it as the inspiration for my Lesson Series, I’m doing and give you a synopsis at the end.
If you’re new to this series, I’m taking one of my mottos,
“Hashimoto’s is not my master but it is my teacher.”
And expounding on some of the lessons I’ve learned from this diagnosis.
Now, this lesson today is something that was in my heart before the diagnosis but it came to life in the process.
Here’s what it is:
Lesson#3: Anything is Possible and God is Bigger than the ‘Nevers’
(Religious disclaimer: I’m not religious. I have the kind of spirituality that believes in ‘One Love’ and is still able to drop the occasional — or frequent — f-bomb, if the situation warrants…)
I was told a lot of things when I was in that horrible maze of being undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, untreated, mistreated with all the crazy symptoms starting in 1995.
It got to the point where I had gained 100 lbs, my hair had turned Bozo-the-Clown orange and my skin literally bled in little pin-prick type drops when you touched it.
It was intense. So don’t let anyone tell you that this Hashimoto’s thing is about taking a pill and you’re fine. For many people that is not the case.
But, I digress…
So, while I was sitting in one doctor’s office after another, I heard this phrase,
“You’re not going to live and if you do, you’ll never have children.”
There was something inside of me that didn’t believe that.
It was important for me to believe in a bigger possibility than the daunting one that was laid out before me. We move toward our vision — I wasn’t exactly being given a great vision and needed to believe in a greater one to move toward.
My 9/11
The reason that’s significant is because on 9/11 is when my 12 year-old son, Caleb, was conceived.
(Before you think that’s way too much information, you haven’t apparently don’t know me. This is nothing compared to what I share in my book…)
The short story is this:
I had dreams in 2001 I was going to have a baby. It was REALLY ugly in my dreams. I mean, the baby was so ugly, I couldn’t even tell the gender. I didn’t care. I felt DEEP LOVE.
I had the most unbelievable encounters affirming those dreams.
My body was a royal wreck and the doctors still said, “Never.”
I went to a mind/body/spirit connection conference for 2 weeks and did some inner work around the subjects of: self-hatred, unforgiveness, bitterness, fear, etc…
It was a powerful and healing time but I didn’t know how far or deep the effects of it would go…
I was a traveling speaker/musician at the time for conferences, retreats, special events. I was slated to be in Manhattan, diagonal from the Twin Towers for our September conference.
In July of 2001, prior to that, I got switched off of that conference to El Paso instead. Someone with seniority had requested Manhattan. I wasn’t thrilled. Manhattan has a lot more panache than El Paso (sorry, El Paso, you’re great and I love you but it’s true.)
In August of 2001, I was standing in a Portland airport after finishing a conference, and saw the planes landing and turned to Rock and said, “There’s going to be a tragedy in the air in America. It’s going to be horrible.”
I just kept repeating it over and over. It was eerie.
He looked at me. We soberly got on our plane to come home and held hands to say a quick prayer like we normally did at that time. He squeezed my hand hard and asked, “What did you just say?” I didn’t remember. He said, “You just prayed against a spirit of terrorism…” I didn’t even remember saying that. That was weird.
Terrorism wasn’t a common conversation before 9/11, as you remember. That was something that happened in those other countries. Over there. Far away. It was not in my brain or on my conscious radar.
We went to my gyno for my yearly check up on Wednesday, September 5th. My doctor said, “You’re not pregnant and you’re not going to have kids without some kind of medical intervention.”
It had been 13 years of marriage and a lot of health stuff and tons of stress.
She handed me pills, prescriptions and a card for an infertility specialist.
I handed everything to Rock in the parking lot and said, “I’m not standing on my head and turning our bedroom into a science experiment to have a kid.” Some people have that peace to do that, I didn’t.
I said, “We’ll have a baby if we’re supposed to.”
We flew to El Paso, September 9, 2001. I felt so upset inside and didn’t know why.
Monday, September 10th, the conference was a bumpy mess. They normally run SO smoothly. Everyone was off. It was weird.
Middle of the night after the conference I wake up from 2-4 a.m. writhing in emotional, spiritual pain that I cannot explain. I begged to go to sleep and after two hours, finally did.
We woke up at 6 a.m.. Made love and I heard my own private voice inside of me say, “I just got pregnant.”
We didn’t have time to turn on the radio or tv, we had to jump in the shower and leave for day two of the conference. We got in the elevator, went downstairs and were shocked to find a whole crowd of people standing there, watching the huge lobby television set while the second plane fly into the second tower.
As we all know it was a harrowing day.
And it was the day my child was conceived.
It was a day where I lost my family priest from our parish, Father Mychal Judge.
And a day when my first son entered my inner world.
I see 9:11 on the clocks almost every day, when I ‘just happen’ to look up. It reminds me of life and loss. Of grace. Of the idea that anything is possible.
So, take this lesson when someone tells you that ‘You’ll never get better.”
Or
“You’ll never have kids.”
Or
“Hashimoto’s will never be healed.”
All of that is bullshit to me. Anything is possible in Love.
Seek Love.
It’s bigger than the “Nevers”
xo,
Stacey
To get my book: You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone, click here.