The Moments That Make Us Stronger
Photo by Kalen Emsley
Many moments have brought me here. Some bright and shiny, others dark and lonely. But each one has been immensely important, only because it has brought me here. To this moment, which will carry me to the next.
I would like to share with you some of my darkness. To get to where I am now, I had to fight for it. I have been kicked down time and time again. Nothing is easy, or maybe I’m just stubborn. I refused to give up, and I am beyond grateful for those who have helped me get here.
Five years ago I started the Massage Therapy program in Victoria, bright eyed and bushy tailed… completely unaware of the tornado that I was walking into and would become my life for the next 3 years. I was not ready for the emotional stress it put me through. But I grew and took it day by day. One test at a time.
Once I had graduated in 2015, I did NOT feel ready for my board exams. I wrote them anyway, determined to pass and to move forward with my life. I had a plan: start working, pay off the loan, have an amazingly bright future as an RMT and help heal everyone!
Didn’t happen.
After the first round of exams, I had a nervous energy boiling away inside of me. First thought, I need to get to the gym. While my friends were celebrating, eating chocolate cake and taking shots, I was putting reps in at the squat rack trying not to have a nervous breakdown. My thoughts began to take over, telling me “You failed!” and the energy turned into a black hole.
Weeks later my letter came. And my world shattered.
I failed. That stupid inner voice was right.
The only thing that got me through that evening was a bottle of coconut tequila and a stern talking to from a friend. If I heard anything through the tequila and the tears, it was that I am going to have to work hard for the things I want. And what we want most in our lives are not just going to fall into our laps. It was hard to hear, almost impossible. In my mind, I was sitting in a dark room, alone, stripped naked of all my courage and everything that made me who I was. I was falling into the black hole, an endless abyss.
I refused to believe this was it. My nervous system was fried, I was exhausted and frustrated but determined to pass!
With the help of a Self-Regulation Therapist, some dietary changes, and an organized schedule of studying, breaks and exercise (all while working 40 hours a week). This time, I passed.
I am now working at a clinic where I get to live my dream. I get to help people heal and continue to learn about the human body and the nervous system that controls everything we are and do. Things may not have gone the way I was expecting, but I made it here.
That moment in my life made me stronger, I don’t think there is a measurement that can be taken, but I am stronger now than I was then. Experience I guess. Heartbreak is needed to understand heartbreak. And time in the abyss in needed to understand how to crawl out of it.
Moments, they make us who we are. I appreciate the moments that have challenged me.
By no means is my adventure done, it's only just beginning. I only hope that now, I have some skills to get me out of the abyss when it consumes me again.
"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
Helen Keller