I try not to say, “I’ve cured my manic depression;” it would be better to say, “I’ve cured my need for medication.”

In all honesty, I wasn’t even medicated for long because the meds were so terrible – and, since we’re being real here, I’ll add that I was self-medicating with a merry cocktail of fuckery for a couple years there. (Read: late teens to twenties.)

Learning to live unmedicated with this thing has been a journey. I still can’t fully decide how “real” I think the disorder is, which is partially what keeps me from discussing it. How un-PC of me to be in the “mental illness is in your head” camp, right? But that’s not what I mean at all. If I had to summarize it in a sentence like the former, I might say, “mental illness is in the spirit.”

As someone who believes, studies, teaches, and practices energy medicine, I can say with utmost sincerity that all dis-ease and dis-order stems from a spiritual/energetic cause. So to further complicate things, I’ll say that mental illness, defined as a treatable but lifelong chemical imbalance in the brain, is a bit of an oversimplification. Is it accurate? Sure, according to the framework in which it exists as a diagnosis. I’m no doctor; who am I to argue with clinical definitions?

I’d add, though, that if we look more deeply into this from a spiritual anatomy perspective, we might start to correlate the mental chamber and its chemical makeup with intuition and spirituality; perhaps even with self-expression or creativity. Can that shit get out of balance? Hell yeah. Our whole society is basically built to squelch those top chakras.

Then let’s add some medication to the mix. Some blockers, for starters, because all those discontented thoughts need to shush. And a stimulant too because we need people to DO. When we shush and stimulate, though, we further discombobulate the connection to self and spirit. So the meds have to be adjusted frequently, monitored closely, and taken religiously.

When I was diagnosed and medicated, and yes I’ll freely admit that I didn’t stick it out, find the right doc, find the right meds, listen to instructions, or any of the things someone who “truly wanted to get better would do,” I immediately became something other than myself. Something inhuman. A beast thirsty for my own destruction.

Those symptoms are a lot like what I experience(d) with the “disorder,” too. It’s a tricky thing to identify the difference between chemical reactions/side effects/intended effects and symptoms/emotions/feelings. Please don’t read this and just stop taking your meds. That’s not what this is. My journey has been long, well-documented, massively researched, and an entirely personal experiment.

I’ve learned to identify my trail markers. I don’t like “triggers,” because it’s not so much an explosion of gunfire as it is a change of direction.

Mania typically starts with an itch. I need to make a drastic change, do something big, go out and get crazy, or create something new. Like two weeks ago when I decided to build a website and launch a new brand – right in the middle of my already-busiest season AND the Arts Festival I manage AND a major personal transition – I spent hours in total focused creation until it was done. Building a website shouldn’t take a week, by the way. That’s kind of a lot of work even if it’s your one and only full-time job. That’s mania. Part of it, anyway.

Mania for me also includes riling up my inner party girl. Years ago, it meant benders and promiscuity (yikes!). Now, it means drinking a couple glasses of wine each night and maybe smoking some pot while I’m at it; but I’m still a mom and business owner and allllllll the other things so I still have to get up at dawn and take care of my shit. These benders are more like . . . my average child-free friends’ Thursday nights? Though I do have those crazy party-girl thoughts, which is how I know it is a manic stage instead of “just cabin fever.” And sometimes I indulge, a bit, because I’m human (FFS) and young and free. Plus a mom’s gotta sleep – thanks, wine. And eat – eating is the farthest thing from my manic mind. So, thanks, tetrahydrocannabinol.

Mania almost sounds like fun, right? I mean, I get to create something amazing, be hyper-focused, have some extra fun . . . but that’s only part of the picture. I can’t ground; my intuition goes crazy but I have major difficultly translating insights into meaningful actions. Meditation is nearly impossible. ALL I want to do is the creative thing on which I’m hyper-focused. Last week I didn’t even pay people on my usual accounting day because I got so wrapped up in web building AND I was 37 minutes late to daycare to get my toddler on that same day.

Sleep becomes its own weird thing – and that’s strange to say for someone who teaches people how to sleep and dream. I LOVE sleep! But when I’m manic, I wake up a million times each night with my mind racing and it takes everything I have to calm myself. Dreams don’t make sense – I race through them if they come at all. I wake up feeling anxious instead of refreshed. Like my fingers are itching to get back to work, only I’ve already done all the work.

And then I know it’s coming – the downswing. The depression. It happens first with sleep. I can’t get out of bed in the morning, no matter how much sleep I’ve gotten. My dreams become nightmares of past traumas, death and destruction, helplessness and rage. I feel terrified and lethargic at the same time, and my mind shifts to create any excuse to get out of my obligations.

Suicidal thoughts rush in. Desperate loneliness and hopelessness follow, aided by a grotesquely detailed story unraveling my current life situation. I can’t look people in the eyes or touch them (which is a problem here in the industry of empowerment) and all I want to do is hide. I’m not sad; I’m lethargic. Words escape my mouth because they’re too busy tearing apart my mind.

All the things I neglected to do during my mania are now pressing on me like a collapsing cave and I cease to give a shit whether or not the walls come down. Again, I forget to eat. Even though my phone rings and pings, I ignore it (and the thousand emails, notifications, plans I’ve made) to favor, instead, the story that I don’t matter and that I am totally alone in this life, a disappointment to myself and a hindrance to others.

ICK, right?

How can someone like me, in my position, who teaches what I do, be typing this right now? How is this still my truth, and what the hell does it all mean, and can anyone really trust me to guide them?

Authenticity is my guidepost. Am I being real? Yes. Does me telling my story offer someone a perspective that could help them find themselves? I believe so. And – here’s a biggie – I’m still fucking here, typing this today TO guide/heal/help people.

I mean, sure, I am hiding in my house instead of at the studio because I don’t want to actually have to talk to anyone. Yeah, I ignored some emails and phone calls today and just drank 3 shots of espresso because my two-and-a-half-hour nap didn’t quite cut it. BUT I’m returning those communications little by little and am fortifying my own resolve in each letter that appears on this page.

Here’s the thing. This whole episode, both mania and depression (which admittedly I am still in), has lasted about two weeks. In that time, I’ve still run my business, parented my kid (even *naturally* cured him of an ear infection), surrounded myself with friends, eaten food, taken showers, taught yoga, launched my new brand, and even started reading a new novel.

Manic depression, or bipolar disorder, fits me like a whole different garment today than it did half a lifetime ago. Because of my ability to meditate, breathe, move, dream, intuit, speak, feel, read, write, EAT FOOD, and recognize my cycles, I am still standing. In fact, I’d say I’m thriving.

I still have a way to go before all my goals are met, I still have dreams to see through, and I’d love to be the kind of person who literally never “medicates” or “swings.” (Do those people exist?)

But the me I am today is a hell of a lot stronger and more resilient, steady and at ease, grounded and awake than I ever have been. I know when these things are coming and I am proud or pleased to say that I am figuring out how to not just “treat the symptoms” but to ride the waves. That new website and brand I launched, for instance, was me using manic energy to smash a long-term goal! I’m so pleased with the result.

Yesterday, I knew I was out of mania and starting to slip down, so I did what any intuitive would do in that situation: I pulled some cards. It was also the 16^th anniversary of my mom’s death, which is always a strange day for me. I pulled “orphaned” (LOL thanks) and “take a nap” and a whole bunch of other cards supporting those ideas that I wanted to ignore. It was time to pull back and take a rest, let that which has been created become, and turn gently inward. The cards were telling me “you’re in a low.”

So today that is exactly what I did after teaching my morning class. Even though I woke still in a fog, I knew what I had to do (as Mary Oliver wrote) and I set off with my espresso in hand and laptop on my hip. I changed my clothes, returned some pressing emails, took a call or two, and wrote this eighteen-hundred-word self-indulgent expose on modern day manic spirituality.

Maybe now I’ll curl up with my novel in a patch of sunshine before I get my toddler (on time) from daycare.

There’s so much more I could say on this topic. And I do, and I will, and I have. It’s enough for today, right now, for me to have laid it out like this. Now that I see it, I don’t feel so guilty; now that I’ve written it, I feel lighter. That’s one of the things I’ve learned to do – give that inner voice an outer voice. Demons are a lot feebler in the light (mostly because they just got lost in the dark and tried to make themselves seem bigger while they were there . . . but once we bring them up and let them out, they, too, can breathe and release).

Maybe my demon is actually a war horse who comes to my aid when I need a ride, and then a snuggly stable companion when the battle is won, keeping vigil while I sleep. Maybe that’s what MY “mental illness” is: a gift.

(More on my actual black horse spirit guide another time.)

Today I spoke at a celebration of life. Some said I was “officiating,” or “presiding over,” and one put it as “doing the heavy lifting.” It was an honor that I was not sure I deserved . . . and in that way it was absolutely perfect.

His name was Jeff, and he was a larger-than-life kind of man who left a profound impact. If I could sum up what I learned of his general take on life in one word, it would be GUSTO. Others would be kindness, generosity, unconditional love, and heroism.

I never met him while he was alive, which is odd to say. But his spirit did come to me and introduce itself, and it was largely to that experience that I spoke today. The others – his family and friends – said the rest.

He comes now to those he loved as a yellow butterfly, which of course I interpreted to be about vulnerability and worthiness, delicacy and transformation. The man was too big for his body, and only in death has he become as free and omnipresent as he was always meant to be.

I said this and more today, which felt strangely comfortable and perfect. I looked into the eyes of those who loved and missed this man, and I could feel how my words fed them, nourished or filled up the spaces inside of them that his loss had emptied. These words flowed through me like a gift to all of us and I will be forever grateful for them, however they came.

After, people were so grateful to me – but what they didn’t understand or see was my own overflowing heart. All the loss I’ve endured and all the times I’ve shouldered burdens in my life finally came down to this offering.

And the man whose spirit I knew but body I had never met – this Jeff – he lives on through the stories of kindness and gusto, passion and love. He inspired me to be more present, more heroic, more loving, just by having lived.

How fitting that the lesson in losing Jeff was to embrace vulnerability as a strength – and to recognize worthiness as an embodied trait. I wasn’t sure I was worthy of today, but by stepping into it, by giving of myself in the way I was asked, I actually received an outpouring of love and appreciation.

Thank you, Jeff, and all those you left behind, for continuing to teach us how to love each other and ourselves.

Cheers to yellow butterflies, late night vigils, saving lives, and desiderata.

Setting my life on fire had me choking on the smoke there for a minute. Whoa. But now it’s clearing, and I can see, off in the distance, the sun rising over a new valley.

How do you leave something good?

I kept asking myself this question as the little voice – getting bigger every day – rose up within me. It started as a whisper, I’m not happy in my marriage. Then it was an argument: me vs. my own inner voice. I’m not happy in my marriage. “Yes you are! Stop that nonsense. Life is better now than it ever has been. You love your family. Knock it off.” But it doesn’t feel right anymore. “You just shush! Everything is fine.”

Intention is a powerful thing. It overruled the voice, for a while. We worked on it. Talked about it. Tried to reconnect through it. “I am responsible for my own happiness; no one can make me happy but me,” became my mantra.

Then I started to hurt. My neck would “go out” for days or a week at a time. I could hardly turn my head and the pain was so bad, even through and after massages, yoga, and reiki, that I actually took over the counter pain meds just to numb it enough to be somewhat present in my life. This happened more times than I’d like to admit.

My intuitive friends took notice, of course, in that way we do when we totally know The Universe is trying to send a message to an unwilling receiver. “Oh, your neck is out? Oh, you have another ear infection, cold, your throat hurts?” they’d say. “What message are you ignoring?”

I’m not happy in my marriage.

“It’s not something I’m ready or willing to hear right now,” I’d answer, and they’d smile the sad knowing smile that my own heart hid.

Eventually, the pain would fade enough.

Enough.

That was the word that finally broke the wobbly barrier I’d built to keep that little voice in (and expansion out). It was something he said to me the first time I told him about that little voice. That was one of the many wonderful things about my marriage, that we were safe and open to talk about even the hardest things. So I told him, of course.

“Today in Yoga Nidra, we were prompted to allow our inner truth to speak to us something we needed to hear. I heard, I’m not happy in my marriage. And I have to say, I don’t really like it. I don’t know if it’s right or what, but I wanted you to know that it came up,” I said to him.

He looked thoughtful. It wasn’t all that surprising, what with a spirited baby, a new business, crazy work hours, and other strains on us. Then he said it – that word that would eventually undo it all.

“Don’t you think we are happy enough for now?” he asked.

It churned my stomach to hear it. In that moment, if I had listened to my body, I would have known the answer. But I was shushing my body. So I used my mind instead, and that thing told me yes of course we are, considering all these strains and stressors.

Time passed. My right hip started “going out” along with my neck. Finally, I sought chiropractic care because I just knew I was out of alignment.

And if that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what would.

You’re out of alignment. My body, mind, and inner voice were screaming it to me. The x-rays proved it.

My friends, even the less-professionally-intuitive ones, took notice. “Sometimes, when I feel like this, I take a step back and listen to my own inner voice,” she said one sunny day down by the water. “What is your inner voice saying?”

I’m not happy in my marriage!!!

And once I said it out loud to them, once my body started coming back into alignment, once I allowed myself to journal and feel and Know again . . . it became clear.

I had to set my life on fire. I was terrified.

How could I leave something so good? Good enough, my intuition reminded me. “No. It really is good. He is an amazing human, and I’m lucky to have him,” I firmly reminded myself. But my body knew – our bodies always know. Good enough wasn’t right for me. HE is wonderful, and I am wonderful. But together, we were enough.

Spirit called me to rise to the occasion, to meet my higher truth, and to leap off the cliff into a fire I wasn’t even sure I had the courage to light. It took me a week to start that fire, and when I did, it was blinding.

We both cried. I was in a fog. His heart was – is – broken.

But my body . . . it was like I could breathe again. My forehead unwrinkled. My little voice was singing a new song that I didn’t – and still can’t, not quite – recognize, but it sounds like hope and excitement. My hip and neck stopped hurting almost instantly.

I found a new place to live and once I moved in, I came down with a debilitating head cold. All those unspoken truths and the force with which I had shoved down my intuition was finally coming up, clearing out, and leaving my body.

I was forced to sit in the smoke, alone, for a week. I slept a lot, I cried some, and I trusted.

Because, once we set our lives on fire, we must deal with the smoke. Starting the fire takes courage; sitting in it takes strength and blind faith. It would be so easy to grab a hose and douse the whole thing – to take back the words, renegotiate the change, put it all rest. But that’s not what fire is meant to do. Fire is meant to cleanse, to clear, to burn away and purify.

Last night, on the eve of the solstice, I lit a new fire: candles and stones, sage smoke and moonlight, and a salt water bath to wash away the last of the density. I took back my body, claiming it as my own. I slept and dreamed and woke with the sun feeling better than I had in a long, long time.

The smoke has finally cleared. This fire moved me, body and spirit, to a new vantage point on a strange and curious mountain. From here, I can see a world waiting to be explored. As the sun rises and the fog burns away, the trees below are whispering to me about dreams coming true, about believing in magic, and about a fulfillment so deep and satisfying that hunger never existed.

I used to be grounded like the wind
– which is to say, not grounded at all
But, rather, floating and flitting,
Restless and furious,
Impossible to hold
Like a sigh, or the drawing of breath before a scream
and the scream itself.
Wind moves you, but you cannot hold it
Changes landscapes but is not changed –
It is a force . . . but not a feeling.

Not like fire,
That hot, consuming, branding thing that draws you in and burns itself
Into your heart –
Fire, like stars and volcanoes
Light we set our paths by but keep a distance from
Lest it destroy us –

I was grounded like fire, once, too, and I suspect I may be again
From time to time
Because once the sparks are in your blood they never truly burn out. They wait:
Spirit embers, like latent inspiration, ready to burst forth when called upon, or
needed most, or – and especially – when they are left
Untended overlong.

So I have fire in my blood
and feel the wind in my hair –
Not tugging at my feet, anymore,
Not tearing at my clothes and picking me up
to fly, not like that
But like a friend or memory,
like the scent of lilac and woodsmoke –

I wondered if I had become a tree,
with these new roots dug into the earth
and wind in my hair.
I’ve born some fruit and given shelter with
My womb and my arms and soul.
Blossomed once or twice and felt the seasons change me – like the way
Winter slows my heart, and how the long darkness seeps into my dreams . . .

A tree is steady, wise, and strong – but,
Trees burn up in a fire
Break in the wind.
Through storms, floods, and fires I’ve stood
More like a mountain than a tree.

. . . .

(to be continued)