where have I been? intro-ish

How should I start this thing?

Ok. I’ll try a mini-timeline (okay, but first lesson: since I love writing, nothing from me will be mini, quick, short ;).

1999-2001
I had been living in Chicago (love it, miss it) for nearly a decade.
I needed a change from office manager jobs, wanted to maybe be in education (I knew a LOT of teachers), worth a try?
Yes, being flippant about it wasn’t the best approach, but it’s all I knew how to do at the time.
During grad school, met the brother of fellow student.
He learned a bit about me (ex: I made a LOT of art growing up, loved learning about the human body, getting to know people and being a ‘helper’ type) and he suggested I consider massage therapy training.
So…halfway through my first year of teaching (overWHELMING if you’ve ever been/talked to a 1st year teacher) I somehow managed to add night & weekend classes in massage therapy training to my schedule.
Honestly, doing that was the best thing for my mental health at the time.
The things we don’t plan for … that happen because we can’t see the bigger picture.

The teaching job didn’t work out for a 2nd year and it was fine (FINE) with me. I went back to an office job and finished massage therapy training.
In that training, I learned about intuition, heard some others talking about a thing called Reiki (I decided I’d pursue that after I was done with this training), and felt something I’d later realize was a hint of being grounded and present.
In hindsight, I realized that I had found some very safe people to be around.
Right as I finished that program, I relocated to the PNW where I’ve been ever since.
I didn’t go back to teaching for many years, instead pursuing a career in massage therapy and energy work.

Jump to 2007 ~ I had a Blogspot page (Chakra Girl) and a BlogTalkRadio ‘station’.
That website and station are longer a thing.
My station was called Chakra Girl ~ the whole BlogTalkRadio site has been deleted [rip], so idk.
I was trying to be brand before ‘branding’ was trendy.
I made no money from it so it was definitely not sustainable.

The station was pretty much a podcast and my focus was the human energy body – chakra system. It was fun! There was an interactive chat, so I got to engage with listeners in real time. I had built a small community and it felt good to offer insights and ideas from my experiences.

Around the same time, I had written a memoir (self published) about how self-care with Reiki had helped me learn some things and then heal some things…so I was talking about the chakra system of the human energy body with a different theme every segment. And sometimes with guests.

The memoir was originally sold on Lulu and then I also uploaded to Amazon, including kindle.
It was my most vulnerable move at that point – all about my personal struggles, written solo until edited, and my own art for the cover.
Sold some copies – exciting! Scary!
That was before I got married and changed my last name, also before I deleted some social media accounts…so all the ways to find me online in my ‘about the author’ section are gone.
I mention that because when I wrote it, I imagined that there might be some readers in the world that my story might resonate with ~ maybe they’d reach out? Naive and cute.

2010-2012 ~ life-y things happened that shifted me away from all of that, turning me to fully focus on being a special education teacher. It was another big career change (I was a hs art teacher that first year) and this time it wasn’t flippant. This time I actually dug in and challenged myself on the idea for several rounds.

2023 ~ I took a leave of absence from special ed teaching. My health was suffering and I knew I couldn’t continue the job (those things were directly and indirectly related to each other) ~ but I wasn’t sure what to do next.
My leave ended up lasting an entire academic year.
During that time, I found some relief and started making changes, starting little and expanding.