Following the Stars Part One: Truth in an Unexpected Place
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If you follow me on Instagram, you know that the past few months– and years, really– have brought unexpected challenges, changes, and growth.
My family left my multi-generational hometown, traveled the country full time during a pandemic, moved to Nashville, moved back to Conway, Arkansas, and finally, my husband, Brian, and I completed our legal separation a year ago. This has been a beautiful and beneficial decision for our family and was made with incredible intention and unconditional love. I won’t go into the details here, but you can read the announcement post I made here.
Having grown up in the Bible Belt, this was a decision that many people I grew up with, people who helped raise me, didn’t understand or agree with. I knew that would be the case, and that’s okay. For every person who doesn’t understand or who reacts with judgment, there are five more who DM me asking how we’ve been able to remain a family, love each other well, and still restructure the format of our relationship. Even before we legally separated, I knew that our story would be used to help remove shame from people in situations similar to ours, and we’re doing that. So while it can feel murky and confusing to go against everything you were taught growing up, we’re honoring our truth.
At some point in our lives, we all experience that feeling of breaking away from what we were raised on, instead deciding who we want to be and what we want to believe all for ourselves. These conversations and stories can feel confusing and overwhelming for many. For that reason, sometimes we keep them secret.
Well, keeping things secret isn’t really for me. I share so others know it’s okay to share too. This week, I’m going to be sharing with you the beginnings of a spiritual awakening that occurred side by side with all the changes of the past few years. This is meant to be of service to those who my story can help.
What I share may not be your cup of tea. You may just feel totally ambivalent about it. That’s totally okay! This is my story and what’s been life-changing for me. In no way am I saying “this is the only way” or “this is the one answer you need to fix your life.” What I know for sure is that my work is to experience life and share it in the most honest, vulnerable way I know how. So that’s what this week is all about.
When I learn a lesson, I so desperately want to save others from pain, which ultimately means keeping them from learning the lesson themselves. I want to tell everyone exactly what to do to avoid the pitfalls and pain points I’ve experienced. I’ve literally built a business doing this. But when it comes to my personal life, I’m learning that I need to be a lighthouse, not a tugboat. My job isn’t to drag people out of the storm back to the safety of the shore, but to stand grounded on land myself, shining my light, sharing my truth, and allowing others to find a safe haven with me when they’re ready.
So now that I’ve set the stage… let’s get into it.
When I was three years old, I was in a car accident that forever changed the trajectory of my life. I lost my sister, and her presence is something I’ve missed every day since. I feel her near me through the little signs and signals she sends me, and also through this deep knowing inside of me that I’ve had ever since that accident, this knowing that she and I had a deep purpose to fulfill. There had to be right? Because if not, what are we here for? What was I here for?
When I first started my business, it didn’t occur to me that my purpose could be fulfilled through my business. At first, my career was run by ego. Deep down, I now recognize that what I really wanted was validation. I spent much of my childhood feeling misunderstood. Loss and pain forced me to grow up too quickly, and I often felt like an adult trapped in a child’s body, trying to manage my parents’ emotions, working through my own grief, and grappling with complex emotions and thoughts inside my own head. And I didn’t feel like anyone saw that. At first, my work was more about being seen than serving others.
And I learned a lot. I worked hard. Like– insanely hard. I remember overhearing someone watching me loading chairs and tables into a van all by myself and she said, “One thing you can say about her; she works harder than anyone I know.” Hard work validated. It felt good in the moment, but it didn’t last. It wasn’t my “something more.” My work was good, but it wasn’t true.
Everything changed when I wrote about my business experience and it helped people. THIS felt true to me. This felt so much truer than making bouquets or renting wedding equipment. So at the height of my career– when I was getting all the affirmation and validation I could want in the form of Martha Stewart Weddings accolades and big, fat wedding deposits, I let it all go. I realized helping other people with my story mattered much more than a paycheck.
And really, that’s how we’ve gotten here. And I’m so thankful that this is my work– continually uncovering my truth, sharing it, and inviting others to do the same. Especially this week as I share this series on something that’s so personal and so integral to my life right now.
So here’s what’s true for me…
I grew up in a small town in Arkansas. I spent every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening at church. As did most of my friends. This church was filled with very well-meaning people, and with two grieving parents at home, the community at church gave me a reprieve from loneliness. But there were also a few times where… when I look back… I can feel a sense of discontentment with what I was being told. I’d hear something and just feel… off. (Maybe you can relate, and maybe not. I have friends who grew up in the same exact spaces I did, and they agree with me on some of these and were totally unbothered by others.)
a few examples were…
When the pastor would say homosexuals were going to hell. My body said, “No. That doesn’t feel right to me. In fact, the God I know loves everyone.”
When the Sunday School teacher would say, “Now girls you have to wear a one-piece swimsuit on the mission trip. No two pieces. You are responsible for keeping the boys’ thoughts pure.” My body thought, “No. That’s not right. In fact, I’m a teenager and I’m tempted– even though I’m not allowed to admit that out loud– by seeing that boy with his shirt off. So I have to stay in control when I see a guy with his shirt off, but if he sees my belly button it’s all my fault? What if we are all responsible for our own thoughts and actions.”
When my small group leader told me, “If you have sex before you’re married, a good man won’t want you.” My body said “That sounds shaming. The God I know doesn’t shame the people he loves.”
All this to say, there were things growing up that didn’t feel true to me, but it wasn’t until I moved away from that small town in Arkansas and spent a year exploring national parks with my family followed by our move to Nashville that I could fully take off all those ideas and beliefs from childhood, examine and assess what felt true in me and my body, and then reshape what I believed. I remember one day driving down the road and turning to Brian and saying, “What if there is only one God…meaning…no one has it wrong. Some people call him Buddha, some call him Spirit, some call him God, etc. but it’s all the same. It just depends on where you live in the world. This was the beginning of speaking out loud what I always believed to be true inside of me.
In doing that, I stopped framing anything as right or wrong, good or bad, and started identifying things as either true or not true.
After arriving in Nashville, in the midst of sifting through my beliefs and putting them back together, one of the first things I did was call my friend Katie Selvidge and say, “I’m not sure what to do next with my work.” She encouraged me to read The Artists Way. You can find our series on instagram. It encourages you to be curious and to try something new each week.
The very first week, I decided to have my astrology chart read. Now, again. I’m from the Bible Belt. Astrology is basically the devil. But I was away from my hometown, away from judging minds and the beliefs of my childhood. And that distance gave me the courage to act on my inner knowing. I remember thinking, “On some level, I’ve always believed in this.”
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It’s not like I’d never seen an astrological chart before. You can’t be on the internet without at least seeing a few astrology memes. I’m a Pisces and every single time I’d read something about Pisces, I’d be like, “yeah that checks.” So I considered that maybe there was the potential for healing and wisdom from a source that voices from my childhood would say was weird or even evil.
This wasn’t a new realization to me. For years when Brian’s illness was at its peak, I was told over and over again by doctors what the best plan for Brian’s treatment was. Pharmaceuticals, visits to GI specialists, and diagnoses that never resulted in progress or healing. It took years to discover that those treatments were killing him. It wasn’t until I listened to my deep inner knowing, got him out of the western medicine game and into holistic, natural remedies, and tried some eastern approaches that he was physically healed.
My tell-all memoir
Sleeping with a Stranger is officially available everywhere books are sold, in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook. Since the book’s luanch, I’ve been amazed by how it has been received. From being named a best seller by USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Amazon and Barnes & Noble to incredibly personal and touching reviews from my amazing readers, it’s been such a wild journey!
Here is one of my favorite reviews…
“I love the honesty of this book. It is real and raw and doesn't hold back; and that is why it is so mesmerizing. I could relate on so many levels and I know it must've been so hard to write about many of these very personal and taboo topics. I couldn't put the book down, it was such an easy and enlightening read. I highly recommend this to anyone who is soul searching or just looking for some perspective. Truth is better than fiction!” — Emily, Amazon Reviewer
Then again, after Brian recovered, I completely unlearned everything I had been told about sex. I remember realizing that what I’d been taught about sex– that God created me to satisfy my husband when he wanted it, that I was just a tool for man’s pleasure and didn’t have any other role in a sexual experience– was just bad information. When I chose to unlearn everything I had been told and actually researched for myself, I kept the things that felt true and the things that didn’t, I let go of… for good. Needless to say, it wasn’t very long until my sex life went from pretty non-existent to…well let’s just say extremely active.
So I decided to do with astrology what I did with sex. I considered… what if I had been given the wrong information? What if I acted on this curiosity regarding astrology? What if I kept the things that felt true? What if I let go of the things that didn’t? So I did my research and found an incredible astrologer in Nashville, TN. I made an appointment to have my chart read. I was going to learn for myself what was true for me.
What was I trying to find exactly? I wasn’t sure. But I couldn’t help but trust this voice inside of me that said maybe God, the creator of the universe, uses his creation — even of the form of astrology — to guide us to truth. After all, how did the three wisemen find baby Jesus? They followed a star.
And so my journey with astrology began… or continued.
In the next blog…I share about the astrology chart reading. It was one of the biggest aha moments of my life.
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