I think about blogging nearly every day of my life, and the truth is I’ve been in a really long journey of rearranging elements of my life, my body, my home . . .

For instance, since November 2022 I’ve been in a longass process of getting myself re-enrolled in PT and OT — yes, more on this later — and there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. I’m on the schedule! (But not until late August.)

Since transition times require the most intention and mindfulness, I am not going to commit to writing in here with any sort of definable regularity quite yet. However! I am willing to show up when the energy is available and in the form it wants to come through.

What that means is the format may change; I may not sit down and write out a 10,000-word essay every time I post. Some posts will be in micro form; some will be photographic, perhaps a simple video here or there. I haven’t yet gone into detail on this on any of my blogs but for a few years now I’ve been in a deep dive around living my Human Design, which is an ongoing experiment. 

The piece I’m looking to play with here is around my undefined throat and how she needs a variety of ways to express!

Now that I’ve completed my little preamble, I’ll drop the one thing I came in here to bring to you today:

The medical model is pretty problematic; I’ve seen this everywhere in the US, I’ve seen it in Taiwan, I’ve even experienced it in Italy and witnessed it in the UK. It was alarming to me what went on in Australia during the height of the pandemic. Even in the countries that everyone projects has it so “great,” in my opinion that is still rooted in a foundation of a highly flawed system. Chances are if you’re a reader of this blog you have a lived experience of what I’m talking about.

But as much as the system sucks, there are small ways you can exercise your own sovreignty and agency.

The example most alive for me in this moment is in the arena of supplements.

If you’re concerned about the quality of your supplements (as I am), in an unregulated industry — a general rule of thumb is to only purchase your supplements either directly from the website of the company that makes them or from your medical provider. (If you’ve got access to a Full Script store, or another reputable dispensary, that could work, too.)

The irony of the fact that it is Prime Day today is not lost on me when I say this — but that same rule of thumb says to avoid ordering supplements on Amazon, because as of yet they haven’t really regulated who can and can’t sell supplements (and there can be a lot of dupes).

We generally try not to rely on Amazon for absolutely everything because we would rather invest in our local businesses when possible, but sometimes — under time or monetary constraints — Amazon can be of service.

What I did this week was I put my investigator hat on and found the “store” within Amazon that sells me a probiotic that I’ve been taking. I went on the official website of the company and contacted them asking them if this Amazon store was theirs.

They wrote me back right away and confirmed that it was in fact their store. This allowed me to relax and continue my subscribe & save with peace of mind. (And of course, come the day that our situation changes for the better, we can always make the swap back to ordering directly from the company.)

It may not be a groundbreaking, life-altering shift, but remember: We are only victims to navigating our lives if we choose to be.

Warmly,

Pamela

I’m finally back from my 16 days in SoCal — it feels to me like I was gone for far longer because of the energetic toll that hit me in body, mind, spirit. It also feels like I’ve slept about 20 hours a day since I’ve been back.

The re-entry process back into regular life when I no longer feel like a “regular me” has always been a tricky one. As a policy, I never book flights immediately before or after out-of-state live events like most do; I know my body well enough to know that I require some serious aftercare to come back down to Earth.

It’s not because I’m a diva or because I’m rolling in mega-riches — it’s because I’ve developed a relationship to my body of respect and love. What that means is when I haven’t taken care to make sure I’ve got the space I need after going really hard, I would end up paying for it.

Can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve absentmindedly lost something valuable (a passport, a purse, about four different iPods) or got physically lost because my brain was offline and I didn’t realize it. And this isn’t just a post-stroke symptom; it’s just become about 1500% amplified since the injury.

To deny that this shit happens only guarantees that it will happen in fuller force. It’s a part of me, and I’m getting better with it all the time, but denying it definitely wasn’t helping.

Can you love the body you’ve got as it already is, now?

Like, not just “warts and all,” but for serious — warts, rolls, freckles, moles, grey hairs, wrinkles, whatever — plus all its other “defects”? How about all its ways it tries to get your attention?

A lot of those “defects” can feel like wasted time in the moment to try and prevent, but can I just point out how much time, money, energy is spent trying to recover from losing track of important stuff/things/people etc. after the fact?

Although beauty is important, this goes way beyond aesthetics. This touches everything about you and your experience. So you’ve had a stroke; maybe one side of your body, like mine, feels a little “behind.”

Can you let that be okay? Can you, despite any impatience around how slow progress may feel, still hug yourself and send love to yourself, let your body know that you see it’s been hurt somewhere very profound — because it has been! — and that it’s okay as it is, right now?

I remember the first time I ever sent loving energy to my left arm. I released tears I didn’t even know I’d been holding onto for a decade. The experience changed my life.

Try it for five minutes today.

And five minutes tomorrow.

The relationship to your body takes time and nurturing to build — and if you can do it (I know you can), it will change your life for the better.

This will be hard if you have never given yourself permission to give yourself what you need, and all you know is to fight that you have any needs at all.

How has that been working for you?

You know what to do. Incorporate, comment, share. Because I care about you, and you do too.

Warmly,

Pamela

The thing is, everyone has these sides to them, and when we aren’t willing to express them, we aren’t being truthful. This doesn’t mean we should all willy-nilly go on rampages attacking innocent bystanders (though clearly the American collective especially has been moving through that for a long time); it comes with personal responsibility. It comes with knowing our impact.

And so even though I can play a masterful long game of pretending I’m all love and light all the time (and I have), the truth is I’m not. When I chronically hide my more unsavory feelings, it is an act of violence against myself.

When we aren’t being truthful about who we are, we are inherently un-trustable. We are engaging in a subtle manipulation rooted in the fawning trauma response in an attempt to find safety in our audience. Yes, trauma responses make sense given our histories — but the kicker is, when we do that, we inevitably become the one who is unsafe for others.

So I’m going to experiment with a series here called “Feeling Spicy.” Please take care of yourselves and don’t read the posts about topics you know you don’t have the capacity to stay grounded in and hold yourself in. I’ll be mindful of informing you of what I’m about to talk about on those posts.

A note, too, about this series: It is likely that conditioned “stuff” will come up for you. You may want to rebut or argue with me or convince me.

This is not the place for that. This is my digital space that I pay for, care for, and put my love into creating out of generosity.

If you become so activated you cannot tolerate reading my words without jumping into my comments section to try and put me in my place, know that I will definitely delete it.

The Internet can be a magical place where we are able to share ourselves, and I am so fucking thankful for it. And, it’s also a place where lots of people have developed the cowardly habit of hiding behind anonymity to dump their vitriol.

This was something my friends and I would do as 14-year-olds discovering chatrooms for the first time. I’ll rephrase this: Hiding behind anonymity on the Internet in an attempt to antagonize another is a behavior appropriate for young teenagers dealing with the confusion and turmoil of puberty without a healthy outlet.

So as much as I accept I haven’t always been “above it,” I encourage anyone who may find strong issue with hating on what I have to say to take it to their space. Their journals. Their art. Their therapist. Their blog. Their social media.

That said, being a human is complex and nuanced. There is only hope to heal rifts within ourselves and others through connection and personal responsibility.**

What that might look like is this: if you are able to stay in your body, to breathe and ground, with your heart open, any entitlement to my time/attention/energy in check, and there is something you’d like to say in response, you are welcome to write to me from that place.

Here we go!

Pamela

*For those of you who are familiar with Human Design, I’m a 5/1 emotional generator with the full Channel of Mating that includes Gate 6 (friction). If you aren’t familiar with HD, I will eventually post either some resources or a full article on this very important system I live in experimentation with.

This was originally in response to a carousel I’d read on an account dedicated to disability, claiming that the term “special needs” was problematic.

One of my modern pet peeves is about language policing, because

1. You can’t control what other people say, and
2. not all people with the same marginalized identity share the same preferences

To be honest with you, I personally hate the term “disabled” and prefer to use “people with disabilities,” since I don’t like for “disabled” to define anybody.

And that entire account (as well as other advocates for PWD I’ve heard speak) apparently have no issue with it, so . . .

And to say “special needs” is derogatory or condescending is a projection.

I have total approval for people who require extra accommodations.

In my lifetime as a really good textbook fifth line in Human Design,* people generally have no problem letting me know if I’ve misstepped/misspoken and I’ve never had anyone call me on using this term. This is because the people around whom I’ve used it are able to feel my total approval (i.e., lack of judgment or condemnation) for having special needs. This is why I generally don’t try to “correct” people’s language.

None of this is black and white.

Being a human is complex and nuanced, and we can only hope to heal these rifts in connection by giving people an opportunity to learn with compassion.

Yours,

Pamela

A note on the [feeling spicy] series & my boundaries around it: These are my positions on the subject, and I am definitely not available for debate. If you are able to self-regulate and respond from a grounded place, you are welcome to leave a comment.

Read here for my rules of engagement.

I’ve had quite the journey with my AFO (ankle-foot orthotic), which was custom made for me when I was 19. I had cast it aside out of pride and stubbornness (and vanity) when I was maybe 21, also because I didn’t want to encourage atrophy in those muscles. But I’m in the clumsiest phase of my cycle right now, and when we strapped that AFO back on yesterday I basically felt the hallelujah chorus radiate through my body.

There’s more to this I want to dig into and write about for this blog, but for now I am just so thrilled to what is possible for me in the arena of outdoor play these days. I’ll also share a bit later on about my experience on an adult tricycle last summer at Mackinac Island!

After yesterday’s activities, today’s big restorative practice is to reset the heart of the home (the kitchen), which took a huge hit during our hurricane of prep for the park.

I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT HAVING MY SITE BACK!!!

We always love an excuse to renovate, right?

And, you know, these things take time. Thank you for bearing with me as I attempt to piece back all things old and new here. Wade through my chaotic backend & clean up/recreate those systems. (Pardon the dust, so to speak. There’s quite the learning curve, and scheduling around here can be complex. #techmovesfastandimoveslow)

Yay!

Love,

Pamela

Sometimes the post-stroke journey has sucked. I literally fell to my knees in the middle of the grocery store yesterday because I was walking too fast for my current energy level and stumbled over my own feet. (This doesn’t happen often at all — it never really has — but since the stroke, it’s something that does happen occasionally, so it keeps me humble!)

I used to treat wiping out in public as something SUPER embarrassing and I would’ve worn the embarrassment on my shoulders like it was a backpack filled with rocks. I’d use it as evidence of a false belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with me, and other things would happen and I’d add more rocks into my backpack until practically everything was a fricking drain on my life.

Yesterday, though, I simply got back up and carried on. Not because I wanted to bypass any uncomfortable feelings, but because there genuinely weren’t any(!).You know what this means? It means I’ve taken the backpack off.

This is HUGE.

It’s the result of being intentional about where I put my regular focus in my life (as trite as that sounds). I’ve focused more often on giving myself grace, not adding meaningless things into that backpack, making a practice of letting go of guilt and shame. Prayer. Connection to something greater than myself. Developing a healthier and healthier relationship with my body and what it needs.

It’s a beautiful thing to see the fruits of my labor become manifest in my actual experience, and that is what I’m celebrating today. (I’m also celebrating that I wrote a post today. ;))

Before I go out for my strokiversary dinner with the fiancé(!! Yes, we got engaged a couple months ago!), I’ll leave you with these “MercRetro Strokiversary” questions:

Do you celebrate your Strokiversary?

What little wins (which add up to big ones) can you celebrate right now?

Drop your commentary below.

Love you. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey.

Today has been a huge exercise in surrendering to what is, for me. The word “surrender” can be super-scary for some people because there can be connotations of weakness and loss of control — but contrary to those stigmas, I’m here to tell you today that surrender is a sign of enormous strength.

In order to be able to relax into whatever is (whether that’s being in the hospital or losing track of your phone), you must be rooted in something much stronger than any physical problem. This is called faith — not always of the religious/spiritual variety, but it’s a deep inner knowing that no matter what happens, you’ve got this.

Today, before I could write you, my computer had a little graphic freakout, and I had to check it in overnight at the Apple store.

Soooo much of my life and my work lives on that computer! Not to mention it’s primarily where I write. Knowing in my core that I’ve got this, I chose to instead write you this from my phone. (Thank goodness for all the technology that supports me!!)

It’s not how I preferred to post today, but at the end of the day, I’d rather deliver you a message rather than just give up hope. I know where my heart is and why I created this blog, so I release any guilt or any frustration I had over the mishap. I release my attachment to how I wanted writing today’s post to look and I’m doing what I can that’s aligned with my heart’s desire.

Your resourcefulness will win any war you have with your circumstances. Know that any problem you’ve got, it’s only the fight against what is that creates stress and fear in your experience.

Instead, try dropping the fight. Believe me, as a recovering rebel-without-a-cause, it can feel counterproductive, but you are so much greater than any of your problems. I believe in you.

Remember, you’ve been through a stroke and SURVIVED. Everyday issues ain’t got nothing on you. Now, I really have to go and eat!

Have a wonderful weekend.

All love,Pamela

PS. Two requests — if this speaks to you, please share it with someone you love who could use it/let me know in the comments. And lastly, please send some supporting healing vibes and prayers to our family. It may be a little spotty for a while given the fact that someone in my family is having some serious medical issues right now and I’m going to be exercising active surrender while that’s going on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Let’s talk about transitions.

I was once at a hot yoga class, where I changed postures and suddenly I experienced some sharp pain in my knee! I’d never had that before and I was concerned I’d done something incorrectly. I’d done it very quickly, aiming to keep myself at pace with everyone else.

At the end of the class, I approached the teacher and shared what had happened. What she said next has remained with me for years:

“We must be the most mindful during transitions.”

I don’t know about you, but I often get myself in the most amount of trouble when I do things quickly out of trying to keep pace with the rest of the world (or what I perceive as the rest of the world). It’s the easiest time for me to self-abandon, and the best safeguard I have found in 15 years against this is to deeply ground into my body and slow everything the heck down.

Transitions are any pockets of time between one activity and the next — for me, they’re non-negotiable. I don’t do anything back-to-back. The more activity I outwardly do, the more of a rest period I build in in between that and the next thing. This could be a game changer for most people post-stroke.

The tricky part is even if I’m doing something that energizes me, I still need at least a brief interlude between activities to get back into my body and get present once more. The trappings of engaging in high-energy-taking-as-well-as-giving activities for me is I can fool myself into believing I can just go, go, go endlessly.

Energy management is a skill developed mindfully and with great devotion to presence to your body and what it needs from you. It is an unlearning of wider societal habits and a re-learning of getting in touch with how your body communicates with you.

The cool thing about presence is that it’s got this funky ability to bend time, and the more present I am — the more paradoxical my experience becomes.

The more present I am, the slower I can move, yet the more efficient I become.

The more present I am, the more deliberate my movements, yet the more free of tension I am.

The more present I am, the more I occupy my entire body, yet the more connected to Spirit I am.

The more present I am, the more loving I become towards myself, yet the more I love others.

I’ve found that the more I integrate deeper and deeper presence to my transitions, ironically — the less I need all that time to transition! I make such a regular practice of becoming present with myself (through meditation, dance, journaling, among other things) that dropping in and fully inhabiting everything I am takes just a moment. Not even five minutes. Sometimes, just a deep breath will do it.

That kind of deep love for yourself will always be there for you — but first you must be there for it.

I invite you to start a practice of getting present. Of stopping all the doing and just being for a change, of dropping all the judgments and the stories of what “should” be and being kind enough to yourself to create much-needed spaciousness in your life.

Begin with just five minutes at a time. A timer can be one of your best friends!

Notice whatever comes through for you, in your body, whether that’s emotion or even numbness. Do your best to remain neutral about what you feel/see. You can even name the sensations aloud: “I feel tingling in my foot, and a warmth in my belly. A small constriction in my throat, and my eyebrow feels a bit itchy.” There’s no way to do it wrong besides not doing it at all.

I promise, the more presence you bring into your life, the less frantic you’ll feel, the less inclined to succumbing to outside pressure. There’s nothing better than true groundedness in who you are and honoring exactly what it is you need to do you, boo.

Leave a comment and share your experience with getting present — and share this with someone who’d benefit from this!

Enjoy your weekends, all.

Love you.

Pamela

Sudden, unexpected bodily needs. Family stuff. I had to take things waaaay slower than “high achiever” me would’ve liked, but it was an amazing call. I’ll fill you in on the quantum leap I made by doing so (hopefully later today).My only regret is I didn’t say anything here. I’d had every intention to post as usual (and I had a great one on deck for you all!), but the call to tend to family and personal matters was stronger than my will. For that, I apologize.

That said, I never apologize for taking care of myself and heeding the call of my body. Guess what? This is an excellent time to refer back to my February mantra: I’m doing the best I can, and that is enough. Because sometimes you gotta let Life have you. You were never in control in the first place.