And in the past two years, it’s been harder than it’s ever been.

I often reflect on my past, because it reminds me of the resilience within. My incredibly stubborn and unrelenting resilience. Every time I forget about this unrelenting trait of mine, something, somewhere, somehow reminds me to recall it once again. I’m Bipolar, I have ADHD, I’m an entrepreneur, an empath and intuitive, and a person of service. Those things in and of themselves paint a picture of resilience but…recently I found that I had forgotten my old friend resilience and how deeply it’s burrowed inside of me.

So as I often do, I took to my journal. I put pen to paper and wrote a letter to myself to remind me of all that I’ve endured and all that I’ve struggled, waddled, survived, and become victorious through. Revealed to me was a 5-page handwritten letter to self recounting the wild ride of these past two years. There was so much more than I had given myself credit for. My letter read:

Dear Devin,

In just over two years, you have chosen some of the hardest things you’ll ever do, one of which was to get a divorce. You decided to take ample time off your business, which ended up being just over a year, and you used that time to heal. You had to rely on your savings, and at some points eventually had to rely on others, which damaged your confidence and your pride. You hired a spiritual coach and discovered your intuitive gifts, your spirituality and how deeply powerful and magical you truly are, which was scary as fuck. You got in a traumatic car accident and totaled your car, and then had to buy a new car using the rest of your savings. You trudged through the nightmares of modern dating and what felt like rejection over and over. You lived through a real life pandemic, the first 9 months of which you completely isolated during because of how at-risk your immuno-compromised parents are, and even though you lived 2,000 miles from them, the idea of infecting anyone like them haunted you.

In June 2020, you overcame your lifelong emotional eating disorder and changed your relationship with food. In January 2021, you enrolled in a Yoga Teacher Training program even though you’d never wanted to become a yoga teacher. You did it to heal your wounds from your divorce, which destroyed you much more than you thought possible or ever imagined. And from that experience, you completely prioritized your health, changed your relationship to your body and your mind, and you easily released 45 lbs of incredible strife and suffering.

Finally your divorce was legally complete, and although you planned to move back to CT to your family, your intuition hit you like a ton of bricks and gently demanded that you move to California, your dream state. So, three years before you intended and three years before your finances were really ready for that tremendously magical, glorious, yet wildly overpriced paradise, you headed west. And even though it was in fact your dream state, you NEVER dreamt of moving to Los Angeles because of how comically well-known it is for its horrid traffic and its “fake” people. Yet, your intuition demanded, so you moved to one of the hardest cities in the US to live in, and you fucking loved it, even though it created even more financial scarcity than ever.

Your dad went to the hospital a couple of times in there, and even though you were in the medical profession, there was not a fucking thing you could do because you lived across the country and your mom was left to do it all on her own. You have literally only seen your parents once since January 2020.

You lost yourself, you found yourself, you lost yourself again.

You restarted your business somewhere in there. You truly lost all of your confidence and belief in your ability to ever succeed again, constantly comparing yourself to how successful you had been just before you shut down your business and disappeared from the online space and world, disappointing hundreds of people who leaned on you. You became scared of responsibility once again because of how you let everyone down when you disappeared. You had to rely on your parents for financial support, literally the first time since you started a dog sitting business and acquired 3 concurrent jobs at 12 years old. You got Reiki I and eventually Reiki II certified and finally recognized yourself as a professional intuitive and healer and you owned that role.

You went an entire year without your prescription ADHD meds because you also had no healthcare for a year. You developed some sort of frustratingly undiagnosed internal organ issues that caused you debilitating pain every day, and lended to your existing chronic back pain. You got E-coli and developed a life-threatening kidney infection and had to be sent to the emergency room for 4 rounds of intravenous heavy, heavy antibiotics, knowing it would put your body at high risk of developing other health issues in the future. But you had to save yourself in the moment. You got a severe case of COVID on your 30th birthday that damaged your lungs and made you lose your smell seemingly permanently, and still sets your body and physical performance back one year later.

You started drinking heavily again, realized its ramifications, and then stopped again. You lost touch with your commitment to your health. Eventually, you re-injured your back after 6-whole-months of no pain, stopped doing yoga, and gained back 14 lbs. You noticed your eating disorder become relevant again; it resurfaced.

You went through phases of self-sabotage, so much resistance, and not feeling worthy. You became even more scared of money because of how incredibly broke you had become. There was one month when you had zero clients, and you chose to be okay with that because, fuck, stressing wasn’t going to attract jack shit. You stopped writing, singing, and painting, but at least you really started hiking and exercising a bunch.

You got into a new serious relationship, and it felt like you chose him over your sick dad when in December 2021, you once again attempted to move back to Connecticut. You drove all the way to Texas, your car fully loaded, and your intuition shut down the move again and brought you right back to Los Angeles. You moved in with your boyfriend, and such a dramatic shift in life circumstances triggered a long-lived depressive episode (thank you, Bipolar Disorder). You recognized all your past relationship wounds resurfacing: co-dependence, disordered eating, angry outbursts, and limiting beliefs from those relationships. You felt so much shame from your revived eating disorder, so it showed up even more in a counterproductive attempt to protect you.

Eventually, you decided (for real this time) to leave your dream state, the place you’d fallen in love with lifetimes ago and always imagined yourself in since you were a kid. You moved across the country again, this time to Asheville, NC. The big move triggered a severe mental health crisis and for the first time in your life, suicidal ideations crossed your mind and the thought of no longer existing looked appealing.

When you moved to Asheville, you were reminded of how you had to make new soul-aligned friends in California, and realized you’d have to do it all over again. And here we are today. You’re about to move across the country again, back home to still-sick dad.

Devin, you’ve been through an absolute fuck-ton these past two years. No shit it’s been hard as fuck to thrive; it’s been hard to simply survive. But you kept getting back up, back out there, and working hard AF on yourself and on your business and your mission to serve people. You ARE doing it.

Don’t worry…life won’t be like this forever. You’re doing exactly what you need to do to establish stability, structure and consistency all over again: the things that keep your life balanced and create conditions you’re able to thrive under. I love you, bosslady. You got this.

Love, Devin <3

And there you have it. In the past 2 years, I’ve lived in 3 states, moved 6 times, gotten a divorce, gone completely broke, had a mental health crisis or two, had a two life-threatening illnesses, lived through a pandemic, and become lost-and-found more times than I can count.

So…

If for even a second you’ve forgotten how fucking resilient you are, ask yourself, “What have I endured lately?” Seriously, ask yourself that question in your journal and write down every single thing that comes to mind.

I think you’ll find your resilience once more. Then go get a tattoo on your forehead that says “Resilient AF” (okay, don’t really do that), but instead go write it on your bathroom mirror as a daily reminder to yourself and your heart.

You got this. Keep going. If I can get through all that shit, you can too.

I love you. My heart is with you and all of your troubles right now, and I’m asking them to crumble gently before you. Go be resilient.

With all my love,

Devin