At the ROOT of it all.
Besides me my first book sits on my bookshelf.
It is not even out yet, but today, today something feels different.
It’s as though the timelines have finally shifted and my book no longer lives inside of me. The stories and pains from my past that I once carried physically, mentally and emotionally have melted away ~ and by melted I mean through a whole lot of deep healing work and writing the very book I mention.
Like the Phoenix, I have risen from my ashes. And the day after Easter no less ~ hey Jesus, it’s me again, Lauren your Jewish sister.
But for real, there is something so beautiful about this moment.
My parents have now both read my soon to be first published book titled Glow Up Your Chakras ~ From Medicated to Meditated, and to know I have there blessing is truly a gift I wasn’t even aware I desired, quite the contrary to the girl I was before I wrote the book, ya know the one always seeking approval and validation from anyone but herself. (I spill the tea on all of that in the book.)
So now here we are days away from sharing my soul and boom ~ just as soon as I put the book on the shelf the next chapter revealed itself ready to be written.
If I’m honest I have had the desire for some time to write.
Prior to writing my book I would journal daily, but when the book was being written I simply had trouble journaling at the same time, so I gave myself permission to pause and focus on the book knowing that all of the thoughts, feeling and things I was working through would make it to paper when ready.
It’s important to sometimes give ourself permission to pause and space to create in new ways while maintaining the utmost faith that everything is happening for the highest good.
I digress.
It simply wasn’t time to write, until it became time.
First I had to fly around to get all of the knowledge and wisdom I needed in order to understand this new story that had begin to set me ablaze.
This new story.
The one where I am living in my fullest expression.
Freely using my voice and creative gifts.
Allowing myself to explore my sensuality in deeper ways.
Living a life where I am un-tied (but perhaps getting tied up) wink wink universe.
Now let me pull it back for a moment.
In October of 2024 I met Dani through a social media group.
Dani also known as “the” Posture Magician is an Osteopath and Myofunctional Therapist based in Canada.
I happened to be on the bi-weekly group call for this social media group when Dani joined and introduced herself.
“Hi, I’m Dani” she said.
Something told me to pay attention and listen to what she had to say.
So I closed my other windows and began to tune in.
During her brief introduction she mentioned the term “tongue-tie” which I had never heard of before. She went on to describe what it was as well as potential side effects within children and adults when untreated.
Now she wasn’t there to offer her services, she like me had joined this group to learn more about using social media as a tool.
She continued to share noting “often tongue ties are diagnosed as an infant if the child has trouble latching” to which I thought “I wasn’t breastfed.”
Then my mind began to think about what I have been told about my infancy.
I was a fussy baby.
I was colic.
I would get rashes on my butt ~ so my parents would put my butt in the sunshine to heal. Cue me all of the sudden that my parents may have been much more free spirited way back when.
I digress, where were we.
Ah yes, the tongue-tie.
Dani continued to share her knowledge about tongue ties and the connection with the nervous system.
Then she mentioned something about the palate not forming properly and it was as if a had walked into a nightclub full of strobe lights. The messages were coming in as clear as the lyrics to Ace of Base’s, The Sign.
I had a small palette ~ ummm hello at 24 years old I had reconstructive jaw surgery and my upper palate had to be expanded! (That story inside Glow Up Your Chakras ~ From Medicated to Meditated.)
At this point my jaw was on the floor ~ holy shit, is this the answer I have been looking for?
Everything she shared from supporting her clients with TMJ to breathing issues, I simply sat there nodding my head engrossed in her every word because for the year leading up to this moment I had been obsessed with getting to the root of my trauma.
Except I didn’t know what exactly that meant.
Similar to my inner whisper that led me to help people to heal (story inside the book) this whisper was telling me that I needed to learn how to breathe properly.
It was back in May of 2022 that I went on a BreathWork retreat to the sacred land of Egypt that I noticed I had trouble taking deep belly breaths. I had never really noticed how difficult it was before but it was very present on this trip.
Months prior my grandmother had passed and I had found myself diving deeper into my healing and on this very retreat focused on BreathWork I realized just how difficult it was for me to breathe as well as the ease I had when it come to holding my breath.
“Is this related to a past life I wondered?” Yes, my intuition said.
“Is it effecting me in this lifetime?” I asked myself. To which I felt an astounding yes.
For the next year I began paying attention to my breath and in September of 2023 I went on another BreathWork retreat, this time to the sacred lands of Greece (where my Pluto line happens to live - so I knew it would be transformative.)
It was on that trip that I decided I would sign up for Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training that would begin four months later in January of 2024.
Ok so lets close the loop here.
From January to July of 2024 I went through my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training and noticed that while I could keep up in my practice there was still this feeling like I wasn’t breathing properly.
In our rebirth experience during teacher training I had this inner knowing reveal itself that I didn’t want to come back to Earth this time around because the disconnection would be immediate, and truth be told in addition to my breathing I was also obsessed with the fact that I didn’t remember things from my early childhood.
A therapist I once went out with described this as disassociation - which is exactly what it was, with that it wasn’t some big scary trauma, thankfully, and let me tell you I let my mind wader off into the shadows and ask myself questions to be sure I wasn’t mistreated because I had been told to be open to that being a possibility when I opened my mind) instead it was a silent trauma that kept me quite literally tied up.
It was exactly what Dani was talking about.
Now after Dani shared on the call I began to do some research simply to learn more and it felt like this alarm going off alerting me I had found the root of it all.
But how could I be sure? I wondered.
Fast Forward, it’s October of 2024 and I get a message from Dani asking if I am teaching my Friday Kundalini Yoga class she sees me post about.
“I am, are you in town" I ask.
“I am, and I would love to come” she replied.
At this point we have sent a bunch of messages through this group and I was excited to connect in person.
Friday came along and there was my new friend in the front row.
After class she thanked me for inviting and her and shared these words “I noticed where your cervical spine feels stuck.”
Something inside of me felt this nod from the universe “she has your answer.”
Before I could ask a question she simply offered to take a look at me to which of course I replied “yes”!
Now I won’t go into all of the details but what I learned that day CHANGED MY LIFE! I Lauren Courtney have a tongue tie!
And it can very well ultimately be what lead me to the three surgeries I had at 17, 21 and 24 years old for my jaw, bouts of acid reflux, migraines, shoulder pain, a rounded spine, unregulated nervous system, and maybe just maybe ADHD (stay tuned for more on that), anyway the point is a diagnosis was given to me.
For once in my life I felt hopeful that I could heal. In ways that I didn’t even know where possible.
Because you see, I had made piece with the fact that I was not flexible at all even with a whole lot of stretching, I had made piece with my ugly handwriting caused by the tight grip I would hold in order to write, I had even made piece with the fact that after wearing braces twice and having three surgeries my teeth were shifting and I was experiencing excruciating pain in my ulnar nerve located in my right elbow.
Yet there was something about my breath (and then some out of the blue pelvic floor “issues”) that simply had me on this continued healing path.
From hopeless to hopeful?
I digress.
Quite honestly I didn’t even know I had felt hopeless.
So there I was in October 2024 gifted with this new information. The the question became, “what will I do with all of this?”
Cut back to present time, I have Invisalign, I am on week 6 of my treatment.
In 4 weeks I will be having surgery to release the tongue tie.
This moment right now, this is my rebirth.
My becoming, of who I was always meant to be once I learned to alchemize pain.
And sitting here right now, with my book on the shelf next to me I see my first chapter of life. She’s messy, she’s raw, revealing and relatable.
I love that chapter.
And now I am embodying the next chapter.
The one where the wounded maiden becomes The Mother.
My story doesn’t end after Glow Up Your Chakras, as a matter of fact a whole new journey is unfolding.
And this is simply where it begins. At the root of my rebirth.
xo,
Lauren