The Empty Cup

Just like probably everyone reading this, 2020 was a crap year for me. Aside from the pandemic from hell that took place, I was simultaneously experiencing my own personal hell. My mother was dying. Days before the virus was given an official name, my mother was given an official diagnosis … GBM. The first thing doctors told us was whatever we do, don’t Google it. Me being me, I did exactly the opposite. In an instant, my life began to crumble. So, me being me, I began a desperate and futile attempt to hold it together. 11 months later, my mother took her final breath, and I was still here STILL avoiding the crumble. Of course I was grieving. That type of grief is not exactly avoidable, but the crumble, the total and absolute falling apart that was both deserved and expected, I would not let happen. I did everything in my power to carry on as normal as I possibly could. Grief is exhausting, so I responded to it by going through my days as normal as possible until I simply ran out of energy. Then I would just mentally and emotionally check out. In my mind, this was saving me from all the scary possibilities that crumbling would bring, and it probably did. Brilliant, but not for long. Fast forward 2 years and I was so checked out that I no longer recognized my self. I took a break from my work, my passion, and couldn’t find my way back to it. For me, who has never had a problem doing the thing I love, this was devastating. I had to find myself again. But the grace of God, I received a message from a fellow healing arts practitioner. This message struck me deep in my soul. She said “Melanie, you have the most beautiful gift and life purpose to serve others with it. You pour your heart in to everything you do, but right now you’re pouring from an empty cup. You have to figure out how to fill it so much that you pour comes from an overflowing cup.” So began the journey to fill my cup …