It was one year ago today that I got that call—well, sixteen missed calls actually—from Haylie with her emergency voice on. I had been in work meetings, preparing one of our beloved students for a media interview that would highlight our paradigm-shifting work in adult literacy. I was coaching his pronunciation. Letting the camera crew in the side door. Conducting a meeting with a newly hired director. Greeting students and volunteers as they flowed in for evening classes in our beautiful little space in Fountain Square.

I snuck into the kitchen to take Haylie’s call, asking, “Is everything okay?” And her NO came through loud enough for everyone in the building to hear.

When she was little, I worked so hard to teach her: Is it on fire? Is someone bleeding? No? Then don’t use the emergency voice. 

But her birth trauma, her brain injury, the frustration of years of battling systemic barriers, her blazing Leo energy, her Manifestor design—and the fact that she’s my daughter—all meant she came out of the gate with force. Always.

It was the storm, she said. She was at the neighbor’s with Bella. Our house. It was bad.

I confirmed they were both safe. Told her she was brave. That she did the right thing. Told her I’d be there as soon as I could (an hour’s drive) and asked her to stay put and call another family member in the meantime.

Then I made my rounds through the building, letting people softly know I had to slip out and get home to see the tree that had smashed my house.

Eyes widened. Mouths agape. Hugs offered. Alarm codes exchanged. The camera lights went on for our CEO and students as I headed south, wondering what in the world I’d find when I arrived.

As I got closer to home, I could see the damage everywhere. Trees down. Power out. Nature scattered like breadcrumbs across streets and sidewalks on a muggy June evening.

When I pulled into the driveway, I couldn’t believe it. Where there had been my adorable little home—what we called Haylie’s college cottage—there was now half of the giant pine tree that used to stand out back. It had cracked and collapsed onto the roof, smashing the living and dining rooms, its sappy, needled limbs reaching through what was once my carefully curated sanctuary.

The rain had blown in through the shattered patio door. Fiberglass insulation, knee-deep, piled in front of the fridge. Glass was everywhere. The ceiling was gone. Jagged branches jutted through what used to be walls. The nest we had built together for her university years—gone. 

Just like that.

Haylie was on fire. Her nervous system, hot. She had been home when it happened. Heard the 85 mph winds. Heard the crack. Felt the whole house shudder.

By now, our yard was full: my landlord (Haylie had tracked him down), my uncle, my stepdad, two neighbors, me, Haylie, and the dog. It was clear the house wasn’t safe. The power was out. We packed a bag and stayed with my parents that night.

That was the last day I ever lived on Tyler Lane.

What followed was a muddied maze of logistical limbo. The hotel offered by insurance became our summer base - my Home Sweet Homewood Suites. We hovered over soggy belongings, salvaging what we could. We debated: wait for repairs or find something new? 

Haylie was preparing for her Community Health Education Specialist Certification. I was coordinating our European Adventure, working full time in my new role as a VP, launching a summer pilot class, and trying to be…okay. My body tenses just thinking of all that I was holding. And the way that I did it with a masked, tense, steely grace, mostly.

I cooked in the hotel room at first. Then it was takeout. Then the sweet potato fries. Then the caramel Lindt bar. Every day. And free hotel lobby coffee. I mean, it was free.  Why not?

It simultaneously feels like a lifetime ago—and just yesterday.  Trauma collapses timelines like that.

Bella learned to poop behind the hotel along the highway, instead of chasing rabbits in our backyard. I tried to manage my emotions. The dog’s barking. Haylie’s outbursts. The grief. The lists of tasks.

And when I look back now, I see how strong I was. And I see how I used sugar and caffeine to try and regulate. I see how I shifted into survival mode and pretty much stayed there.  For nearly a year.

The result?

A year of symptoms: hot flashes and hormonal flares, weight gain, brain fog, decision fatigue. The kind of symptoms that keep you from biking, from sleeping, from writing.  From being your true self, the one you recognize in the mirror.

Even now, writing this, I feel the tug of a sugar craving. Even though I know better. Even though I teach it. I’m learning it again. Living it again. And with this year’s Solstice, in the exhale of that sacred pause, I can feel it’s time to return again to what I know is true:

I was born to thrive. My body knows exactly how to do that.

All these symptoms? They’re not aging. They’re clues.

Clues that I’ve been out of alignment. And reminders that the return is always available.

So I’m recommitting now. To my keto roots. To what I’ve learned about fasting (I’m finishing my practitioner certification with Dr. Mindy Pelz). Because I know how powerfully the body can heal. How quickly it responds to consistency. How building muscle and moving my body rebuilds my brain and therefore, by way of those lovely little neurotransmitters, my joy and clarity.

This is not about punishing myself to get back to some ideal.

This is about becoming my next best self.

The one who knows about the momentum of habits—both healing and harmful. The one who knows that sugar and caffeine don’t solve stress. They amplify it. The one who’s already come back from rock bottom burnout once—and who trusts her body’s wisdom now more than ever.

Because here’s the truth:

What was born from the compost of that fallen tree is beautiful. I’m settled into a quiet new home that I love. Bella has new paths to walk, new friends to chase, and a five-year-old named Abdullah on a bike who adores her.

Haylie’s moved into her new room with a view of the woods, where she spends time growing her business and networking with other certified health experts (yes, she passed!)

And me?  I continue to lead in a highly regarded literacy organization and in my cutting edge Vibrant Woman work with a transparency, grit, and insight that I did not have access to before I was completely uprooted.

I’ve found a deeper home inside myself.

So, this relationship I’m pointing to—the one between you and your human body—is the only one that walks with you for life. It’s where the hum of belonging resides in your bones. Belonging to this Earth. To your story. To this moment in time.

This isn’t just my hero’s journey. It’s a call to all of us.

Every loss holds a gift. Every trauma carries a truth. Every breakdown holds the seed of the new within it. 

And that new beginning?

It’s not out there. It begins inside the sacred terrain of your own sweet body.

So slow down.
Sleep more.
Work less.
Grill a steak.
Feel the sun.
Walk with your dog.
Take fewer cues from the chaos and more from peace.

Let your body show you the way back. Let stillness be the turning point. Let joy be the map.

This is not about going back.
This is about going home.

And that path lives inside you.

What you’re looking for is there, right inside you, in the feeling of truth. Don’t underestimate the power of that to guide you, to anchor you, to secure you to the only voice that will never, ever, ever lead you astray…

The voice of your inner knowing.

Mine no longer whispers. She sings.
And her song is all about rooting deep now—
in order to rise again,
more radiant than ever before.