Welcome to my TED talk.

Today I want to talk about healing. (And by today, I mean the week it took me to write this because I have 752 other tasks to complete.)

So, healing?

What is it? How do we do it?

There's not one specific answer that's right. You do whats best for YOU.

But there's always room to grow.

Part of my own healing process is learning that it's not fluid.

There's no good day or bad day; it's AND.

Good AND bad.

Sometimes those happen all in the same day, all at once, multiple times and thats ok.

But however your healing process goes, it's yours. No one can tell you that you're doing it wrong.

I see a therapist weekly, I talk to friends and family, I write notes to myself in my phone, I blog, I cry, I laugh, and then I do it all again.

My scars (as cliche as it sounds) are my story.

My story of survival.

My story of strength.

My story of resilience.

I mean, I must sound like a broken record by now.

But this is my process.

This is how I live with it.

Unfortunately and fortunately, I get to heal. I get to learn from it all.

My scars represent my body healing itself.

And I used to be so ashamed of my "scars" before I even had them. I dreading having to one day have major surgery.

I never wanted to have someone see them and judge me. Or ask me what was wrong.

But I was wrong.

Sometimes you just have to break the tension.

I just have to laugh, because something is always wrong.

You've heard of Newton's law but have you heard of Kim's law?

What can go wrong, usually does go wrong, and if it doesn't something else will. LOL.

So what do I do to ease the tension? I laugh, I make jokes,

Telling jokes, making fun of a situation that’s not funny, it's how I cope.

What's the alternative? Crying and laying in the fetal position hoping that someone picks up the pieces for me?

My therapist stays it's ok to joke about it, as long as there are also times when I'm serious about it.

One thing I heard recently was,

"Mountains do not rise without earthquakes."

To me, I've always felt like I've been climbing mountains my entire life, but 2020 was a mountain like no other. One that I never thought that I would get to the top of. One that I am still trying to stay on top of without letting myself slide back down when things get tough.

So if you're reading this, what happened to you? What's your story? What mountain are you constantly climbing?

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Xo.