The Gift of Mortality - When Trauma Transforms You
If you are done with me, I am okay. I will accept it. But if there is more that I am meant to do, more that I am meant to experience, more that I am meant to receive, more that I am meant to give then please keep me here.
It was an intimate conversation, a desperate plea and surrender with God in the Fall of 2015. A day when I questioned my own resilience. When I finally admitted my weariness and exhaustion with life and the cards I had been dealt. The truth is, for months I avoided mirrors for fear of seeing myself wasting away.
My own reflection terrified me.
Eyebrows had thinned. Face had narrowed…. which is unusual because my Haitian grandma has always described my face (in French creole- figure la lune) which translates to moon face because it was round…well let’s be honest it still is but then…it was not.
My skin, nails, and palms had a grayish hue, and I was plagued with nausea. I could no longer look away. This day I saw myself with full presence and consciousness and accepted…my own mortality.
Cancer brought a palpable grief that came with realizing the impermanence of my own existence. The reality that my days lived could be more than what I had left to live. The unavoidable truth that we are transient beings passing and time as I knew it was an illusion.
A movie reel flooded my mind that played 31 years of incredible moments of joy, thoughts of experiences that may never come to pass and a truth I hid behind a shadow of smiles that consumed me for nearly a decade.
For most of my 20s, grief hovered like a cloud of sadness. I cradled it so tight to my chest I thought I suffocated it away. In my grief, unhealthy ways of coping robbed me of time that I could not get back.
I will explain more about this experience in just a bit
But One question remained …Will… I… live?
Cancer came with an invitation to face things I deeply feared…which included facing myself specifically facing my toxic behavior of selflessness because in the battle with cancer every part of your being is conscripted in the fight to live, heal, and recover if you are gifted with more life.
To transform, I had to snip the thread that stitched the garment of selflessness I had so beautifully cloaked over my need to be fully seen, heard and to grieve.
Selflessness was a bondage I had to tear down in exchange for freedom. A freedom detached from the outcome of my diagnosis and anything that I had falsely tied to my identity.
For once, with compassion and empathy I gave myself the permission to unravel and fray
This seemed the only way to purposefully walk into what could be the final days of my life.
As you can imagine, I was overcome with waves of emotions. until a wave of calm washed over me. An inner knowing brought assurance and conviction that offered me hope that I would live and have a greater impact as I manifest my highest potential and flourish in it.
So… Here I am.
For my givers who are often praised for their selflessness.
For my people pleasers whose benevolent spirit and self-sacrificing nature causes them to prioritize the needs of others over their own,
For those who serve full cups with empty bellies, who carry light while standing in the dark.
For those who mask their sadness and truth by dancing the charade of resilience.
Aren’t you tired?
I was too… but I didn’t have the courage to stop until cancer left me no choice. I am here to tell you….no more. You have a choice to stop before being met with despair.
There is nothing noble about being selfless when you lack consciousness and are not anchored with wisdom. Like an avalanche, it catches up to you.
A sacrifice made mindlessly without taking stock of your capacity does not honor the sacred journey that is your life and all that it is meant to be.
The price you pay for giving endlessly is self-abandonment.
How do I know… well…. Let me take you down memory lane.
Meet Little Naimah.
I grew up in a big wonderful Haitian family. Our home was THE home that everyone came to. It was filled with joy, laughter and love all anchored in faith. My parents were the quintessential givers rarely asking for help but often offering it to others. I admired the kindness they embodied and the impact it had on those who benefited from their sacrifices and hard work.
Along with My OWN temperament of pleasing and perfectionism adopted what I saw modeled at home. It made me more likable. It served me so well that senior year of HS I won Best Personality.
By the age of 23 I had done all the things that I was supposed to do.
I finished university (check), I got a job (check), I had my own place (check) that I could barely afford (😊) and to top it off…. I met the love of my life and married him (check, heart emoji, check)
When I tell you I was winning at life? What is the phrase they say?
First comes LOVE. Then comes MARRIAGE. Then comes the BABY IN THE BABY CARRIAGE.
Within a year of newlywed bliss, the baby was on its way to the baby carriage.
We were so elated when we found out we were going to start a family! The joy had us bursting at the seams.
Our first sonogram appointment came quickly. We were ready to hear the heartbeat of our little bundle of joy. On the screen, there SHE was…heart racing…beating and moving about. We looked at each other overwhelmed with indescribable love. Speechless.
Eerily though there was a contrasting silence from our physician. Whose eyes darted across the room in discomfort.
The words that followed I will never forget.
“I’m sorry” … “incompatible with life”, “you will need to prepare”, “there isn’t much time” … “there is nothing we can do”.
Like a ricochet of bullets gutting us wide open. Stunned. The only word I could whisper was No.
Everything after that was a blur.
In an instant our peak of joy turned into a valley of sorrow. As quickly as we said hello, we had to say goodbye…. to our baby girl
At 24, I entered a devastating club of parents whose children died. We would never be the same. I was flung into an abyss of grief….and the spiraling began.
Spiral forward to age 31, when I accepted that I was an emotional eater…an unhealthy coping mechanism that I developed to quell my anxiety and numb my sadness. Food was a thing I could grasp in my spiral. That year I decided to make a change and get healthy. I lost a couple of pounds, and you couldn’t tell me a thing! You hear me!
Until I began experiencing a nagging ache under my collarbone. I shrugged it off as part of the “no pain no gain” fitness mantra for as long as I could. I finally visited with my doctor.
We exchanged laughs and chatted per usual until…Suddenly her light energy shifted to a pensive one accompanied by an eerie pause that gave me goosebumps and an unsettling feeling that I had felt years before.
After several hours & numerous tests, she sat me down, and advised me to call my husband to meet me there.
When he arrived, my doctor’s eyes darted across the room in her discomfort then fixed on me, with a look of concern.
Now ,7 years later we would hear familiar words, “I’m sorry”, “You will need to prepare” this time followed by, “You have cancer.”
I looked at my doctor with tears in her eyes and said “we will be okay” …trying to comfort her. I looked at my husband and said “I am sorry” trying to comfort him.
Barely processing the gravity of what I had just been told I felt more guilt than fear. I couldn’t bear the thought of being a source of grief to everyone…again!
I had been in a perpetual spiral for years, I hid the torment of my daughters’ death never fully tending to my need to grieve and process all that had happened to her, to me, to us… until cancer came as a messenger.
One message was loud: to live, I had to honor the trauma that had buried itself in the very fiber of my cells… the love lost that was looking for a home. My grief was looking to be carried with dignity and reverence.
My selfless warriors, who hide truths, often too heavy to bear What does your heart grieve? How do you carry your pain?
As a speaker, facilitator, and a diversity equity inclusion practitioner I curate brave spaces for crucial conversations. I amplify marginalized voices so that they feel a sense of belonging. I champion individuals to step into the light of their own truth authentically without judgment or shame … as I had so desired for myself.
Today I amplify the voice of any of you who appears to show up effortlessly for others at the expense of yourself.
My ability to effect change was catalyzed by cancer sounding the alarm and alerting me to my unprocessed grief. It offered me a choice to experience healing, and transformation through self-empathy and truth telling.
You don’t need cancer to come to you as a messenger. Let me be yours. What your heart grieves is valid. What you long for in living beyond your losses … is also valid.
We are forever changed by what has broken our hearts. Grief doesn’t just (poof) go away. It lives on a continuum. Our memory of trauma revisits us in different way in different seasons of our lives feeling new each time we experience it. What transforms… is our relationship with it.
Grit and grace are required to navigate the way forward… because face it we like solid ground to stand on and sometimes the path of healing feels bottomless.
To taste the sweetness of life beyond the bitter bites that you have been served, you must walk in truth with yourself first then with others. Your story matters.
Today I invite you back to YOUR LIFE here and now.
We are a beautiful mosaic bound by jagged little pieces where light comes shining through just a bit differently…colored by our life experiences.
Today for the first time I stand unfolding in my full truth out loud with the universe and with you.
And I do so, imploring YOU to witness what you’ve been entrusted in life, body, and time. Bravely seek meaning in the moments that have shaped the masterpiece that is YOU.
It is then you will find the light illuminating your path towards healing, transformation and wholeness while gaining courage to live boldly in the imperfection of it all.
[TEDx Kingston TRANSCRIPT]
Event Location : Kingston University
Kingston, Ontario Canada
Event Date: 6 February 2023
Video Link - SEE HERE