If you were to strike up a conversation about taking time off to do something fun or relaxing, I bet you would be surrounded by people with a “deer caught in the headlights” type of glance.

We have become a society filled with doers. People who must keep busy at all costs. If they are busy with tasks, they can talk themselves into believing that they are working hard. And working hard fills them with a sense of purpose and worth.

In recent years, I have taken a step back and reevaluated my approach to many of the tasks I involve myself with in regard to the workings of my business. And I was often doing things for no other reason than to convince myself that I was indeed working hard because I was busy and didn’t have time to take a break. When in fact I could get the things that truly needed to get done in a lot less time if I just worked more efficiently. And with efficiency came extra time for other things.

I was able to find time to spend a few hours visiting...

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After returning home, I felt safe again.  Safety, security what beautiful sensations in my body.  I felt safe in my bones.  And now that I had a sense of safety in my life I could move forward with healing and personal growth.

After a day or two of being home, I thought to look at my calendar with the help of my sisters.  I realized that I had registered for a two-day, 20-hour seminar prior to my hospitalization.  It was in one week.  Ugghhhh.  Could I do it?  Should I do it?  I waited until the day before to make my final decision and figured I wanted to give it a try.  It was an hour and a half away in the Minneapolis/St Paul area.  Jim drove me up there since I had not driven in a long time and I was not comfortable at all behind the wheel.  He would be returning on Sunday evening to bring me back home.  I went into the seminar with my overnight bag to begin day one of the seminar.  My sister...

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I want to say that it was the morning after connecting with my mom that I woke up and looked around my room and for the first time I thought to myself – I think I’m in the hospital.  And when Jim got there that day, we had a conversation where I was asking him why I was there?  And he would answer with statements like, “I would tell you if I could” or “we don’t know why this is happening”.  Both very appropriate answers for the question I asked.  However, you must understand that I was coming out of this blackness with very little recollection of the past weeks and my world was not how I remembered it.  A better answer from my husband would have been something like, “I came home from work and you weren’t yourself, we came to the hospital to check you out and we have been trying to figure it out for the past weeks.  Do you remember any of that?”

This exchange is one that I...

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So began my five weeks and one day stay at St Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. During the early weeks that I was in the hospital I remember bits and pieces.  It was as though I would come in and out of times of awareness but as far as wanting to communicate with anyone that was a no-brainer.  I didn’t have the energy or the desire to let others in.  They tell me I stopped talking completely.  I was even diagnosed at one point as being catatonic because all I would do throughout the day was sit there and not speak to anyone.  I had no malicious intent by not speaking, in my mind I just needed a moment of quiet, of peace, some stillness to just take a breath.

During those first few weeks they were doing their doctorly thing and running every test they could think of trying to figure out what was going on.  I wasn’t really communicating with anyone at that time.  I underwent constant blood work....

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 Come listen to a story ‘bout a woman named Becky

A middle-class professional barley maintaining her sanity

And then one day she was sooo de-energized

That she broke with reality and ended up hospitalized

Five weeks that is, stopped communicating, was in her own world.

Why I started this blog with a little throw back to my youth watching episodes of “The Beverly Hillbillies” I don’t know.  Or maybe I do.  Stay tuned.

You know people talk about those life altering events?  Well, this was mine.  The year was 2014, February 21^st.  We had just gotten dumped with snow.  Plows were out doing their thing.  I got up to get ready for my day ahead seeing only one client that day.  Usually, I don’t hold office hours on Friday.  But this particular day I had made an exception.  My husband had worked a night shift so when he got home that morning around 8am he found me wandering...