A novel is born.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be an author. I dreamed about it my entire childhood. Holding books, I'd marvel over how incredible it must feel to have others hold your stories in their hands.

The wild part of that is, until my hand was divinely forced, this was a dream that I never sought to breathe into actuality.

As backwards as it seems, I never allowed myself to believe that being who I truly desired to be was an actual possibility because I was too wrapped up in all of the lies that I fed myself.

A list of mental reasons, written on my heart, served as the steady reminder and “proof” that I was incapable of being the woman I dreamed of.

Deceitful stories rocked around my head and heart like…

“Just because I desire this so purely, doesn’t mean that I’m deserving.”

“I’ve never had anything nationally published before, so who would take me seriously?”

“I didn’t score high enough on the writing portion of my AP English exam back in high school, so my writing wouldn’t be good enough to publish.”

“I’m too old to start now- so it can’t happen.”

“Authors write multiple books per month; I can’t produce that type of output so I can’t be an author…”

Every time my desire called out to me, the inner critic cried louder, silencing my hopes with new reasoning and bold lies.

& yet… there was still hope.

While all of these lies echoed strongly against the walls of my heart for years, they never penetrated through the tissues of the most tender & secretive corner of my soul.

For that, I’m deeply grateful.

I have vivid memories of driving home from work in my early twenties, and being plagued the entire way by a flashes of strange & beautiful story that uncontrollably began unfolding right before me.

I had no idea who these people were… I wasn’t exactly sure what was even going on… but I could feel them. I simultaneously carried the weight of their pain and clung to the hope they held.

Without fail, each time I pulled in my driveway after this journey home, I’d be startled by the realization that I had no idea how I’d gotten there. I didn’t remember the drive at all.

I hadn’t been lost in thoughts of work, or dreaming up vacations or fake arguments in my head.

No… my mind had been lost watching, witnessing, and held captivated by intense visions that I couldn’t explain. I’d be in tears, fully feeling the overwhelm of the emotional experiences of characters I didn’t know. Their pain was my pain. I felt it calling me— screaming at me to take action. I knew then, that I had to allow them to tell their story and I wanted so desperately to be their voice. I felt chosen and trusted to carry this through.

Yet, for years I continued to allow the lies I fed myself to place these intense desires on a shelf because they told me that I was unworthy of rising to the occasion. After all, who did I think I was to answer my deepest calling?

The stories we tell ourselves can be either our freedom or our prison.

If we find freedom in these narratives, they will both serve and guide us like a strong wind underneath our wings- lifting us towards all of the opportunities and possibilities that are truly meant for us.

Conversely, they can be the torturous cages that we keep ourselves trapped inside of- separating us from all the good & goodness that we are capable of, and making us alien to all of our deepest & truest gifts. If you never break free of negative narratives, you’ll surely wither away. By allowing these lies to consume your hearts, you grant them the opportunity to slowly destroy you, leaving nothing but barren and broken person in its wake.

Throughout the years of my private internal battle, I clung to one thing: my pure deep desire.

Speaking it aloud was too risky.

I didn’t want to voice my fragile dream aloud when I didn’t feel worthy of it, much less open up the most tender part of my heart to the world for their judgement. So for years, although my nasty internal dialogue threatened to put out the light of my desire entirely, I quietly nurtured the flame… in secret.

I lived for these wild experiences that would come to me, during the most unexpected times, where I could see and feel this intense connection to these absolute fictional people… I had no idea exactly how their story would unfold, yet I hoped and prayed that I’d be able to be the one to bring it to light.

The years passed.

Finally, seeing no other way around it, God gifted me with my own dark-night-of-the-soul to finally birth this dream into reality.

My hand was forced.

He’d funneled me gorgeous visions and given me years to accomplish my deepest heart’s desire on my own, but because I continually chose to believe the lie that I was unworthy, it remained undone. The longer it remained unwritten, the more intensely I felt an ever deepening sense of un-fulfillment in my life.

In 2013, as a new mother struggling in the thick of the night, alone more often than not, with an extra needs baby who was all consuming in ways that his little self couldn’t control, I lost myself.

This was my dark-night-of-the-soul.

No one prepares you for motherhood.

They throw you baby showers and giddily rub your swollen belly, but no one ever tells you that with the birth of your child, you will also experience a death.

Maybe they fret over being the bearer of honestly radical news? But all I can think is: how trivial and essential it should be for women to know this before hand.

I feel that this might be why so many women battle with PPD (postpartum depression) after they welcome their babies into the world: we aren’t told the honest truth of what to expect.

The reality is, when your baby arrives, the woman that you were will die.

And what’s more — that’s OKAY. Because…

With the birth of each and every child that you carry earth-side, you will also be reborn.

Why do we not share this most trivial piece of information with new mothers? In keeping it hush-hush we are doing a complete disservice to these women and the gift of motherhood in general by sweeping this HUGE life changing shift under the rug like it’s something to quickly avoid all contact with.

The reality (I wish I’d known) is that, when you hold that baby in your arms everything inside of you will shift in ways that you cannot predict or control.

The you that you were, is no longer there. Burned down to nothing but ash, a new version of you will emerge from the ashes : a rising phoenix.

Reminiscent of that Taylor Swift song… “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, because she’s dead.”

You lose yourself in the glorious and messy reality of motherhood and without the acknowledgement that this is a true and very real death & rebirth cycle that happens, we flounder hopelessly in the chaotic aftermath trying to figure out what the heck is "wrong" with us.

“How does everyone else seem so okay? What’s wrong with ME that I don’t feel at home in my own body anymore, but they all seem fine?”

Let’s not even talk about how you, mother, have felt physically alienated within your own physical vessel by hosting another body and soul within your own for such a long period of time. Only to follow this crazy experience by going through the most excruciating and primally powerful physical experience of your life to fully bring them earth-side.

Then, just when you think the toughest work is behind you, you suddenly find yourself battling the strange sensation of feeling so physically hollow, spiritually dead and emotionally full at the same time.

The abrupt welcome into motherhood isn’t for the faint of heart.

In between the sleepless nights and days, unaware of these truths, I drifted forward in complete survival mode.

Now I can appreciate and understand this period of time for what it was— a baby year.

Years later, I had someone mention the idea of a baby year to me.

“Baby years don’t count,” they told me. “I don’t worry about anything else in that first 365 days—you’re just trying to survive.”

I felt that so deeply and wished I’d of known this when I welcomed my first child. Perhaps I would have given myself, and the process, so much more grace.

But, since no one prepared me for the reality of what I’d experience once I became a mother…

the changes that would flip my world upside down emotionally, spiritually and individually…

...unknowing that this was my opportunity to be reborn — an absolute possible phoenix moment... I was, as many of us are, lost.

I struggled for months and months, and then the months grew into years.

I felt betrayed by the unfamiliarity of my entire being.

I was consumed by a nursing child who refused to ever take a bottle or pacifier, which left me completely physically touched out 24/7 for years. On top of that, I felt the very real (and very ridiculous) overwhelming pressure to “get my body back.” (I won’t even start on that tangent.)

All the while, it felt increasingly difficult to recognize myself in the aftermath.

And yet, as obvious as it seems now, I couldn’t figure out why I felt so hollow as a human (as Carrie the woman, not Carrie the mother) because I was checking all of society’s boxes. Wasn't that supposed to be enough?

I had no other choice, at the risk of truly losing my entire self for good, but to seek out a form of escape.

Somewhere I could go that I was in control. The life I was currently living left me feeling powerless. I had a hunch that if I could connect to my inner-power once more, I would be strong enough to save myself. It was my last hope.

I remember getting up one Sunday morning, feeling on the brink of insanity, and asking (probably begging) my husband to take our son to church without me. I just needed to be alone for an hour or two. I also recall how absurdly guilty I felt banishing them from my bubble.

After they left, I stood there alone for what felt like the first time in forever, and had absolutely no idea what to do with myself. Mothering myself wasn’t part of my knowledge or language. All I’d been told was “sleep when the baby sleeps” but not only did that not work (my son never slept) but that wasn’t anything that remotely felt like filling my cup. It just felt like staying alive. Pure survival.

Struggling in survival mode had become the way I went through each day. I knew that I couldn’t carry on that way much longer.

“How to tap back into myself? How do I feel me again?” I wondered. “Maybe I’ll read a book.”

I love to read, and for my entire life up until that day, reading had served as my escape. The power a book holds in its ability to truly transport your soul through lifetimes and adventures otherwise untouched, is just magical. So, I tried to read a book. A few pages in, I was utterly crestfallen to discover that it wasn’t working.

I didn’t want to get lost in another world that was also out of my control….

That’s when it hit me. The visions and feelings that had been haunting me for years were ready to be born into reality. I would do it. I would allow them to come forward, out of the shadows of my mind and heart for the first time. It seemed like the only hope… an experiment of sorts… a final attempt at connecting with the real Carrie… if she even still was alive.

I pulled out my laptop, settled down at the kitchen table, and stared at the blank white page before me. I had no plan, just a burning desire to save myself.

I started typing.

I remember there were points where I couldn’t type as fast as the words came (which is saying a lot because I’m a pretty proficient typer).

Suddenly, I was snapped back into reality by the garage door slamming shut. I could hear a diaper bag land on the floor and the sound of small footsteps coming down the hallway.

I shook my head and tried to bite my tongue. Of course the moment I began to feel something remotely familiar, the feeling would be interrupted. “Did you guys forget something?” I called to my husband irritatedly, unsure of why they’d returned so soon.

“What? No.” My husband stated looking at me strangely as he rounded the corner with our son leading the way.

“Oh…” I began frustrated at the interruption but searching for words, unsure how to continue. It felt like no more than fifteen minutes and passed since they walked out the door they had just re-entered through.

“Did you have a nice break?” He continued.

I glared at him in confusion, fighting both the urge to say something snarky and the desire strangle him at the same time. “What do you mean? You guys just left. Did they cancel church or something?”

“What?!” He looked at me like I was insane. “Carrie, we went to church and even the park afterwards for a couple of hours because I was trying to give you as much time as I could; but he needs to nurse and take a nap so we came back.”

As my son clambered at my legs and began tugging at my blouse, I looked over at the clock.

The realization that they’d been gone for hours hit me like a truck. I looked back at my computer screen and discovered that the previously blank page had been replaced by… the chapter of a story… one that I’d had no real idea I was writing.

Hours?! I’d been flooded with words, hastily typing this story, and finally breathing life into this alien tale for hours?!

What!?

That was the first time I experienced the glorious phenomena that some call: flow state.

Later, as I read back on what I’d written, and even named, “Eyes on Fire,” I realized that pieces of Carrie were still alive.

I just had to fight for my life to save her by feeding her time and space in this incredibly magical state. It was the only time I felt her in the years that followed…

When I was writing, free of distractions, judgements, expectations and harsh self criticisms, I felt free to be me.