Speaking My Truth

Becoming Zia . . . 

is an amazing process of transformation and awakening.  It is exciting and challenging at the same time.  The key to the whole transformation was the diagnoses of a tumor on my parathyroid gland in my throat.  This tumor had been a long time coming, I just didn’t know about it.  When I was diagnosed I was shocked to learn that the parathyroid was separate and had an entirely different function than the thyroid.  Decades ago I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, a disease that destroys thyroid tissue.  And I had been struggling with it a lot the past six years.  Now, I had a tumor on my parathyroid? Something totally separate from the other disease.  What was going on! It made me start thinking.  Louise Hay and her belief about creating dis-ease in our bodies came to me one morning.  I also thought about the Chakra system and the 5th Chakra - the throat.  It was becoming clear to me that my throat had a message for me and I hadn’t been listening.  It was time I did.

I started doing research on both.  In Louise Hays book You Can Heal Your Life she has a directory of problems and their emotional connection.  The thyroid and parathyroid was “ability to speak up for oneself, ask for what you want, and self expression ”  I looked up the 5th charka and found things about “speaking your truth”, “opening communication between the head and the heart”,   and if blocked it creates problems like “stuffing feelings”, “blocked flow of energy”, “inability to speak up for yourself.” The more I read the more I understood.  My throat was trying to tell me something for years and I had been ignoring it.

Most of my life I had been interested in pleasing others and being a “nice” person. I was keenly aware of others needs, and usually ignored my own. If ever I was angry, or felt mistreated, I just swallowed my anger and moved on. I ignored my needs, and pretended it was okay when I felt slighted or ignored by others. I stayed in relationships that were dysfunctional and blamed myself for not working hard enough, or for expecting too much and being too judgmental. Never realizing that I was not getting my needs met, I didn’t consider that, or even felt that mattered.  For most of my life I had been turning to food to fill all these unmet needs and bury my unspoken truths. This pattern, along with bottling up all the anger, pain, and unfulfilled needs created a fat woman with major throat problems!

Another thing becoming clear was that this blockage in my throat was also stopping the flow of knowledge.  The communication from my head to my heart.  For years I have been working hard, studying spiritual principals, reading tons of books, taking classes and workshops.  All the time gaining all sorts of knowledge that I could never put  fully into action in my life.  I knew it in my head, but that was a far as it went. I could talk the talk, but I had problems walking the walk.  When I researched about the 5th Chakra I finally understood that I had an energy block and physical block in my throat, keeping the flow of knowledge from making the journey to my heart.

I knew I had to look at my life and make changes.  There was no other choice for me.  I had created a serious thyroid problem and a tumor in my throat! Thankfully, a higher power was looking out for me.  When I planned the trip to New Mexico this summer I had no idea I was going to begin healing a life long pattern of ignoring my truth, but that’s what happened.  I was broken open through a magical series of events and forever changed.  The tumor in my throat was really a gift, a gift of awareness that is transforming my life. Although it is gone now, successfully removed in early December, I have the scar that will always be a reminder to me. It has connected me to my own wholeness.  Now, learning how to speak my truth and be authentic will be an ongoing practice.  And, I am up for it!  That is part of growing and part of connecting with the real essence of my being, not something I manufactured hoping to make others happy or love me.  It’s me, becoming Zia.