I was, I am

Unfixed quotes (and video!)

Because the condition of my heart is in such a place of healing, I don’t need my body to be healed anymore. I want to be able to spread the joy, hope and trust that I have to other people—to know that your body doesn’t have to be fixed in order for your heart to be healed.

Kristy Boyd - Trigeminal Neuralgia, CPTSD

I don’t know about you, but the quote above from the Unfixed episode I Was, I Am makes my heart beat wildly with yes, yes, yes!

(Whilst my ego shouts no, no, no!!!!)

And over here in the land of unfixed, both are valid claims on a messy existence. While the life-coaching IG feeds and self-actualization podcasts might disagree, I’m learning that the contractions and expansions are vital expressions of yearning and arrival, tenderness and resilience, embodiment and transcendence. When I allow conflicting experiences to co-exist, instead of always reaching for resolve, something in me relaxes, the static quiets, and a steady awareness knits itself around and within.

Kristy’s experience living with Trigeminal Neuralgia, an excruciating disorder commonly known as the “suicide disease," is rife with opposites. Also a survivor of childhood trauma, her layers of pain pierce through the emotional and the physical. While exploring her past and present selves for the episode I Was, I Am, she doesn’t shy away from the terror and angst of her story, but she also reveals a growing sense of unconditional peace—a state that imbues whether her body heals or not. With two brain surgeries down and possibly more in the future, the overwhelm is felt and real. And as she shares, so is the grace.

In I Was, I Am, the Unfixed cast explore their pre- and post-diagnosis selves—the parts they lost, the parts that have been reshaped and the parts birthed into being. Many agree, "I used to be more social,” "I used to be more spontaneous," or "I had bigger plans for my life," and in the same breath offer, "I am now more present, more empathic and more aware of my inherent self-worth." Collectively they demonstrate how chronic illness carves away at our identities while paradoxically deepening and strengthening our characters. Always living on the chronic continuum, some years we feel more the hard-edged chisel, others a fortifying balm.

Below are a few more memorable quotes to reflect upon. Then click on the video player to enter the ever-evolving, unself-ing timelines of the unfixed in I Was, I Am.

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I’ve changed, I don’t dream so big anymore. Small moments of beauty and joy and deliciousness. Belly laughs, the sound of the wind in the leaves changing as the evergreens blow strong language, are more important, more extraordinary. What everybody writes about—the best poets, the best spiritual teachers—about kindness and love being the most important things are true. - Jacqueline, Polycythemia Vera (Blood Cancer)

I’m more at peace with the outcome of ALS, but passing by suffocation is a serious challenge to maintain a peaceful mind through. I still have time to practice though, train in equanimity. Through my practice I aspire to grow into my spirit, such that even those strong cries of my body and survival instincts will be just leaves dropping on the ocean of my eternal self, so full of love there will be no room to fear. - Dylan, ALS

I’ve become willing to accept help, which has been a big step for me. I realize that not accepting help robs somebody of the opportunity to use their spiritual gifts of helpfulness, love and grace. - Brian, Crohn’s Disease

I’m not saying chronic illness and chronic pain and disease are not difficult, and some people lose themselves in it, but eventually, many of us with help and a lot of willpower and strength, are able to look at what the illness has done for us, not what it has done to us. - Stephanie, Fibromyalgia, Facial Pain Disorders