In the mirror are all the women I am walking home. I see my heroine's journey and the journeys of my ancestors. On this noble matriarch's migration, I am the captain entrusted to chart the course of totality. Our collective wholeness brings revelations, reclamations, and renewal. In the mirror, I see home. 

My healing journey began decades ago—it sputtered, stalled, started, sputtered, stalled, and started again. My evolution rotated on this cycle for decades through many incarnations of self. It worked, that is, until a conversation with my daughter launched the bonfire of my ultimate Phoenix renewal.

Weeks before her ninth birthday, after tucking her into bed, I settled beside her for our nightly conversation. It was one of my favorite parts of the day. I loved listening as she unwound the day's happiness and hurdles. Sorting through a particular social struggle, she shared feeling sad after her friend commented, "I could never draw like that." I listened to her describe a strategy to stop drawing at school or not to share her artwork with that friend. My inner voice immediately responded, "NO!" I began speaking about her inner light and the birthright to shine her distinctive nature. I encouraged her to be loyal to her individuality and emphatically instructed her to never, under any circumstances, selectively dim her light for anyone.

As the words left my mouth, I saw the image of my shadow on her stage. Hot, remorse-loaded tears of hypocrisy erupted from my eyes. I was not living true to my own words of wisdom. The shadow I cast was not of a woman shining her distinctive light with the rheostat on its highest setting. Instead, it reflected an uncertain soul hiding behind self-created shade, quietly gagging on the reflux of her deepest fears. 

In that moment of disconnect between parental advice, aspirations, and the life I was living, I experienced an awakening—a rather rude one. My mothering advice sucker punched my facade, knocking away all the carefully placed, tightly wound layers of insulation. There would be no return to my faux Eden. Later that night, my restless soul began speaking its litany of truths. As my family slept, I paced the halls and rooms looking for a way out of the trap I'd set for myself in suburbia. The hint of my daughters dwelling in my ill-fitting shoes - even for a nanosecond - was bigger than any fear I'd ever imagined. 

Haunted, I began to exfoliate layers of shame and masks of miseducation. I welcomed therapies to naviagte, heal and reveal my inner light. The process taught me to recognize and identify habitual thought patterns and life strategies that once sustained me but no longer held value. Today, I remain open and committed to therapies of healing; it's a lifelong partnership. The deeper I go, the more my soul expands in wisdom and vibrancy. It's the best gift I can give to myself and my daughters. And, the more I am attuned, the more I feel my ancestor's presence walking with me, guiding me toward my writing, purpose, power, magic, and the reckoning of my role in our lineage. In the mirror, I see the cycle-breaker, navigator, storyteller, healer, phoenix, and matriarch my ancestors called into being. In my mirror is the reflection and answer to my many matriarch's dreams and the pacemaker of new paths ahead for my descendants.