Episode 0: About Jill

If you want to hear a bit of my personal history, read on (if not, proceed to Episode #1). Maybe you’ll see a bit of yourself in my story. Spoiler: The image of the vet and the cat is not a picture of me.

I am a “Cradle Catholic”, raised by good Catholic parents who ushered me through the rites of Baptism, First Communion, and Confirmation. I enjoyed the 1980s version of the Catholic Church. At least at the churches I went to we had good musical groups with lots of guitar and songs you could actually sing.

But we ended up moving three times during my high school years, and despite my loving parents and strong Catholic faith, I suffered from anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. I found myself at the end of high school trying to choose a path for the rest of my life.

I always got good grades and the teachers all told me I could do pretty much anything, so I decided I should do something difficult with my God-given intelligence. My parents were both pharmacists, I loved science, and I loved animals, so I finally decided to become a veterinarian. Yes—that was literally my thinking. I had no idea what being a veterinarian really entailed, but I knew it took 8 years of study and was not an easy path, so I went with it.

I got a degree in Biomedical Science and went on to vet school, but as time passed, I realized that veterinary medicine wasn’t really what I wanted to do with my life. I grew more anxious and depressed as the years went on. At 25 years old, after seven and a half years of college and a nervous breakdown, I finally made the decision to quit vet school and preserve what was left of my sanity. I had passed my national board exams and was within 6 months of graduating with a degree in veterinary medicine, but I knew it was what I had to do. I felt enormous relief as I went around campus taking care of all of the details one must when dropping out of college.

A month later, I married my college sweetheart. We kept going to church, had a couple of kids, and got them both through Baptism and First Communion. I joined the choir, and my husband and I even taught Sunday School for a while. But eventually we both became disillusioned with the Catholic Church. I remember telling the priest during Confession one Saturday that I feared I was losing my faith. His answer? He handed me a Catholic magazine and told me to read it. I did, but it only served to convince me that I wasn’t actually Catholic at all.

I finally started exploring the idea that there is no God. It made more sense to me that everyone lives for a while, then dies, and all that remains is whatever people remember of you. I left open the possibility that I could be wrong, so I hovered somewhere between atheistic and agnostic.

During all of this my mental state deteriorated. I went through so many different therapists and none really helped. Medications helped ease my depression, but nothing helped me develop any sense of worth or self-esteem. I lived in fear of letting down the ones I cared about. I contemplated suicide, feeling that perhaps my husband would be better off not having to worry about me anymore.

As the stresses of work, parenthood, and aging parents came to bear, my husband and I would argue more, and I became convinced that he would tire of it all and divorce me. That was never actually true, but I would spend hours crying, and my eldest child—maybe 10 or so at the time—would try to comfort me and be the strong one. I had no idea how hard that would be on my child's psyche in the long run. 

The good news is—my husband and I went to counseling together, and we came out of that understanding each other so much better. We became better partners for each other, and better parents for our kids.

The bad news is—I was still basing my self-worth on my ability to take care of others. I homeschooled my kids and ended up bonding with them so tightly that they are both in college and I am still struggling with letting go. I took care of my aging mother until the day she died, then felt guilty for not having been there to hold her hand during her dying breath.

Then a miracle happened. I stumbled upon a therapist with an impressive array of skills, including hypnotherapy. After several sessions, we decided to try EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and then moved on to hypnosis.

And…it worked. Within a year, the hypnosis plus the therapy sessions that followed accomplished what 25 years of therapy could not. I discovered that I had been carrying around the guilt and anger from a rape I endured in college more than 30 years ago, and purging that and some other baggage left me feeling lighter, more alive, more present than I have ever felt.

My therapist and I got to talking about religion and spirituality after that, and I told him my back story. He pointed me towards some resources that have literally changed my life. I discovered a depth of spiritual awakening within me that I’d only felt hinted at throughout my life. It was like I’d been gathering pieces of the puzzle here and there but never had a clue how to put them together. Suddenly everything clicked.

And now here I am, reading and listening to lectures and stretching myself to further deepen this newfound spiritual awakening, and hoping that by sharing my journey with you, we will both benefit. If you saw a little bit of yourself in my story somewhere, let me know. I'll be detailing more of what I've discovered in future episodes, and I look forward to hearing any comments or questions you have.