The Hug That Spanned 45 Years

Birthday Reflections, Healing, and the Courage to Keep Going

A hug that spanned 45 years. This week, I returned to the place where my mother rests, wrapped my arms around her stone, and let my heart speak the words I’ve carried for decades. Healing isn’t always visible—but it lives in these quiet, sacred moments.

Healing from trauma isn’t neat or pretty. It’s raw. It’s messy. It rises and falls like the tides—waves of clarity followed by currents of deep emotion. Some days bring peace; others bring pain. Sometimes both show up in the same breath.

For much of my life, I silenced my feelings. I kept moving, kept pushing, kept surviving. But pain doesn’t vanish when ignored—it lingers. It brews beneath the surface until something cracks. I’ve had many of those breaking points. Each one painful. Each one, in hindsight, sacred.

This week I visited my mother. It’s been 45 years since she left this world. Her headstone is worn from decades of weather, tucked into a quiet corner of a small cemetery. The sun was shining gently over her name, and the birds—my ever-present messengers—stood watch. I wrapped my arms around her stone and gave her a hug—for me, and for my sisters. I needed a hug that day, and maybe she did too.

Having turned 54 this week, I find myself reflecting deeply—not just on the life I’ve lived, but on the healing I’ve walked through to get here. Healing takes courage. Not just the courage to break generational patterns, but the courage to look inward. To see our own imperfections. To acknowledge the pain we’ve caused, not just the pain we’ve endured. True healing asks us to forgive others, yes—but just as importantly, to forgive ourselves.

In my 20s and 30s, alcohol gave me a false sense of courage. It allowed me to say what I was too afraid to voice sober. It dulled the pain and made the truth more bearable—for a little while. But real courage doesn’t come in a bottle. It comes from turning inward, feeling what needs to be felt, and learning to let go.

Yoga has been my steady companion on this healing journey. It taught me how to listen. How to be still. How to feel.

Child’s pose, in particular, became my sanctuary. There were days I would melt into it for an hour—sometimes relaxed, other times sobbing as long-buried memories surfaced. But it was always safe. Always held. That’s what yoga offers: the invitation to heal in an organic way, letting things rise when we’re ready to release them.

And then… Ayurveda found me. The science of self-healing. Where yoga opened the door to awareness, Ayurveda became the path that helped me walk forward. It taught me how to nourish myself, how to support my nervous system, how to live in harmony with nature and my own unique constitution. Together, yoga and Ayurveda have not only supported my healing—they’ve transformed my life.

Personal Reflection: Walking Through Healing in Real Time

As I write this, I’m in the midst of an unexpected but powerful wave of healing — one that has taken root both physically and emotionally. I came down with an illness that began as mild congestion and quickly turned into a sore throat, fatigue, sneezing, and deep sinus congestion. My body has felt heavy, sluggish, and inflamed — classic signs of Kapha and Vata imbalance. And while it may seem like just a spring cold on the surface, I know this is more than that.

This illness arrived alongside my menstrual cycle, during a week of deep emotional release — triggered in part by reflections I shared in my Mother’s Day blog. That post opened a well of grief tied to my mother’s passing, unresolved trauma, and ancestral wounds I’ve carried for decades. Adding to the emotional intensity, my Owen left for a business trip — something that doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I almost always get sick. I’ve come to recognize this pattern as a trauma imprint: my nervous system equates temporary separation with abandonment. It echoes the night my mother left and never came back.

This has been a tender reminder that healing doesn’t always look peaceful. Sometimes it looks like soup you can’t taste, tears by the fire, yelling at the kids because your nervous system is overwhelmed, and realizing you’ve taken on too much again. It’s sitting in the rain of your own emotions and letting them soak through.

Cream of Asparagus & Potato Soup  Made with love and sipped slowly through a week of healing. I couldn’t taste much, but I could feel the nourishment. Sometimes comfort doesn’t come through flavor—it comes through presence, warmth, and choosing to care for yourself, one bowl at a time. Click on the image for the recipe!

But it’s also choosing warmth, choosing gentleness, choosing to pause — even when the to-do list keeps calling. For me, it’s been about curling up with tulsi, cardamom, and licorice tea, stretching gently by the fire, and remembering to mother myself the way I’ve longed to be mothered.

I’m also in a numerological year 9 — a year of endings, release, and composting old patterns. That feels so aligned right now. I can sense something bigger shifting: the ending of who I’ve had to be to survive, and the emergence of something softer, steadier, more rooted. Not yet fully visible… but undeniably on its way.

This isn’t a story of “I healed and now I teach.” It’s a story of I am healing — right now — and I’m inviting you into the process.

In a bed of daisies, I felt her presence. My mother loved these flowers, and I believe they’re one of the ways she still reaches me. After visiting her grave, a single daisy stood waiting at the gate—as if to say, ‘I’m with you.’ I almost turned back to leave it for her… but something told me to carry it with me instead. She doesn’t need a stone to be remembered—she’s blooming all around me.

So here I stand at 54, not fully healed (is anyone?), but more whole than I’ve ever been. I’m learning to mother myself in all the ways I’ve longed for. To tend the wounds I once ignored. To live a life that’s rooted in balance and rising toward light.

If you’re walking this path too—of grief, of awakening, of healing—please know you’re not alone. Healing isn’t linear. It’s not always graceful. But it is sacred. And you are worthy of every step.

If something in this story resonates with you—if you’ve been craving healing, rhythm, or a deeper connection to yourself—I invite you to explore the tools that have guided me: Yoga and Ayurveda. They’ve helped me find my way home to myself, one breath, one meal, one moment at a time.

I just released my Intro to Ayurveda ebook, a heartfelt guide to help you begin understanding this beautiful science of self-healing.

Intro to Ayurveda - eBook

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May your journey be gentle, and may you always feel held—by the earth, by your breath, and by the love that surrounds you.

With healing love,

Jennifer

Madelyn, playing in the same patch of daisies that bloom near the lake. They weren’t fully open yet, but she was drawn to them—curious, gentle, joyful. I wonder if somehow, she knows. If she feels the presence of the great-grandmother she never met, in the same way I do—in petals, in play, in light.

A bouquet from my daughter, gently wrapped in a few daisies I picked for my mother. She never met her grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but I see her in the flowers, in the love passed down, and in quiet moments like this. She lives on in ways that can't always be seen, but are always felt.