Who I am

My drive to show up, rise, persevere and go above and beyond, through whatever situations came my way was never in question. My determination, tenacity and grit is a non-negotiable part of who I am at my core. What I began to question was my choice to continue exerting this energy to make everyone else comfortable and be the Tyler everyone expected. That era was over.

Alignment with my own self-love and voice was the missing piece. This required dropping the masks I had worn my whole life, pretending, hiding, escaping the truth I had been carrying:

I am a generational cycle breaker.

I’ve personally lived through and been impacted by domestic violence, gun violence, alcoholism, codependency, an eating disorder, insomnia, sexual trauma, spiritual shame… all leading to total self-aversion and the repression of my own voice and beauty. Fear ruled my life. Every decision. Every thought. Waking up & immediately judging myself, or dreading the day ahead. At the same time, outwardly, I am and always have been kind, simply because I know how it feels to experience pain. Why (ever) cast pain onto others when you don’t even know the path they’ve walked? At the same time, behind every smile of mine was a smidge of fear because I was not rooted in myself 110%.

I was completely disconnected from my body, from my soul, from my voice. I didn’t love or trust myself because I didn’t know the real Tyler. She was buried, daily, for far too long. I learned to ignore my bodily cues, my needs, feelings and emotions. The Tyler everyone saw was a master of disguise, wrapped up in a “young face” and an apparent “beautiful life” I had built.

What led to the pivot?

There were a series of whispers, or glimmers, that came first to me, that were calling me forward, into the “new” life. These moments of happiness and dharma happened at the same time as a painful series of earth-shattering moments.

Crushing Pressure Began to Take its Last Toll

I shared with a loved one, “I feel so dreadful” and the response was, “but you’ve built a beautiful life for yourself, Ty.” My heart sank. It wasn’t beautiful on my terms.

My life didn’t feel like mine. “Dreadful” was an understatement. It was the life I forced, out of a daily habit of shoulds, the output of a lifetime of pleasing, following and trying to make the beaten path work - pretending it was working.

Every day that I spent forcing myself to stay on auto-pilot, to go, learn, do, produce, and execute all the things, was another day I walked away from my truth. Masking up, pretending and keeping others comfortable required me to abandon myself, every day, while trying my hardest to appear “happy” or like “I have my shit together” and be the Tyler everyone expected.

“Networking” Event Exposed Collective Suffering

The last pin to drop was a women’s networking event where I put on my best blazer, heels & mental-corporate-dress rehearsal one last time. I had just completed 100+ networking conversations in the prior 2-3 months as apart of a Career Management Program I joined. While I knew inspired action led me here, my goal was to put myself out there (yet again) and find a mentor or two to help me “grow” in the ways the corporate system was wanting, and even better, land a new role with compensation I felt I deserved for the level I had been functioning at, for years.

Instead? This was a different kind of networking event - it was an event where women were encouraged to be raw, real, and share their absolute truth. I found out that many of these women, 10-15 years older than me, were carrying a similar pain. Giving up their life, their loved ones, and special moments for a system that failed them. They were in roles I had previously seen myself in, roles I had on my 5 to 10+ year career vision slide deck. I shared my heart’s truth and soul mission as I understood it, then, with this incredible group of women. I was in shock, nervous, and I knew: There was no going back from this moment.

The glimmer at this networking event was meeting a woman who saw me in pain, and offered to chat. The kicker? The first sentence I heard her say was “I’m a clairsentient witch” and my brain made a u-turn. Huh? What did she just say? What does she do? I wanted to know more. We scheduled a chat that would redirect everything I thought to be true, down to simply existing - let alone the presence she held for me through the deepest, darkest periods of my healing journey as my soul guide. For reference, Bessel van der Kolk shouts out Stephen Cope’s reference to this period as the “night sea journey” in his book, The Body Keeps Score.

Awakening & Alignment

Pre-awakening, what didn’t I try? Years of effort and pouring into my “healing” looked like: Cognitive-based therapy, AA group meetings for those impacted by alcoholism, codependency group meetings, podcasts, investing in a communication coach and a career coach, and after all this, I’m sure it’s implied that my personality was rooted in “self-development” books or the newest framework to come out of HBR to advance my emotional intelligence and technical expertise (HBR = Harvard Business Review). Inside? I still felt “broken” because I was grasping at e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. and everyone outside of me for direction.

True healers are rooted in universal consciousness and know that the answers are within. There aren’t frameworks that can be applied to mass groups of people - there are energies that can activate, and guide you along your path back to your own inner knowing. Back to your own heart, body, and soul. Little by little, day by day, heartbreak by heartbreak. Shattering every “truth” you knew about your life, every conditioned belief, and every aspect of the life as you knew it, wasn’t easy work. However, it was the “work” I could not ignore any longer, because I could not fathom the hollow copy paste life, one. second. longer.

Alignment for me, now, is For Love and Voices. It is moving with integrity according to my soul instead of the systems, beliefs and energies rooted in fear and disempowerment. Living in accordance with my actual gifts and creative talents, with the intent to inspire love in others, feels absolutely blissful. At my core, I believe it is my birthright to love my life, to be in my sparkly, fun-loving energy. And yes, it’s your birthright, too.