Let Go by Frou Frou

Bloomified came about as a result of a growing and trying time due to a divorce in my early 20s.  During this time, I decided to put every single part of myself under question with great scrutiny, specifically my Catholic faith and upbringing.  The LA Marathon “Stadium to the Sea” was the kickstarter to wanting to share my story with others at the time.  This blog was set up so that you could read alongside the journey I was enduring and also was a way of holding myself accountable as I strove hard to find my way in life and in faith.  However, it has been 10 years now, and many miracles have happened since then that I thought to revise the Backstory and fill you in from beginning to end sort of speak.  Miracles in my life that I could only pray about and hope would happen, have happened and I owe a lot of my journey to the past – to that young girl I was who didn’t think twice about starting a blog.  Since the first marathon, I have run 5 full and two half marathons in different states and cities.  I plan to continue running half marathons alongside my constantly growing and blooming Catholic heart.

A cradle Catholic, a life comprised of Catholic education from Kindergarten through college, I was confused as to why I was in the situation I was in.  I’ve come to know this is a common first reaction to suffering for Catholics who just grow up Catholic.  The first stages of suffering feel more like realizing your life before this point was a blur – one concocted and created for you rather than the internalizing of applying the faith with conscious intention of your own.  I was in an immediate state of depression when I finally admitted to myself that the relationship I was in – the marriage – was in a way forced by my own fears and robotic way of living at the time; not in the slightest God-led.  I was plagued with playing back scenes from my life and seeing where I had initially gone wrong; how my actions brought this relationship to this point.  On the flip side, I’d also recall these amazing prayer sessions from my childhood that I had somehow tucked away in my subconscious.  Amazing in that, I hadn’t prayed in that way in a long time.  For someone who had a natural  knack of just talking to Jesus often and not being afraid to express her love for faith, I had slowly become a different person for a period of time in which I chose to cling to this unhealthy relationship.  Each day I was realizing something new about who I really was versus who I used to be.

My mind would always skip over to a time in high school where I had suppressed as much as I could about hope, God-led decisions, following the Holy Spirit – the real fun stuff of our faith.  I refer to this high school chapter as the Dark Ages of my life, where I was truly lost.  Mixed with my home-life being in disarray and having no one to talk to, as well as, not being in the habit of turning to my faith, I sought out ways to escape the pain and confusion I was in.  High distractions of partying, academic achievement, athletics, living up to other people’s expectations and the likes were all ways in which I was hoping to be freed, but none of them helped or worked.  I resorted to being in an abusive relationship because at least it was mine, at least I belonged somewhere, at least this person would listen to me occasionally.  Despite the toxic torment that it would eventually do to the way I perceived the world, this was my way of escaping matters underneath.

However, not all paths of this kind of confusion always lead to such destruction.  So why was my life “all of sudden” blowing up in my face as if everyday there was a new hard truth to swallow?  Life had taken a turn in the worst way, and I was finally down on my knees asking for help from God.  Nights of prayer, turned into trying to find scripture that would comfort or console on a daily basis.  Frequently praying the Rosary allowed for my love of the Lord to percolate again in a very tiny way, very deep inside my heart; a small sense of hope was beginning to brew.  I then began reading about the Saints and the Mystics – how they allowed God to just call them out.  I started to see correlations in my life through their sufferings and willingness to die to themselves, choosing God over everything.  I started to realize I would have to build up the courage to leave the relationship, which would in turn blow up all I had ever known or understood about life.  Throughout these sessions of facing my worst fears, intense vivid memories of praying to God as a child would come flying out of my suppressed subconscious.  Times when I just naturally knew how to listen to Him or obey what to do in situations when I was sad, lost or confused.  It seemed, I had forgotten that I had such a past of being very close to God when I was small.  I could finally see where I had gone astray.  After lots of prayer and speaking to a priest, I decided that instead of continuing to live that life down the wrong path, I would choose to lose it all – purge it completely – and hope that even if I was left with the tiniest ounce of pure gold, I would then build my life upon that.

Matthew 10: 39  “Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.”

It wasn’t that easy of course.  I play you the highlights in hopes to just quickly explain what happened during that time and how it led me to my now fervent, dependent and trusting heart of our Catholic faith.  I hope that this is a testament, not a lecture; a witness, not a selling point; a sharing of insight and vulnerability, not a know-how.

Divorce is an interesting and hurtful word right off the bat – it stirs up a lot of judgment from those who have not endured such an inner pain.  Lots of people think divorce is about a man and a woman who could not make it work; a separation of a relationship.  However, after the long and painful yet healing process of receiving an Annulment, I realized that the word “divorce” is misunderstood by a grand margin, not just by those who cannot relate, but even by those who have had to carry this cross.  If I can articulate so gently, I learned that the Divorce of my life had all the more to do with a sever between myself and God, which ultimately led to thinking it was okay to be in an abusive relationship.

As I was coming out of severe depression back in 2010 during the time of the initial separation, I tried my best to adhere to only the Catholic faith.  Because of one particular night, I truly knew in my heart, that if I clung to the Lord, I would make it out of this horrible time alive – maybe in fact full of life for the first time!  For 1 solid year, I would bring my Rosary to the beach, the Bible, and a self-help book in hopes that in combination with the ocean waters, they would raise me above all the horrible, sad, questioning thoughts I was having.  I was numb in many ways, but not by choice.  I see now that God was carrying me through this very difficult time.  This became a great foundation for good habits of solitude in the days ahead; spending time in silence with the Lord is my go-to.

One year after that, I moved to the Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica-Venice areas.  I spent the next 7 years there, while teaching in South LA battling my hurt, confused and questioning heart.  I loved the hopeful spirit of Los Angeles, and in comparison to Orange County it was extremely refreshing to be surrounded by others who were not afraid to show their wounds or be honest about their pasts.  I had good days and bad days, but for the most part, I was not in a pit of depression anymore, but rather just trying to join the world again; trying to understand how people tick; trying to figure out how to have friends and go out – the simple things. I would go to local dive bars and play pool specifically so that I could talk to other people who weren’t afraid to talk about life, their mistakes, their joys, their understandings of what they’d come to know.  Through this community I was inspired to no longer try to hide from the word Divorce or feel like it was the Scarlett Letter on my forehead, or the black sheep sign of my family.  What people thought about me and my own fears of the stigma of being divorced were erased from my mind as I compassionately listened to others’ stories.  For me, this was the beginning of my journey of finally connecting with others on a REAL level.  I didn’t want to be a Catholic who never got outside of her prim and proper bubble of only faith-based people or hang only with people who preached but dared not put it into action.  I realized very quickly that I liked now being in the Sinners Bracket, and I would be there for anyone else who needed to feel at home too.

Looking back, I remember thinking, “Life is changing. I can feel it.  My life is transforming.”

And it was.  All the reading I was doing, purging of my life, authentically connecting with people from all walks of life – it all attracted so many amazing souls whom I am still very close with today.  These people have become my family.   I like to think of them all as Angels who God brought to me along the way.  My life was radiant in ways that I couldn’t articulate at the time, and hope was always guiding the way because of God’s mercy.

As I dove more into the Saint and the Mystics, I began to read a lot of books on intuition in general.  Like many others who face their demons, there are a lot of really cool moments you experience alone with God.  In fact, at one point, as I started to heal (about 5 years in), I was worried that these “moments with God” would end, since I wasn’t in a state of intense suffering anymore.  They did not end, in fact, they only became more clear and I became more aware of when I would feel the presence of the Lord in such a way.

This was confusing at times of course, and I was honestly worried about my own mental health.  I went back and forth from reading books about the Saints to books just on topics like intuition and spiritual healing. Most of the latter of course were not Catholic writings, but I want to be honest about the literature that helped get me to where I am today.  Today as Catholics, there are many writings now and education even on the Charismatics, which at the time was not a talked about thing within the Catholic church. So, to comfort the experiences I was having, I first found solace in reading books that shared stories about people seeing and witnessing angels, or having near death experiences.  However now, you can literally go to a Charismatic retreat or talk to priests via Spiritual Direction on special gifts or callings that you might have.  If I had known, I would have done this initially, but in the bookstore, the titles that immediately pop out for someone like me who was having like a shower of Charismatic experiences, were the books based on understanding intuition or spiritual encounters.

In the tab Feed Your Spirit, you can see the range of books that helped me during that time under the title “Literature” at the very bottom.  I keep them there because I know there may be many others who are finding their way from the New Age world and see parallels with the Catholic faith.  I hope to be a bridge for those who are making their way from that type of literature.  Those books brought me full circle – back to seeking how and where those moments of extreme prayer and understanding exists in our Catholic faith.  And it does, but it’s not brought about by yourself or by inducing feelings (thank goodness – that causes an extreme amount of anxiety), manifestations, or visions as believed by the New Age world.  The Charismatics or charismatic experiences is a natural response to the gift of the Holy Spirit often experienced in private prayer, during adoration, or at a healing mass or just Mass.  Many Catholics who are charismatic have not done anything to procure such a response, however usually they are people who receive the Sacraments frequently and pray daily, sometimes as a way of coping with these gifted moments as well; like a state of overwhelming gratitude for the love poured down.  For myself, I was saturating myself with prayer in a time of suffering but was by no means perfect in any way.  I believe I experienced certain moments as a gift to heal and feel God’s love because I craved it that much, and was looking for it.  What’s nice is today in the Catholic church there is something called The Charismatic Renewal, which is basically like the unveiling of these experiences that have been happening for so many years since the time of the Apostles.  This is comforting for so many who have experienced such awesome encounters through prayer, and is a relief to know that we do not have to suppress our gratitude for these encounters anymore.  For more research and understanding about the Charismatic Renewal or understanding unique encounters through prayer, check out the following:  The Spiritual Exercises, The Interior Castle St. Teresa de Avila, The Practice of Healing Prayer, Centered: The Spirituality of Word on Fire, and FLOCC Ministry on Instagram.

Amongst this chapter of extreme healing and prayer life, I was full of so much joyous energy and grateful for life in general at what felt like an atomic level.  Imagine being given a second chance at life and just feeling incredible relief or gratitude for that mercy.  Living in the Santa Monica area, it was not hard to appreciate the beautiful views and ongoing outdoor exercise.  My go-to was beach volleyball and running. I was not an avid runner, but could run about 6 – 8 miles if I really wanted to.  Running became another form of healing and working through my past therapeutically, alongside prayer.  In fact, lots of times, I would just run to an audio of the Rosary. (Today, I love to run to songs that make me feel like I’m sitting in Adoration, Word on Fire Podcasts, or the Hallow App by Ascension.)

A friend of mine who moved into my studio complex, was a marathon runner – as in she was already about 60-ish marathons completed in her lifetime! Today she has completed over 100 + 2 Ultras, and a marathon in every state!  I was amazed by her, and she was also a fellow teacher.  I told her about all my newfound loves of running the trails in Santa Monica, and so she slapped a Marathon Training plan on my door one day that said “Does this look do-able!?” LOL.  I mean, I guess!?  In that moment, I simply said YES.  I figured it was just another way to tie in all these awesome healing revelations I was having.  So now, I was training for a Marathon and actively involved in my faith, and then heavily going out almost every night to see where the night would take me.  It was a combo of listening and learning while purging.  Over time, my experiences with faith and healing mellowed out my social life to a normal degree, and I was able to just chill on a Wednesday night without thinking I needed to be at the new bar that opened up down the street.

Throughout marathon training, the beginning of the real prayer-work of my life began.

I would step out my door on 2nd and California, walk over to Pacific Palisades trail, do a light first mile jog from the Totem Pole to the California Incline, and then descend onto the bridge that takes you over PCH and onto the beach boardwalks that range from Will Rogers to Venice and back.  An iPod at the time strapped to my arm, I’d play all the songs I loved, but also all the songs that I knew would trigger memories of the past, memories misunderstood, and memories of just pure awe.

Call it my own therapy playlist if you will, I will never forget the scope of which my mind would venture into incredible states of healing, clarity, understanding and ultimately endless forgiveness.  If you’ve ever gone through therapy, they will touch upon these benchmarks of which, if you do the work, you will conquer.  Imagine conquering those tough battles that took 10 years to uncover, but in bursts of hours at a time while enjoying some of the most beautiful landscapes of California + endorphins on the rise to solidify the truths received.

After completing the 1st Marathon, I remember I had gone to Massage Envy and had the best massage of my life – lol – the first marathon really hurts.  When I came out of that massage, my mind was ready to take some super courageous steps.  I realized that with all that training and reflecting on my past, that I would want to share with people not only some of the reflections I had while training, but the music that inspired my mind and heart to go down those reflective routes while running.  The very next day, I asked a friend of mine to help me set up a blog site.  I came up with the name BLOOMIFIED, because I wanted to describe how our growth and transformation is just as beautiful of a result as a flower that has bloomed.  Moreover, that we bloom as we face our demons head on and are constantly honest with ourselves.  Through that honesty, we must therefore choose to bloom.  As we recognize more and more that it is a choice, we then bravely open our hearts to God’s wisdom and realize that we must literally depend on His love in order to help us constantly stay the path of blooming.  The more we choose to bloom, the more it becomes a beautifully habitual way of living, much like the life of a flower.  Do we know for sure if it hurts the flower to bloom openly the way it does?  Not for sure, but after what I experienced through being brutally honest with myself, I know three things for sure: the first blooming moment can be painful but worth it as it sets you up on a life of forever being honest with yourself + others around you; being able to depend on God on a daily basis EXTREMELY helps with persevering to always seek truth and wisdom before defaulting to what we selfishly want or need in life; and lastly, blooming is a way of constantly activating inner healing + awareness which in turn has many incredibly awesome results for just overall joy and gratitude for life.

When you are blooming, you are not trying to control the world around you, you are dedicated to being your truest self in every situation, you can maintain and embrace long-lasting authentic relationships, you are filled with gratitude all the time, you experience grace and understanding amidst painful chapters, you are able to read through honest and dishonest situations much easier, and you are open to life unfolding on its own which feels like a blessing each and every day.

I wish I could say, “Hey, do what I did!  It will work for you.”  But that’s not what this is all about.  I did not create this blog as a way of selling people on some kind of “right way” to heal or transform, but rather share how God works in the innermost parts of our hearts no matter who you are, if we are open to it – no matter your religious background, no matter the state of mind, no matter what.  Who would have thought that running a marathon could be a part of that spiritual journey?  And specifically in our Catholic circles, it is good to keep an open mind that God speaks to people not in the way that YOU think they need to be spoken to or in the location that YOU think is considered earned or holy or right.  That is the beauty of our faith – He is available for ALL, in the most unlikely of places and circumstances.

Two marathons later, and six years into this healing process, I started to question: what next?  Maybe I am fully healed now; maybe I have nothing left to say or absorb?  I was a teacher and had only lived in California, so I decided to pray about it for about 1.5 years.  I now had a plethora of books to turn to, priests’ guidance, healthy and happenin’ volunteer life at Saint Monica’s in Santa Monica (who just so happens to be the patron Saint of abused and divorced women).  Life was flowing with the Holy Spirit and I was going wherever He told me to go.  As a result of a lot of prayer and discerning, I quit my job without knowing where I was going to move or end up.  I wanted to make sure that fear would not block this very strong call to move far away for a little while.  I applied for teaching English in Bali, and was about to take the opportunity, when all of a sudden, a “wrench” or more like a “re-routing” from God’s end intercepted my pass and sent me to the East Coast on a visit to see my brother and his family.

This is one of my favorite ways in which God works.  When I look back, I was very familiar with God’s gentle touch of tapping you on the shoulder and re-routing you, but I could also see the times in my Dark Ages where I did not embrace the tap.  It all became very clear and more habitual, rather than resisting those nudges like I had done so in my adolescence.

I moved to the East Coast despite what the world wanted me to do and I humbly shacked up near my brother’s family in a small town outside of DC called Hyattsville.

Throughout that time of prayer before I made the big move, God was very specific about a few things.  He showed me a coffee shop in my prayers where I would work or build for myself one day, relationships mended in my family and gratitude poured out to those who had prayed for me along the way, a sense of family reconstructed within our somewhat broken family dynamic at the time, and finally me meeting a husband.

Though my prayers were revealing a lot of beautiful paths, I was still skeptical.  I decided to cling to the Rosary, and start the journey of discerning whether I was even meant for marriage one day.  Once I moved to the East Coast, more specifically, the DMV area (DC, Maryland & Virginia), I found so many places of prayer and adoration to bring my thoughts and doubts to the Lord.  To name a few, The Franciscan Monastery, The Servants of the Lord (Convent), The National Shrine or The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, The Capuchin Monastery, St. Jerome’s in Hyattsville, Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in DC, and St. Peter’s on Capitol Hill.  Each of these places was a home for me to pray in, and when I needed that California feel, I’d take off to Fenwick Island, a small, quiet and quaint beach town to sit by the water like I always used to and pour my heart out.

As I lived my life on the East Coast, I vowed to follow the nudges.  First, God sent me to work at St. Anthony’s in Northeast DC.  This was an inspiring and eye-opening time for me as a teacher.  Then, my brother was loving this coffee roastery that was just launched in our little neighborhood.  I eventually found my way there, and began to barista on the weekends.  I had a lot of fun interests on the side, as a teacher.  I would paint, make jewelry, loved comedy, was in Improv for a bit, played pool, and loved writing my lesson plans in coffee shops.  However, coffee never seemed any more important than the rest of my hobbies; was just an interest that I was open to learning more about.

This particular Coffee Roastery was in the heart of Hyattsville, near University of Maryland, St. Jerome’s, and a 10 – 15 min drive to DC.  It pulled together so many unique people from this area.  They were all coming together to have coffee and co-exist in one spot.  To me, this was awesome, as I had similar experiences of such a diverse community in Santa Monica and Venice.  So, naturally I wanted to be more involved, and if anything it brought about a profound love for community and relating to others.

This coffee community, drew me in in a special way, and I began to see that my skills and background as an educator, were very related to the world of building and sustaining authentic community. Through another round of prayer and listening to the signs + nudges, I decided to leave teaching and go full-time with this coffee company.  On the outside of this story, this would sound very risky or like a waste of a college degree.  And yes, that was exclaimed to me at loud and passive volumes.

In one of my favorite books, The Practice of Healing Prayer, Francis Macnutt PhD explains, “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K”.

He couldn’t be more point-blank and I love it!  Because at the time of making such risky decisions, it feels like you’re doing something crazy, yet is guided by that same grace that is present when you are healing or being carried through a tough time; so in a way, it is much easier to recognize this grace if you have hit rock-bottom.  Which is why, when people judge you or hate on your brave decisions, it is easy to let those comments bounce off or let them all go down the drain, as I like to say to myself.  You are not discounting their love for you, but rather, that sense of inner trust cannot be shaken, no matter the torment ahead.

I came on full time at Vigilante Coffee Company and this part of my life escalated quickly and beautifully, all on its own.  It reminded me of my marathon days, how easy it was to just say “YES” to my runner angel Christy who slapped that marathon training guide on my door.  As much as I was nervous and terrified of running a marathon and how it would change my life, there was this steady undercurrent of Don’t even worry.  I’ve got you. This is just the beginning.

Throughout my career in the specialty coffee industry, I have often looked back at these early days of working for this company.  I learned SO much in the span of 4 years, but also, it took me to many places like even Colombia to understand and witness the process of sourcing coffee.  And at the small town community level, I was able to see first-hand how to bring people together through the small business life.  Like teachers, we do not appreciate small businesses enough.  We do not give them the credit for being the networking building-blocks of many pockets in and outside of cities.  They have so much good power and opportunity to use for instilling and cultivating values in a local neighborhood, which then can bring EVERYONE together – not just one demographic, not just one religious background, but everyone.  And isn’t that what our Catholic faith is supposed to be all about? Living with everyone of all kinds; living out our faith in a way that does not need to be explained, rather just lived out to let the beauty, goodness and truth speak for itself.

All the dots began to align throughout this experience. I could see myself returning to California, a place I needed to return to eventually and give respects to my past.  But also, possibly be the change I wanted to be for Little Diane, in the area I grew up in, to help instill the values I wished were more nurtured and emphasized.  I decided that through coffee and ministry involvement at Church, I would somehow make this happen.

To provide you with a kind of happy ending to my story, and beginning to this next chapter of Bloomified, God then simultaneously had in the works for me, my future husband.  After 6 years of praying, discerning, being involved at Church in Saint Monica’s and then 4 years of committing my life to community, and coffee and faith in the DMV area, my future husband happened to be sitting there waiting for me the whole time.

Coming from a family of pool sharks and chatty Kathy’s, I continued to play pool in local dive bars in the DMV area while I was teaching, exploring and working in coffee.  At my local dive bar in College Park near University of Maryland, Justin my husband, was bartending as his second job.  Turns out, for the 4 years that I was there including the first night that I visited with my family, he was there – prematurely planted in my life preparing for his own future as well.  He knew me already and was waiting for the right time, in which he felt ready to approach me.

I was so focused on community and people and prayer, that I never saw him or spoke to him until the last year that I was in the DC area.  He approached me and immediately asked me out – the rest is history.

There are many forks in the road where God pointed the way in this journey, many signs that will forever go unexplained.  To give you just a couple examples, the school I taught at was the same name of the church I was married in 10 years ago, San Antonio de Padua .  I was working on forgiving the feelings I had toward this church in my hometown and was preparing myself to face this parish once I moved back to California.  The pastor of the school I worked at in DC became my spiritual director.  He exclaimed in a prophetic way on the very first day that I met him as we were walking the halls of our school St. Anthony de Padua, that he would find me a husband because St. Anthony was the Saint of miracles and that St. Anthony was known for finding women a husband. LOL.  Fast forward, Justin and I met a couple years after this and were married in that exact same church in my hometown as an ode to Saint Anthony and also as a complete healing of the past. To some it may have seemed very crazy or odd that we were married in the same church that I needed to forgive, but for us it was our way of completely acknowledging that nothing can come between you and God.  That God can wipe away every bit of stain in your life, and make it not only new again but even more full of life, love and endless forgiveness.

Daniel 10:12

“Do not fear Daniel,” he continued; “from the first day you made up your mind to acquire understanding and humble yourself before God, your prayer was heard.  Because of it, I started out,” (Angel Gabriel talking to Daniel in the Old Testament)

Justin also went through RCIA at this very same parish and has his own interests in ministry and serving our community.  We volunteer side by side, constantly being inspired by everything we encounter together as a couple.  When I think about this array of intertwined webs that God so carefully wove for us, I am now able to see, every single day, the difference between how God brings two people together versus when we force our own wants or ideas onto relationships.  Religious or not, God is in all of our lives, and if we are even the slightest bit curious, He will do unimaginable things.

If it weren’t for those early marathon training days, I don’t think I would have had the guts or even have had the thought to share the little revelations I’ve had over this time.  If you go way far back to when the blog posts first started, you will read alongside my voice at the time of the pain and transformation.  But if you go backward, you will read about some of the miracles that happened as they were happening.  This backstory has been revised to show you the outcome of what 10 years of searching and seeking for God’s truth in my life has produced and to shed some hope + comfort over anyone who is in the thick of losing one’s life to gain life.  In the words of my own Dad when I was at my lowest, writhing in pain and confessing that I didn’t know where I belonged anymore, “You belong right here.” 

Even in your darkest moments, trust that love overcomes fear, faith overcomes doubt; and then bravely share your resurrection story for anyone else who needs it.

. . .

1 John 4:4

You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

 

Your Fellow Pioneer,

Diane