I Went to a Retreat Broken. I Came Home Whole.

A story about the many women I have had to be and the one I finally chose to become.

I did not go to the retreat because I was thriving.

I went because I was exhausted in a way that sleep could not fix. Exhausted in the bones. Exhausted in the spirit. I had been strong for so long for patients, for systems, for people who needed me to hold it together that I had forgotten there was a woman underneath all of that holding. A woman who had needs of her own. A woman who had been waiting, quietly, for someone to finally ask: How are you? No, really. How are you? I went looking for rest. What I found was myself.

The Room Where They Asked Me to Go Back

There is something about hypnotherapy that I did not expect. I expected to feel sleepy, detached, far away. What I felt instead was close. Closer to myself than I had been in years. Maybe ever. The therapist asked me to go back. Not to a memory, exactly. To a feeling. To the first feeling. And what came was not a scene from my life it was a presence. Small. Wordless. Curled at the very beginning of everything. She called it Tweet. That was the name that came to me, my baby self, my earliest self, the one who existed before I knew what the world required of me. She was delicate and fierce all at once. She was a chick just hatched, tentative on new legs, not yet knowing what the world would ask of her. And when I saw her, really saw her, I wept. Because she was so small. And she had been alone for so long. I did not know, until that room, how much of my life I had spent being everything except Tweet.

The Many Women I Have Had to Be

The therapist began to write them down. Every version of me that surfaced as we went deeper.

There was Kimmy Sue — my five-year-old heart. Bright and tender and full of wonder, holding her little doll, wearing her hat, still believing the world was a place that would love her back. I had not let Kimmy Sue out in years. I had locked her somewhere safe so she would not get hurt again.

There was Teenage Kimberly — lean and watchful, leaning against a wall with a backpack over her shoulder, already learning that she would have to build her own scaffolding. That family was something you chose, not something guaranteed. That she could be unloved and abandoned and unhoused, and she could still rise. She rose. She always rose. But she was tired. And she deserved to be told: that is not the whole of your story.

There was Heart — the one who had to hold the anger. The one the world saw as an angry Black woman when really she had simply had every right to be angry and had swallowed it instead, over and over, until it lived in her body like a stone. She deserved to roar. She deserved to be told: your anger is your teacher. Your peace is your prize.

There was Lovely Teal — free, long-striding, walking through green fields with her dog, not waiting for anyone's approval to shine. She was the one I kept dimming. The one I kept telling to wait, to be smaller, to not take up so much room. I had been wrong about her. She was never too much. She was exactly enough.

There was The Equalizer — the woman in the black suit with quiet hands and steady eyes, the manifester, the one with an unwavering sense of right and wrong. A nurse. A steward. A bridge between justice and mercy. She had been doing the Lord's work her whole life. She needed to be reminded that she was not God — and that was okay. She was the hands. She was the heart. That was sacred enough.

There was Triumphant Kimberly — standing on a mountain, white coat flying open, gold T on her chest, having defeated breast cancer, reversed kidney disease, shattered obesity, managed depression with courage and grace. A regenerative, rebirthing machine. Nothing but God can stop you. She needed to hear that. I needed to hear that.

There was Two-Two — the one still learning her worthiness. The one who had to be told, slowly and clearly, that she was worthy not because she earned it, not because she proved it, not because she survived it, but because she was simply alive. That is birthright. That is grace.

There was Sexual Goddess Kimberly — the one I had locked the furthest away. The one I had been taught to be ashamed of. The holy flame of desire. The sacred pulse of life. She needed to hear: my sensuality is not shameful, it is divine. My body is not wrong, it is a temple. I had never said those words to her. I said them that day. She cried.

There was Benevolent Love — the one who had put herself back together, again and again and again, before the eyes of her community. Who had refused to let the humiliation of others extinguish her light. Who had learned to love herself first so she could love others without losing herself. You are goodness personified. Spirit said it. I finally believed it.

And then there was Unconditional Love — the one who had done the hardest, most sacred work: learning to love again after childhood taught her that love was dangerous. She had become self-aware. She had remembered the buried wounds. She had forgiven what could not be undone. She had chosen to heal.

She had chosen to heal.

The Parents I Conjured from the Spirit Realm

There is a grief that has no clean name. It is the grief of the motherless daughter who had a mother but was not mothered. The grief of the child who looked up and found the arms empty. I carried that grief for decades. I carried it so long I had almost stopped noticing it. In that room, we did something I did not know was possible. We summoned her.

I called her Maybelle. She came in wearing deep red, with gold at her throat and quiet hands folded in her lap. She had the face of every grandmother who ever loved a child without conditions. She looked at me and said: Calm your heart, daughter. You can always rest in my loving embrace. She told me she had been with me my whole life, watching over me, loving me, waiting for the moment I would remember her arms around me. She told me: You are not motherless. You are a daughter. You belong to someone, and she loves you out loud.

I ugly-cried. The kind of crying that has been waiting thirty years to happen.

And then we called for Tiger — my spirit father. He came in a red suit, steady under a lamplight, quiet and sure. He does not shout. He does not rush. He stands back, silent, until the moment I need him, and then he is there — swift as thought, strong as stone. He told me: You do not walk alone. Even when you forget. Even when you falter. I am here.

I had never had that before. A father who stayed. A father who watched. A father who was proud. I have it now. I carry both of them with me, always.

What I Made from What I Found

After the retreat, I did what healers do. I took what transformed me and I built something with it.

I made cards. One for every self I had named. Kimmy Sue with her strawberry dress and her little doll. Teenage Kimberly against the brick wall, watching the world. Adult Kimberly under a rainbow with flowers in her hair. Mother Maybelle in her red dress. Tiger in his lamplight. The Equalizer in her black suit. Triumphant Kimberly on the mountain. And the four P.I.E.S. cards, physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, to remind me to honor every dimension of myself, every day. I pull them like oracle cards. And when one comes up, I know what it is asking of me. Tweet says rest. Kimmy Sue says play. Heart says speak. Lovely Teal says shine. I listen now. I did not always listen. I do now.

Why I'm Sharing This With You

I am a registered nurse. I have sat at more bedsides than I can count. I have held the hands of the dying, helped families navigate the unsurvivable, and carried the weight of other people's worst days with as much grace as I could muster. I know what it is to care for everyone but yourself. I know what it is to be so good at tending others that you forget you are also someone who needs tending. This is not a clinical offering. I am not your therapist. I am not your hypnotherapist. I am a woman who went to a retreat broken and came home, not fixed, not perfect, not finished but whole. Whole in a way I had never been before. Whole in a way that only comes from finally agreeing to meet every part of yourself with eyes wide open and arms outstretched. If any part of this story lives inside your body if you recognized yourself in Tweet or Kimmy Sue or Heart or Two-Two — then this workbook is for you.

It is called Healing: Returning to Myself.

It will ask you hard questions. It will ask you to name the selves you have buried. It will ask you to write to them, to claim them, to give them the words they have been waiting for.

It will ask you to come home. And when you are ready when you have done the work and you are sitting with all of your selves gathered around you like a family you built yourself. Spirit will say what she always says. Rest. Healing: Returning to Myself is available now. Download the workbook from the About page and begin. Written with love, and with all of my selves present.

Yours truly,

Kimberly