KMM #3: My Awakening

Hi everyone! I'm Kacie May.

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It was 2011. I was living in L.A. pursuing fashion styling and a business venture.

I felt lost and helpless as I was struggling to find my niche, support myself, as well as make genuine friends. I also missed my family who lives all over California. I wasn't taking very good care of myself.

I started getting symptoms like the flu and asthma, and I didn’t know what was going on.  I took herbs from my Dad who's an Herbalist, and they helped at first but then stopped working and my symptoms got worse. Then I lost my appetite and started losing weight, and lost energy and strength.

I drove out to my Dad's house in Rancho Cucamonga to work on my car, and I was so physically weak I couldn't turn the crank to lift the tire. He put me to bed and wouldn't let me go back to my apartment in LA. Then he called my Mom, an RN a few days later and requested her help.

One of my brothers picked me up and drove me to my Mom's house in the Sacramento area, and it was Thanksgiving. And by the way I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse with me. I slept during a lot of the drive, as well as through Thanksgiving. Then I got an x-ray and found out my left lung was collapsed and that I had millimeters of trachea space left to breathe. I was near dying. I was scared, but I knew I wasn't going to die then. I knew because I believed I was in the right hands, some of those being my Mom’s.

I chose to put my life in other people's hands as I got on breathing treatments and an IV, and was transported in an ambulance to a different hospital where I stayed for 8 days and had chemotherapy and many other drugs. My whole life was turned upside down. I couldn't go back to my apartment, and thanks to my family they packed my things and put it all in storage.

For about 2 years I lived with my Mom. She was my caretaker and I took both drugs and natural treatments, and as of the day I write this I am still receiving treatments. My Mom fed me, helped me sit up in bed, bathe and walk at my worst times. My Mom is my angel.

The great news is that I consider my diagnosis and conquering Hodgkin's Lymphoma to be a blessing and my awakening. I dove into personal development more so than before, asking questions like: What kind of a person was I being for this to happen, and what is a healthier way to be? I found out that when we love ourselves, our insides reflect that.

My motto is Love Yourself & Feel Beautiful, LYFB, and it's part of the title of my upcoming eBook. It’s also hash tagged on social media. Join us and comment, follow, as well as hash tag your own media that’s LYFB!

I found out that we're all connected and here to lift each other up, to give each other a hand up, and help each other. This ongoing, morphing life experience is teaching me that I am a force to be reckoned with who's got to lead by example and pay it forward. It's my mission. Helping others to love themselves too and become amazing leaders- I feel this is my purpose. Also to live lives fully expressed. I can identify with this too, because for years I had severely repressed myself. And I am still uncovering who I truly am!

What causes repression? Fear. What I found out is that fear is false. False Evidence Appearing Real. It's a mask. An illusion. I found out that we can be whoever we want to be and do whatever we want to do. And the sooner we figure out what this means to us, the sooner we can journey this path.

So I serve as a role model for strength, leadership, empathy, courage, self love, body love, valuing your voice and vision, and probably a few other categories as well. The experience forced me to open up and connect with people more, because almost everyone I converse asks me about it as if I've come back from a war. And I have.  I'm winning because I turned it into a peace treaty.

They're curious about the experience, inspired and enlightened, so I took that as my queue to grow quicker into the leader I already know I am deep at my soul's core. The experience liberates and humbles me, and of course as Marianne Williamson says: "As we are liberated from our own fears, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same."

Love Yourself & Feel Beautiful...

...And You Will Become the Diamond that You Are.

A handful of years ago and up until a few years ago, I lost some of my essence, some of my self love and confidence. I chose to go to college and study. I was away from my loves, my family, and in a strange place with a bunch of people I didn’t know, focusing on something I didn’t know how I wanted to apply to my life. Maybe this is typical- college age being kind of like a second puberty- where you’re figuring yourself and your life out.

So what was the trigger? What changed to make me start to seek my self actualization? I don’t remember, but I do remember wanting to spend some time doing one of the things that made me smile: playing with clothes. So I moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco and suddenly it was like I was given permission to cherish and show off my physical looks (maybe a little too much at times, out of proportion with letting our insides shine too; our personality and humanity, for example). I was also in a world where there are a TON of people playing with clothes. The ones I’m referring to in particular are known as Fashion Stylists.

So now I gave myself permission to indulge and show off my physical self more than I had in the previous few years, as well as play with clothes as a Stylist to see how I liked it.

I was MUCH happier.

But then I found out I didn’t like the way I was playing with clothes, or the values of the people in this industry (generally speaking), and I was broke.

The passionate, fashion and style skilled creative person I was being was losing some faith and self love. I wanted to really genuinely make a difference in people’s lives (not just helping them dress up for a show or a shoot), I wanted to be more connected with the friends I chose, and I wanted to be closer with my family.  I wanted to make more money, I wanted to make my own hours, and I also got this idea that I wanted to become wealthy. To not just trade my time for money for decades, but to become wealthy meaning I choose when I want to work because everything’s already paid for at the beginning of every month. I didn’t want to be STILL hustling in my 50’s like my Mom is. Btw, she soon won’t be because I’m going to relieve her.

So all of these desires existed, and at this time I felt powerless. Then I got cancer and was brought home again to my family, and then I knew everything would be ok. Conquering cancer has given me lots of time to probe myself, read great books and listen to great audios, develop myself, become more connected, and find out how to live the way I desire: making a genuine difference in people’s lives. See KacieMay.com for my mission statement. With the journey I’m on I now feel grateful, joyful, and am becoming fulfilled.

I hope this blog has touched you in some way, and I’m here to help you love yourself and feel beautiful, and get paid what you’re worth. Also if you like this blog, share it with your friends and follow me.

Lots of love,

Kacie

And P.S. In the comments below, share with us what makes you love yourself and feel beautiful, and if it applies also share a time when you lacked self love or didn't feel beautiful, and what you did or who you became to turn it all around.