Not Everything That's Planted In Us Is Meant to Bloom Immediately

​Little did I know that the concept for my book, Secrets in the Attic: A Woman's Journey to Empowerment, had been planted in me more than 20 years before I ever wrote it.

Long before I became a Life Sensei, I was having a particularly emotional conversation with my brother.

I was struggling with memories of sexual abuse from my childhood, and I couldn't
understand how those memories could still impact me so drastically as an adult.
I knew I was safe.
I knew I was no longer living under the whims and punishment of my parents
​AND I was a student, competitor, and teacher in the martial arts. I knew I could defend myself.

And yet, I still found myself reliving those experiences.

During that conversation, my brother told me something that stayed with me.
He said I hadn't actually dealt with the experience, I had simply put it in a box
and when I felt strong enough, I would open the box, look inside, and then
I would convince myself that being able to look at what was inside meant
I was strong - that I was empowered.

Then I would close the lid, lock the box, and put it away again until the next time
I needed to reassure myself that I was strong enough to look.

And suddenly I understood...
I hadn't cleared the box.
I had simply learned how to open it and close it!

I didn't know it at the time, but that conversation planted a seed, and that seed would
sit quietly inside me for more than 20 years.

Then, two decades later, I found myself in the attic of my cousins' family home.
We were helping prepare the house to be auctioned, and we were going through years
and years of family memories.
📷Photographs.
💞Keepsakes.
📦Boxes.
Things that hadn't been looked at in years.

Then I came across a particular box and what we found inside absolutely stunned all three of us.
My cousin looked at me and said: “I think we know what your next book is going to be about.”

It was almost as if her words had been waiting for me, and I immediately responded:
    “And I know exactly what I'm going to call it: Secrets in the Attic.”
And there it was.

The box my brother had talked about more than 20 years earlier.
The attic I was standing in.
The boxes of memories.
The secrets.
It all suddenly began coming together.

As the storyline for the book began forming inside me, I couldn't help but think about that conversation with my brother all those years ago.
Had that seed been planted for that very moment?
I don't know.

But I do know that sometimes life leaves pieces of a story in places we don't recognize until much later.
→ A conversation.
→ A metaphor.
→ A memory.
→ A box.
→ An attic.
And then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, the pieces come together.

Secrets in the Attic: A Woman's Journey to Empowerment became the book I couldn't have written 20 years earlier...
because I hadn't yet lived the part of the story that allowed me to see what that seed was pointing toward.

And perhaps that's one of the things I've come to appreciate about life.
Not everything that is planted in us is meant to bloom immediately.

Sometimes it simply waits.
Until the right experience.
The right moment.
The right perspective.

And sometimes, when the pieces finally come together, we look back and realize...
the story had been forming long before we knew we were writing it.

💜💜 What Are You Noticing? 💜💜
Have you ever looked back at something from your past and suddenly realized it had been preparing you for something you couldn't possibly have seen coming?