I am bipolar.

I've only known for a month, but I can trace the behavior back to my early twenties. Perhaps even earlier if I really cared to dig. My diagnosis like a surgical scar that's still healing— not yet mended but no longer weeping. Some days it feels like it came twenty-years too late.

I like to tell myself that I am not ashamed of it, but I think I'm lying to myself. I don't hide it from the guests of my practice. I would never deny it if I was asked. I openly share it when it's relevant, so perhaps that's enough. Maybe that's evidence of self-love still growing, of my bravery. Yet, I am afraid. I don't want my diagnosis to be known among those of which I still share pain. "But these are the people who should know," I rationalize. And I remind myself that this is only an invitation for deeper healing or closure. But what it feels like is a trap door, and the moment I step on my mark and say my lines, the floor will fall out from under my feet, the dark belly of stage swallowing me whole.

Why do I feel so vulnerable about this? Having bipolar disorder is not my fault. My behavior or choices did not create this. It is a genetic condition and a trauma symptom. I imagine it wouldn't be entirely too unexpected from the sword wielders in my past, but I am afraid of their judgment. I expect the worst in them, as if the only person who could have possibly grown in all this time is me.

I want my diagnosis to explain why I always took things too far, or why I just couldn't ever quite hold myself together. I want people to understand that the pictures they hold of me could be false images, and to consider that perhaps they remember the actress on stage and lost sight of the soul trapped inside.

I don't want redemption, and I don't need forgiveness. I want neutrality. Compassion. I want everyone to understand that I am weather in a bottle. I am thunderstorms and hail, rain, and sunshine. I am hurricanes. Tornados. Perfectly silent falling snow. I am all of these things, and they're all happening at the exact same time.

My life used to be so painful, and I know that pain did not come without consequence to them. If I am sorry about anything in my life, I am sorry for that. I am sorry for the intrusions and how my misjudgment that affected others who gave me their trust, their friendship, and offered me a place in their hearts and lives.

Now, my bipolar affects me in less abrasive ways. I no longer go into the extreme highs of hypermania. Instead, I experience hypomania, these wonderful little pockets of creativity, energy, and inspiration. In my hypomanic moments, my body untwists itself and my shoulders release themselves from my ears. I can breathe. I can laugh. I try to contact everyone who is important to me, checking in and checking on. I just seek a connection. But as all cycles go, the plateau of the hill must eventually descend into the valley, and so the blanket of depression drapes over me again.

My depression makes me feel extremely fatigued. I have to lie down a lot. Some days it's hard for me to even make dinner. Slowly, I begin to pull out of the commitments I created when I felt well. I am tired. Exhausted even. In both cycles, I do not sleep.

Mental health IS physical health.

If I could say anything to anyone in my place, I would want them to know that we are not sick: We are healing. Seeking the diagnosis is seeking the cure. When I have shared my diagnosis with others, many looked at me differently. It wasn't a conscious shift, but I saw the change in them. I do not hold any resentment for that shift. It is not a reflection of me, it is a reflection of misunderstanding and perhaps my biggest motivation for sharing this now. After all, what is there really to be ashamed of? In a way, bipolar disorder is a perfect fit for me. Why should a woman who constantly stands on the threshold between worlds not mirror that in her own mind? Why should I not be a true reflection of nature itself? To be everything all at once? And why shouldn't you?

In solidarity,

Jamie

[WINTER RECAP]

Treasure Hollowed had a really unexpected effect on me. I was not prepared for the level of enjoyment, inspiration, and pure joy I felt when I saw your work, when I heard your stories, and how deeply I connected to what you were crafting. It was unlike what I experienced in my Chakragraph workshops which I felt a lot of responsibility, duty, and stress from. This was a next level experience for me.

My own Chakragraph was little more than a hollow body. So much much life was happening around me but very little on the inside. I felt as though I was constantly standing on the threshold between everything and nothing all at the same time. I am in between ordinary and non-ordinary reality, happiness and grief, faith and fear, action and inaction, motion and exhaustion, light and heaviness, sickness and health. If I shifted my energy even a little, if I so much as moved a single spoon from one side of the table to the other, everything in my life would get thrown out of balance and taking me weeks to recover, if at all. I was not unhappy or happy; I could be both. I was grateful for my blessings and I spoke my gratitude for them every day. But it’s like I was just... here. Existing. As if I was the ghost in this world.

The magic of the Winter exercise was that it planted a very important seed in all of us. As always, Spirit timing is the perfect timing and my subconscious knew when to let it bloom.

THE UNCOVERING

It was nearing the end of January. I had cozied myself into a little nest of blankets in my bed and settled into Amazon Prime. My bed is my safe haven and since my pacemaker surgeries in November, I spent all my free time here. My energy has not supported any activity beyond my work, so much so that I was coming to the conclusion I could no longer offer my readings to my community anymore. I craved anonymity. I daydreamed about stepping away from intuitive work altogether and wondered how my body and spirit would feel.

What was so beautiful about this space was that my Winter Reflection had already been crafted. I had very strong desires and feelings of completely disengaging, but the artwork reminded me that I felt hollow, and hollow means temporary. The universe abhors a vacuum. Something new was ready to come in and all I needed was a little more patience.

THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT

That night, my television adventure led me to ‘Modern Love’, a rom-com series titled after a column in The New York Times. In one of the episodes, actress Anne Hathaway plays a character who is battling mental illness. The program walks you through how it interferes with her profession, her relationships, and thereby her self-image. There’s a point in the show where she demonstrates a courageous act of vulnerability and tells someone for the very first time that she’s bipolar. The person reacts in support and just like that, just by breathing the words outside of her, she gets the courage to seek professional help and for the first time begins taking control of her life. I cannot explain to you why, but at that exact moment, my artwork’s seed had sprouted. I just knew: I am bipolar. I spent the rest of the night researching bipolar disease and settled on the characteristics of Cyclothymia as what, without a doubt, 100% fit my current life experience. I scheduled a psychiatrist appointment the next day and two months later she confirmed what I already knew.

My technical diagnosis is Bipolar NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) and C-PTSD. Bipolar NOS means that I don’t fall in the spectrum of bipolar I or II. I experience hypomania rather than hypermania which is significantly different. My hypomania episodes just look like a cluster of really good days. I’m happy and I feel connected to life around me. I get really creative, come up with a lot of great ideas for projects, get a ton of downloads from Spirit and have some extra energy to spare. During my hypomanic episodes, I connect with friends and make plans because I’m genuinely feeling better. But those cycles don’t last long. It’s not long before I crash. My body begins hurting. I get really fatigued and I just flat-line. I begin to forget everything and struggle really badly to show up for, and to, what I’ve created. It’s as if I go from being a normal, healthy, creative person to being someone who is almost crippled and at best, existing. I spend most of my time in the latter state, which I believe is why I am in constant discomfort, fatigue, and pain.

Mental health is physical health.

Like everything in my life, my symptoms ride on the threshold. Learning how to be in this place with power will be my focus this year, as will my continued recovery.

While I hope your revelations were less dramatic, I do hope they were just as mighty and meaty all the same.

Here’s looking forward to Spring.
In full reverence to the journey,

Jamie

I believe in the healing power of color. I believe it helps us to face hard moments in soft ways. Color is grace. Color is comfort. It’s power. Color is also disquiet. Unpredictability. And at times, color can even feel distasteful or ugly. Color is both opulence and poverty, bright and dull, light and shadow. Color is a reflection of everything, just as we are.

In an instant, color can change how we feel about anything from furniture and living spaces to businesses and even our own bodies. Color formulates our opinions before we have even consciously acknowledged that we’ve formed an opinion at all. If you want to change the energy of anything in your life, all you have to do is change its color. . If you were to pause for a moment and think about how color affects you and your body, I invite you to consider this:

• Which colors feel protective?
• Which feel nurturing?
• Which colors help you to soften?
• Which colors make you feel powerful?
• Which exude grace?
• Which colors incite laughter and play?
• And which encourage your generosity

There are very few things we can control right now if anything at all. Life is extremely unpredictable and unpredictability makes the nervous system uncomfortable. Discomfort is food for fear and fear, my friends, is feasting.

I believe we can disarm our fears with color. We can prevent it from languishing in our chests, and from leaving its sediment in our bones. We can protect our spirits from fear just as a raincoat protects our body from the rain. Raincoats don’t ever stop the rain from falling. They don’t change what’s happening outside of us, they just change our experience with it.

Color may not be the cure to this virus but it can serve as a remedy for the fear. I’d like to invite you to make your own color palette and uncover your own color medicine. Once we learn which colors mean something to us, we can then begin to surround ourselves with those colors consciously. Consciousness is co-creation, and I can think of no better time than now to co-create a world we’re ready to live in.

Eyes open, hearts aware.
Jamie

You can access a free downloadable pdf chart to help you start this process.

Color Medicine printable PDF | B&W Color Medicine printable PDF

Color Medicine, Jamie Homeister

Color Medicine PDF

Color Medicine printable PDF

Color Medicine PDF

B&W Color Medicine printable PDF

Why do celebrations matter? 

1) They gather community in comfort.
When you celebrate, you give joy to what is and was. What could be more comforting than bearing witness to happiness?

2) Celebrations create a spotlight that refracts.
When we take a moment to highlight someone else’s achievements, that light emits outwards and highlights other successes and good deeds in a new way.

3) They create a transition point.
From a Shamanic perspective, celebrations are a necessary component of growth. They are a rite of passage; a time stamp for the soul to put to rest the challenges overcome and helps to prepare for the next stage of learning. It’s like a big, joyful goodbye surrounded in a warm, welcoming hello.

4) Lastly, celebrations create a memory of feeling one's importance.
A healthy celebration gives us the gift of a memory we can call back on where we felt wholly witnessed and honored.

 Celebrate yourself. Celebrate your community. Show up for both because it matters.