The First Receiving

On July 10, 2025, my body finally said enough.

The symptoms had been getting worse for days. That morning, my body stopped completely. By the time I was admitted for observation, my hands were shaking and my chest felt tight, as though my breath had narrowed to a thin ribbon. Hospitals have always frightened me. The lights, the smells, the machines, the feeling of being watched and handled—my body tightens before I’ve had time to tell myself I’m safe.

Only days earlier, I had pushed through filming a television segment about women and their paths. I didn’t feel well, but I told myself I could rest after it was over. That was familiar territory. I could always rest later. There was another thing to finish, another commitment to keep, another reason to ask my body to wait.

This time, my body made the decision for me.

When I was told I would be staying overnight, my first reaction was fear. My body was already bracing for what came next. My husband suggested that I bring one of my Soul Wraptures with me, and the moment he said it, my body softened. Of course. These pieces were made for exactly this kind of moment. I created them to hold, to offer a sense of safety when words weren’t enough.

We went home briefly so I could gather my things. I took a shower and let the water run over me longer than usual, trying to come back into my body instead of floating above the anxiety I felt. Then I packed a Soul Wrapture and one of my Bubbe Pillows and left for the hospital.

The room felt exactly as my nervous system expected it to feel: impersonal, intrusive, bright, full of interruptions. There were tests and questions, needles and machines. They couldn’t get the IV in no matter how many times they tried. I was nauseous and exhausted, and every new person entering the room seemed to ask something more from a body that already had very little left to give. My instinct was to pull inward, stay quiet, and make as little demand on anyone as possible.

When I was finally alone, I pulled the Soul Wrapture over me and wrapped my arms around my pillow.

My body responded immediately. My breathing slowed, and the buzzing in my chest that had sent me there began to ease. I stopped holding myself so tightly. I felt held in the way I had always wished to be held as a child, and in the way I needed so much in that moment.

And then I slept.

I slept deeply in a place where I had never expected to sleep at all.

Throughout the night, I was woken again and again for vitals and checks, but each time I returned to sleep almost immediately. It felt as though my nervous system had finally been given permission to stop standing guard. The pieces I had made with my own hands were doing what I had always intended them to do. They were offering comfort, safety, warmth, and the unmistakable feeling of being held.

Only this time, I was the one receiving it.

For years, I had made things meant to hold other people. I understood texture, weight, warmth, softness, and the way the body responds when it finally feels safe. That understanding came partly from making, but also from a much older place in me—the child who didn’t feel safe, who longed to be deeply held and often wasn’t. Maybe that’s why these pieces came so instinctively. I was creating the feeling I had needed for so long. What I hadn’t fully experienced was allowing that same care to reach me.

By morning, I noticed something else had shifted. I wasn’t trying to be the good patient. I asked for what I needed. More warmth. Better water. Clearer information. When something didn’t feel right, I said so. When I needed reassurance, I allowed myself to ask for it.

These were small things, but they weren’t small for me.

I had spent most of my life going through difficult things quietly. Independence became such a familiar form of strength that I rarely questioned its cost. I knew how to endure, how to keep going, and how to make myself manageable while I was hurting.

That night, I did something different. I let people know I wasn’t okay and that I needed help.

And instead of feeling weaker, I steadied.

The doctors didn’t give me answers. There was no diagnosis, no clear solution, no moment where everything suddenly made sense. I went home with many of the same symptoms I arrived with. Nothing was fixed.

But I was different inside myself.

I was gentler with myself and more honest about what I needed. I had spent so much of my life knowing how to give care. That night, I began to understand what it meant to receive it.

For me, receiving had always been harder than giving. Giving gave me a role and a purpose. It let me stay useful, capable, needed. Receiving meant letting myself be cared for, held, and allowing that comfort in simply because I needed it.

That night in the hospital, I discovered that the medicine I had been making for others had been waiting for me too.

I didn’t have to deserve it.

I didn’t have to save it for someone else.

I only had to let it be mine.

This piece is part of Stories from The Fire and The Thread and is adapted from the forthcoming book The Fire and The Thread: A Living Chronicle of Descent, Initiation, and Embodiment.

Learn more about the book here.