Coming Back Home to Me

Thanks, Sam!

Sam Grey gives us a wonderful interview about her incredible shift from feeling victimized by a medical diagnosis to finding her courage to live with hope, peace and strength again.

Transcript

Montine Blank:
Hi everybody. This is Montine Blank with Intuition Painting. And I am here with Sam Gray, who I have the honor of interviewing about her experience in a recent July retreat in Asheville. We did a three-night, four-day Intuition Painting and Yoga retreat. So, welcome, Sam. So glad to have you here. Good to see you again.

Sam Gray:
Yeah, I am happy to interview you, especially because I think your experience was timely based on what was happening in your world.

Montine:
So if you could just share a little bit of background about what you were wanting or needing or experiencing and what you were searching for, and just kind of a little bit, and then maybe ask you a couple more questions.

Sam:
Two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with a chronic blood cancer. It was shocking, and I had no coping strategy at that time, and a big mistrust of the medical profession. But for the sake of my family and their fears and my own as well, I went through the process. I can now say I tried, but through that process, I lost myself. I really lost myself. I really felt as if I had nothing left to offer. All I saw was my family scrambling and fearful and upset. I lost my desire to be with people, and that's my core thing. That's what I'm made of — a billion little people that have come and gone. Suddenly, I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want to look at anybody. I was so sick, and the medicines drug me to the very bottom of my core. A lot of side effects and a lot of misery.

Sam:
So I'm thumbing through Facebook, and what should I see but "Free Yourself." Those two words. They just impacted me so strongly. I thought, yeah, I'd really like to free myself right now because I was in a frozen state. I did not know that there is fight. I knew there was fight and flight, and I've worked with animals all my life, so that was something I knew well, but I didn't know there was also freeze and fall. I found myself in a frozen state. I could not gather myself. I could not feel better. I could not get past the fear, the anxiety, the anger. So many emotions. I'm an incredibly emotional person, so that was hard.

Sam:
When I saw the Intuitive Painting course, I thought, okay, I'm gonna give this a try. I read through it, I spoke to you, which really emboldened me to go forward. I didn't have an expectation that it would be as powerful as it was. The first day, meeting the women, we were such a diverse group. We came from everywhere, every possible background. Ultimately, I found myself in each and every one of those women, and their ability to allow themselves to be vulnerable and to share — I'm gonna cry — it was so powerful. It was not what I expected. I've been through therapies, but it ended up being one of the most powerful things I've done in my life. And it came at such a perfect time. I needed it so badly. And now, I haven't lost what I got back in that workshop. It's still with me because I found myself again. I found the loving, caring woman, the woman who has raised a massive family, who has taken care of people I don't even know. It feels so good to remember who I was.

Montine:
Absolutely. Wow. What a powerful story. It is so touching, and I'm so grateful you're willing to share it. And I'm especially grateful that the impact is sticking, that you are able to say, "I found myself again." Just… it’s powerful. You don’t… I just didn’t expect it to be so powerful.

Montine:
Yeah, I know. You see what comes from this, but you have to let yourself go. I realized I am a very verbal, emotional, out-there kind of person, total extrovert from an introvert. I don't have a hard time talking to people. Before I left, I realized if I was gonna do this, it had to be about me — not my family, not my husband, not my friends. It had to be about me, and that’s a hard track for me to stay in because I'm never in that “me, me, me” track. It's always take care of this one, take care of that one.

Montine:
When I came home and my husband was all like, "How'd it go?" I gave him the spiel: don't ask me about my painting. Let me, when I am ready, talk to you. He was very supportive and very wide-eyed. Little by little we've discussed it, and he can see a change he didn't see before. So many good things have come from this. It was important to go in with the intention of what I wanted to get out of it, and I'm so glad I did.

Montine:
Yes, but it’s also… I remember picturing you painting and how you and Erica took your paintings outside. I can picture not just in my memory but also in photos, the glow on your face standing in front of your painting and the shift from day one to day four.

Sam:
Oh, it’s remarkable. So emotional. When I went outside, it was very freeing for me at that time. I’ve always wanted to paint big, and you don't get much bigger than an eight-foot-plus painting. When it started out, I had trepidation. I tried not to have an idea of what I was gonna do for this painting, rather letting it come from me. Something remarkable happened. On the right side, I was seeing my blood cells and scar tissue, and on the left side, I started making all these crazy marks. I had no idea why. When I stepped back, I realized — oh my God, there's my headache in a painting. And then to go over that, obliterate it, and produce something so powerful for me… just freeing.

Sam:
The inside joke is “don’t paint a tree.” At the beginning, we were talking about trees. Then we said, that's not an idea — don’t sit looking. And then you came up to me and said, “Now your tree has to have an ending there. You can’t go off the page.” And I thought, oh, that’s right. Don’t go off the page. Just make it all perfect. Just so freeing.

Montine:
The title of your workshop is inspired because you don’t believe in three or four days you’re gonna make such a shift. But I am here to tell you, I watched women who I knew would have a much more difficult time than I did sharing.

Sam:
Yeah. I watched women who were so protective, shut down, and explode. You know? And I’m gonna cry again because that moved me so much, because I knew how hard it was for them to show up, share, and free themselves. To free themselves. I got chills.

Sam:
Your support, the open-endedness of it, your loving nature, and your sense of humor were so well timed, helping people through this process. It’s not easy. I know I’m a different kind of animal — we had to bottle me up a couple of times — but that’s my nature. Letting us have our own space to feel what we were feeling without jumping in to rescue was brilliant. I’m a rescuer, and that was a boundary I don’t normally have. I watched how powerful that boundary is.

Montine:
Brilliant. You were brilliant. I feel a kinship in you. Kudos to you, darling, for doing this.

Sam:
Thank you. I’m really grateful to hear your words. It is hard work, and I feel a lot. I have boundaries around that, but it’s hard not to be touched by what people have been through. If you’re compassionate, even a little, you feel the weight of their pain.

Montine:
You’re an empath. And the humor — you mentioned the humor.

Sam:
The humor, to me, is the highest and best outcome of something difficult. If you’re having a disagreement with somebody, and you recognize it’s because you’re wearing blue glasses and they’re wearing green glasses, you see differently. If you can identify that as humorous and make it a joke, you remove all shame. And if there’s an agreement not to take yourself seriously or put blame in the mix, it can become something beautiful. When I work with people, I want to help make that transition from release to the joy and humor that comes from, “Oh, that’s not mine.” Celebrate it, laugh at it. Over the years, that’s become better.

Montine:
I appreciate your warmth and graciousness. Do you remember you got there an hour earlier, majestic-like, wearing your flowing clothes? Dean was like, “Is that the owner?” And I was like, in some ways, yes. I was delighted with your spirit, your laughter, your stories. The life you’ve lived, the courage to go through what you’ve been through in the past couple of years, do all the work on yourself, and continue to come back home to you. Freeing yourself feels like freeing what got in the way of yourself, coming back to your heart.

Sam:
Honestly, the courage wasn’t there until I did this workshop. I have found my courage again. I was just nothing but a victim. Knowing what caused my disease, going through the medical field, feeling like there wasn’t a soul who really cared — it felt so impersonal. But after this, I found the courage to kick myself in the butt and say, “Sam, do something today.” Even the smallest thing. That’s courage coming back to me because I have been courageous in my life. I am a rescuer, a caregiver, a “let me help you” kind of person, but I wasn’t helping myself.

Montine:
That’s huge. What a journey. Life-changing.

Sam:
Yeah. You see “free yourself” and know, okay, I gotta do something. I’m gonna give this a whirl. The location, everything was perfect. Brilliant. Wonderful. I can’t express enough. I’ve bought this house in the woods with the creek, back in Asheville, surrounded by beauty and nature. The whole experience was wonderful. The food, everything. Most of all, finding myself again — brilliant. I had given up.

Montine:
I’m so happy you came. I’m proud of you, proud that you’re continuing, grateful for your gumption and dedication to your wellbeing. You’re a spirited woman. This is being infused, and I’m just so happy for you.

Sam:
I’m so grateful for you doing this work. It isn’t easy — it’s a lot of personalities, a lot of pain. Thank you for being willing.