Our deepest wounds often shape us as much as our greatest joys. The pain we carry—and the ways we learn to move through it—can define who we become. We asked community members from a broad array of industries to reflect on their defining wounds and have shared the responses below.
Mitzi Campbell
I never thought my mom would leave my life just as I was getting started as a mom myself and I certainly did not realize the impact of losing the person who loved me more than I loved myself. These were things I never contemplated: how it would feel to be a motherless mother and if I had enough self-love to carry on independently. Read more>>
Hannah Levy
My father’s sudden death in 2024 has been one of my most defining moments. It split my world open in a way I could never have prepared for and I’m still learning how to live with the complex grief. My family used to joke that our family put the “fun” in dysfunctional, and my dad was at the center of that paradox. Read more>>
Arcadia Page
I have two major defining wounds in my life. The first one is centered around enoughness–the feeling that what I do isn’t good enough in general. The second wound surrounds my self-expression. I am an intense person, and even when I’m quiet, my face shows everything, and when I speak my voice shows everything. I laugh loud and cry hard. Read more>>
Tamara Burkett
The defining wound of my life was growing up without a sense of safety. Neglect and abuse taught me early on that my intelligence would be my way out. So I abandoned my body to survive. I didn’t realize I built a life around disconnection until I tried Pilates. Moving through those first exercises, I felt something unfamiliar: muscles responding, parts of me waking up. Read more>>
Ruth Stevenson-Owen
I started suffering from panic attacks when I was in my early twenties. The mental health journey took me to live in a yoga retreat in rural New Zealand, an ashram in India, an 11 day silent retreat in southern England and many other places, searching for useful tools to create true happiness in my life. Read more>>
Connie Springer
When I was 26, I lost my soulmate in a terrible car accident. After months of being steeped in grief, I started taking art classes at a local school in Louisville. I eventually moved by myself to Boston to attend photography school. I have always felt that doing art was a way to come back from the depths of loss and sorrow. Read more>>
Veronica Reddecliff
When I was five, my mom passed away from Ovarian cancer. Living the majority of my life without her, has been challenging, both mentally, physically, and emotionally. Over the past two years, I’ve done a lot of work in therapy to grieve and heal, both as my young girl who lost her mom, and as the adult I now am today. Read more>>
Kickman Teddy
Went from being signed to a major record deal with Justin Timberlake’s label Tennman records and Interscope records with my the boy band Freesol. We were able to spend a lot of time recording an album and touring heavy and having overnight success. Read more>>
Heather Kasvinsky
Loss is, without question, the defining wound of my life. I’ve said goodbye to close friends far too young, and losing both of my parents earlier than I ever expected reshaped my world in ways I’m still figuring out. Those losses have threaded through the last fifteen to twenty years and changed me in ways I didn’t see coming. Read more>>
