I've been keeping something from you...

An eight year journey that ended three weeks ago...and how it impacts you

I’ve been sitting with how to write this for almost a week.

Not because I don’t know what to say….I always seem to be saying something, but because this one is about both of us, and I wanted to get it right.

So here it is. A big shift is coming.

For the last eight years I have been battling some pretty crippling health issues. My body has been telling me something was wrong and no one listened. Eight years of appointments, of being sent home with no answers, of learning to shrink my pain down to a size that made other people more comfortable. Eight years of knowing, deep down in my bones, that something was wrong, and being told otherwise. Week after week, doctor after doctor, specialist after specialist, I was told my numbers were fine, the scans came back clean and maybe I should “see a therapist”.

It felt like it was all in my head, my fault, not real.

And three weeks ago I finally got my answer. Stage 4 endometriosis. The kind that sinks its claws in deep with little remorse. A silent disease that plaques so many of us, but lives shrouded in darkness. Slinking into surrounding tissue, infiltrating other organs and paying little mind to its host body.

The cure…surgery, and not the kind you pop back from. The disease was allowed to progress so long, that when I go under the knife in July, we are talking a full hysterectomy, an appendix removal and a possible bowel reconstruction….with an 8-10 week recovery.

That’s heavy shit. When they told me, I cried. Not just from fear, though that was there too, from relief. From the bone deep exhale of finally being believed. Of having proof that my body had been telling the truth the whole time.

And sadly, I think this is something so many of us know intimately. Maybe not this story exactly, but the shape of it. The exhaustion of living in a body the world keeps misreading. Of fighting to trust yourself when everything around you says not to. Of carrying something real and heavy and true but having no proof.

The relief that I feel is immense but scary. Having proof and action steps for remediation means some real changes have to happen...and I don’t write that as a ploy for your sympathy. In fact I don’t want it. I am telling you all this from a place of power and clarity.

For the first time in ten years I have to be completely still. No camera. No travel. No clients. Just me and my body doing the slow, unglamorous, necessary work of healing. And I have decided, right now, in real time, to stop seeing that as a loss and start seeing it as the loudest possible invitation to finally build what this community was always meant to be. Not simply a newsletter dropped into your inbox weekly, to be glanced over then pushed to the trash folder. An actual community.

So here’s what’s coming:

The paid portion of this Substack is going away and being rebuilt in a proper home. On a platform specifically built for connection, for shared practice, a place to seek like minded humans, share your stories (and images), heal communally and engage with one another past the wall of a newsletter. Which is what was promised but never delivered, and for that I am truly sorry.

For the last 8 months, I have been asking you troopers to pay to be a part of bigger movement, a community, but then completely missing the community aspect of it. Healing is best served warm, around humans who are walking a similar path and have made a dedicated effort to be there…not shouted at you through a screen. Education without the ability to engage back, is in fact, not community and it’s time to change that.

So, in the next couple weeks, I will be rolling out the new and improved community, hosted on a platform specifically built of this purpose, which is where the monthly practice will live, the prompts, the challenges, the witnessing, the Pose Like a Pro series, the online meetups, the classes and so much more. It will be an opportunity to lean into the Love and Rage that I have been feeling so deeply and a place to heal communally, right alongside me as I document my recovery, showing up in my own mess, doing exactly what I’ll ask of you.

To the people who have been showing up and paying in every single month or paid in for the annual pass, I see you. I don’t take that lightly and I never have. You believed in this before it had its proper shape. You will hear about everything first and you will be honored for the fact that you were here early. What I’m building is for YOU and I will make sure that you are taken care of if you choose to step into that new space. That I can promise. You’re the reason I want to make a change, because you deserve SO MUCH MORE than what you have received.

For the Troopers who are here for the Newsletter and weekly love notes dropped into your inbox, I love you and see you as well. We aren’t going anywhere. This silly little space will continue to be the home of The Nood Troop Podcast and the place of healing you have come to know and love. Nothing really changes for this side of this space, but if you are looking to dive deeper or step deeper into your power, I will have a proper house built for that when you’re ready!

For now, I just need you to know this is coming. That you were the first people I wanted to tell. The reason I’m building all of this before I stumble fully into a recovery bed is because I genuinely believe the most powerful thing I can do with this season is pour it directly into YOU. Thank you for loving me, for being such an incredible community and for showing up for yourselves the way you do!

Your body is telling the truth.

Your story is worthy of documentation exactly as it is.

And there is a place being built right now where you will be witnessed in all of it.

Stay close.

With love and a whole metric fuck load of rage,

Your troop leader,

Katelyn