Welcome to the Daily Breadcrumb

Posted by Sunni on March 27, 2012 in featured slider, Uncategorized | 9 comments

About This Site  {The Short Version}

Welcome to the Daily Breadcrumb! My name is Sunni Chapman, and to cut right to the chase, I am someone who once hurt – a lot. In fact there was a time when I suffered so very much inside, that I thought I’d never be free. But through what I can only describe as  a trail of breadcrumbs from the universe, I found true comfort and happiness within. I created this site to offer support and encouragement to anyone who is looking for true and lasting peace and fulfillment. To those of you who are ready for change, but don’t quite know how. I created this site to offer not just inspiration, but real tools for transformation, so you can do what you love, love who you are, and truly open to Life. This site is a little bit of love for your whole-self, and for this whole mad-wonderful-mess we call ‘the human experience’.

It is my hope that this site will support, inspire and assist you on the path of your life, and that it may serve, in any small way, as one of those proverbial “breadcrumbs” on your trail to freedom. I dedicate this platform to all those who have left breadcrumbs for me, so that I can now leave them for you, and you can leave them for others.  So… what breadcrumb led you here today?  I would love to hear from you!  Please feel free to visit me as often or as randomly as you like and share your experience, in this way we all help each other to find the way home – one little piece at a time.

More About Me & This Site {The Long & Personal Version}

This is the part where I introduce myself to you, and officially out myself to you and any person in the entire world who happens to stumble upon this site.  Scary? You bet, but not scary enough to deter me from sharing my truth with you, because if it weren’t for those before me, who were brave enough to share their truth with the world and offer what they know to the rest of us, then I would not be standing here, living the life I am today. And I would not trade this life for anything. I figure the very least I can do is pay it forward, and if it helps even one of you on the journey of your life, I will consider this site a success. :)

On the outer-level, I could be described as a great many things:  writer, web designer, artist, poet, musician, animal-loving, tree-hugging, mother, wife, friend, sister, daughter, and woman.  But of course none of those are ultimately who I am.  But I am grateful to wear these descriptions as long as they may serve me, or others, and I feel so blessed to be able to share my truth through so many forms of expression – including this blog, which is a brave new world for me, indeed.

Like every human being, I have endured many, many years of personal struggle and suffering. As I said in the short version – I was someone who hurt – a lot.  I spent the majority of my life loathing myself, I was cripplingly insecure and fluctuated wildly between trying to hide myself, and trying to quietly “stand-out”.  It made no difference that I had an incredibly loving family or that people were kind to me, I couldn’t accept that love or kindness inside because I had a story going on in my mind that not only was I “not good enough” but that I was intrinsically “bad”, tragically flawed, and if people saw that, and knew the real truth about me, they would hate me, just as I did. As this story grew and grew in my mind, so did the shame that I carried inside, and it wasn’t long before I started seeking relief from that shame and self-loathing in the many ways that we confused people do:  Food, Alcohol, Pot, Starvation, Rigid Exercise Regimens, and eventually a full blown Eating Disorder. The funny thing about that is of course that the things we do to relieve the hurt and shame, only really ADD to the hurt and shame. Sure they provide a temporary relief, but it’s fleeting, followed by more self-loathing and regret, followed by an intensified need for those vices, followed by even MORE shame, self-loathing and regret – they don’t call it a vicious cycle for nothing!

I struggled to escape from myself for over 12 years. I made myself sick for over a decade through these various vices, but on the outside you would have seen a normal looking “got-it-together” kind of girl. I had a job and was pretty successful at it, I had a wonderful family, there were a great many times when I felt happy, quite content even, my life was very “normal”. It certainly wasn’t all darkness, there were lots of wonderful times too. I thought, this must be it, this must be as good as life gets. I looked around and saw that everybody struggled, most people I knew had a “few too many” on the weekends, almost every woman I knew had “body issues” – I figured that this was just the way it was going to be… this was Life. I could not conceive of a way out, I didn’t really believe real freedom and happiness was possible, I didn’t even know what that WAS. I made myself a victim to life because I didn’t know there was another option. But by the time my 30th birthday rolled around, I had finally had enough. I don’t know exactly what happened, I don’t know exactly what snapped, but something in me was just, quite simply, DONE.  Done with the hurting, done with the shame, done with the suffering, done with the self-loathing – just done. And I finally started seeking help. I was ready to be free at all costs, nothing could hurt more than it hurt not to LIVE my WHOLE LIFE. Nothing could hurt more than to live it the way I was living it then. What did I have to lose? And more importantly, what did I have to GAIN?

So I started my inward-journey that day. I started looking for answers, I started looking for the TRUTH. I didn’t really know if it was possible yet, to truly be free, but all I had to do was BEGIN. I heard people say how once you’ve had an eating disorder (or any kind of addiction), you’ll never truly be free – you’ll have to live with it and struggle with it, like some monster, everyday, for the rest of your life – my god, how freakin’ depressing is that?!  No wonder people don’t want to start that journey – why would they with that kind of talk?!  I had to believe there was another way, I had to believe it was possible, or else how could I ever begin?

I am here to tell you, 4 years later, that there IS another way.  That it IS possible to truly be free, and to NOT have to wake up everyday and wrestle with your demons just to get by and be clear. I wake up every morning now, with a heart so big and wide and open, and a love for this life so huge and so profound, that I cannot put it into words, and it’s all I can do sometimes, not to just cry and cry at the absolute, over-whelming beauty of it all. I made that leap that fateful day, and Grace rose-up to meet me. All I had to do was open the door, and Life came pouring through. It came in the form of just what I needed, right when I needed it. It came in the form of books, people, practices, quotes, song-lyrics, personal interactions, jobs, movies, sign-posts, and more… I began to recognize all of the myriad ways life communicates with us. I began to see that it always HAD been doing this, I had just been too asleep to notice. Through this “trail of breadcrumbs from the universe”, I finally came to know myself – not as a “self”, but as the truth – beyond all “self-hood”.  This awakening process exposed true life to me, not the nightmare I’d been living in my head, not the victim and perpetrator roles I’d grown to believe in, but a world so bright and lovely, that it breaks me open with joy just to look at the simplest things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still just a normal human being, with a normal human mind, and fearful, stressful thoughts still come to greet me from time to time, just like they do for everyone else – it’s just that now, I recognize what’s happening, and I know just what to do. I now know that the only thing that ever stands between me and peace of mind, is an unquestioned thought or belief, and because I know that, fear and pain are just a friend; a friend visiting to show me what I’m not seeing, to show me where the hurt is, and help me come back home.

If you would have told me I’d feel this way 5 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I might have even smiled politely at you, and then flipped you the bird as you walked away. I might have thought you were a ridiculous self-help nerd, and made fun of all your gushy-ness. And if that’s what you’re thinking right now about me… I understand.  Inner-freedom and peace like this cannot be explained in words, or transferred to another person — it can only be experienced DIRECTLY, it comes from a place within. Nobody can understand it, until they’re ready. And nobody should be ready, until they are. Everything is in perfect timing. Each one of us has an intricate and unrepeatable path to unfold, this is the adventure of life!  Every “breadcrumb” helps to lead you back home, home to the center of you, to the One True Place within us all.

I created this site not just so that I can help you to find those next pieces, but so that you can help me to find mine.  I believe that’s why we’re here – to pick up all the pieces, and come back home to LIFE.

Thank you for visiting me to today, and for sharing a moment of your life with me! I would love to hear from you so please feel free to connect with me by sharing your comments or contacting me directly.