Jean Marshall The Artful Woman

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Rebuilding Strength When Nothing Moves Fast Enough

I made it to the gym Saturday. And Monday. And today. If all goes well, I’ll go again Friday. It doesn’t sound like much. For some people it’s just routine. For me, it’s everything. Life is still chaotic. Today my workout got cut short because my caretaker had to rush to urgent care — teenage drama, a fight at school, one of those moments that reminds you the world doesn’t pause just because you’re trying to heal. Nothing in my life is moving quickly right now. Insurance is slow. Legal processes are slow. Disability is slow. Every step requires another referral, another form, another phone call. It feels like living inside a system that runs on “eventually.” Meanwhile, my body is still catching up to trauma. Nerves that were cut. Areas that are numb. Pain that lingers. A limb that’s gone. Metal holding things together. Some days I feel like a collection of repairs. And yet — the gym is the one place I don’t feel broken. It hurts to train. I’m tired. My body protests...

What Surviving Twice Taught Me About Purpose—And What It Didn’t

Questioning the idea that survival comes with a purpose to fulfill I’ve survived two life-altering events, and what I’ve learned about purpose isn’t what people expect. They say, “God kept your alive for a reason,” or “God still has a purpose for you.” And I need to be honest about how that lands for me. It doesn’t feel comforting. It feels like pressure. Like surviving something traumatic automatically comes with an assignment—something I’m supposed to figure out later, some hidden meaning I’m expected to uncover. And in my case, this hasn’t been said just once. It’s been said twice. Once after my stroke in 2020. And now again after a near-death accident on September 6th 2025 that changed my life forever. So it starts to create a pattern I can’t ignore—that my survival is always being tied to some purpose I haven’t “fulfilled” yet. And that raises a real question for me: Why does it sound like I have to go through something catastrophic in order for my life to be cons...

Holding On Through Trauma, Loss & Healing

People ask me how I’m holding on after everything that happened to me. How do you keep going when one person’s reckless decision permanently changes your life? The truth is, some days I’m barely holding on by a thread. One man’s choice didn’t just destroy my car. It destroyed my livelihood, my body, and my ability to live the life I built. He took my leg. And as a photographer and artist, my work depended on being on my feet—moving constantly, creating memories, capturing love, telling stories through my lens. That life was taken from me in an instant. Now I live with constant anxiety about how I’m going to pay my rent, cover my bills, and survive while trying to heal from catastrophic injuries. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a landlord who has shown compassion and patience, but the reality is, that understanding can only last so long. There are days when I feel one wrong word away from a panic attack. But I’ve learned that I cannot afford to live in fear. I cannot let my ...

When Survival Looks Like Dependence

When Survival Looks Like Dependence There are moments in life where everything you thought you understood about yourself gets stripped away. For me, it happened in a single instant—an accident that left me with severe injuries, a long recovery ahead, and a body I no longer recognized. I’ve been trying to process it ever since. Not just the physical pain, but the emotional weight of waking up into a completely different reality. A reality where I’m dependent on other people for basic things I used to do without thinking. And that’s where things get complicated. Because dependence doesn’t always come with safety. Sometimes it comes with tension. Sometimes it comes with resentment. Sometimes it comes wrapped in help that has strings attached. The Strange Place I Ended Up In Before my accident, I broke up with my boyfriend. That part was clear. I didn’t love him, and I didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. But life doesn’t always respect clear decisions. While I was ...

The Question I Keep Asking Myself

There’s a question that keeps looping in my mind since the accident: Why did this happen to me? Not just in a surface-level way—but in a deeper, more unsettling way. Was this random? Or was there a reason? And if there was a reason… was it somehow my fault? When Faith Gets Tangled with Fear I started questioning things I never thought I would. Even my curiosity—exploring things like tarot, pendulums, and spiritual tools—suddenly felt like something I needed to examine under a microscope. Was I stepping outside of my faith? Was I doing something I wasn’t supposed to do? Was this some kind of consequence? It’s a hard place to sit in—when your beliefs, your curiosity, and your trauma all start blending together. The Truth I Keep Coming Back To The more I sit with these questions, the more I realize something important: Not everything that happens is a message. Not everything is a lesson. And not everything painful is a punishment. Sometimes things happen because life i...

It’s time for me to start telling my story.

It’s time for me to start telling my story. For a long time, I stayed quiet outside of a very small circle of close friends. I shared only enough to stay connected, but not enough to be fully seen. That wasn’t avoidance—it was protection. After my accident, my nervous system and my energy field simply could not take in more input from the outside world. As an empath, I had to retreat in order to survive and heal. But as my strength slowly returns, I feel that silence shifting. I was in a tragic accident on Ortega Highway that changed the entire course of my life. In an instant, everything I knew about my body, my independence, and my future was disrupted. Since then, I’ve been forced into a long and ongoing process of rebuilding—not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And I’m still in it. Even the simplest things that most people take for granted have become daily challenges. Basic mobility. Using the restroom safely and in time. Navigating transfers ...

Help Me Stay Housed While Recovering From a Life-Changing Accident

Help Me Stay Housed While Recovering From a Life-Changing Accident On September 6th, my life changed in an instant when a driver crossed into my lane on Ortega Highway and hit me head-on. My car was thrown into the air and I nearly lost my life. My vehicle was completely totaled. I spent four months in the hospital. The first part was in a trauma unit where I was placed in an induced coma and underwent multiple life-saving surgeries. I was then transferred to an acute care facility where I required critical support, including IVs, a tracheostomy, a feeding tube, and dialysis. My injuries included: Loss of my right leg Six broken ribs and two vertebrae Broken pelvis, right arm, and wrist Multiple fractures in my left leg Kidney and heart failure from trauma Many of my injuries required surgical repair with metal hardware that I am still healing from After returning home, my focus has been recovery. I’ve faced infections, complications, and delayed healing that hav...

Why I’m Still Here

Why I’m Still Here By Jean Marshall I’ve asked myself the question more times than I can count: Why am I still here? After a stroke that changed my life five years ago, I thought I had already learned resilience. I thought I had already been tested. But then came the accident — a beautiful September morning that shattered my body, altered my future, and once again forced me to start over from the ground up. There are days I still can’t fully understand it. One man’s poor decision, one wrong moment, and everything changed. My bones broke. My leg was lost. My body shut down. My life — the one I’d built with so much effort — came to a stop. But somehow, my heart didn’t. They tell me it took over twenty doctors and nurses to keep me alive that day. I was in an induced coma, held together by machines, prayers, and the hands of strangers. There were moments I thought I was dying — I even said my last prayers. But each time I surrendered, something unseen pulled me back. Something...

So… Is Your Higher Self the Same as Source?

Not exactly. Think of it like this: Source is the origin —pure consciousness, God/Goddess/Divine Light, whatever you want to call it. It’s the everything-and-nothing energy from which all things come. Your Higher Self is your personal bridge to Source. It’s your soul in its purest form , untainted by fear, ego, or human distortion. Your Higher Self is you , just on the zoomed-out level —the version of you that remembers the full story, all lifetimes, all lessons, all missions. So: Source is the sun. Your Higher Self is the sunbeam that still holds its essence but is uniquely you . Is Your Higher Self Your Soul? Pretty much— but here's the nuance: Your soul is eternal. It’s the part of you that has lived countless lives. Your Higher Self is like the fully awakened version of your soul —the one not currently squeezed into a human body trying to pay bills and avoid family drama. When you're in human form, you're kind of like the tip of the i...