Part I : A Relationship On Mute
estrangement as a spiritual path, part I
Hello lovelies, welcome!
I’m Soul Surgeon, Dr. Tamy, inviting you into the journey of self-discovery.
Permission Slips is your weekly breath of truth - a blend of soul stories, ancient whispers, and grounded tools for the journey home to yourself. With poetry, art, and tales from the battlefield of raising five wild-hearted humans, this is a space for seekers, feelers, and those learning to stay awake. Wherever you are on the path - come, walk with me.
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Today’s Permission Slip : I give myself permission to share my path in truth✨
For a long time, I couldn’t find the words.
Though I’ve shared myself openly in exposing my life in bullet points and my journey from plastic surgeon to SOUL Surgeon, this particular story has lived quietly in my chest, tender and raw - too big, too sacred, too charged to touch. I’ve held it close, and in doing so, I’ve held myself close - with as much grace, love, and gentleness as I could offer in the midst of the ache.
Now, the words are ready to emerge, but the truth is - there’s too much here to pour into a single publication. Too many layers. Too much feeling. Too many quiet heartbreaks folded inside this one story.
So, I’m letting this unfold in two parts.
Because this deserves space to breathe.
And so do I.
I’ll begin sharing today and continue in next week’s publication. If my words feel a bit disjointed or tangled, forgive me - this path is bumpy, and so are the emotions. I’m writing from inside of the experience. While I may not have the full clarity that hindsight sometimes brings, I do have something just as valuable - wisdom carved from the ache and healing that’s come drop by drop.
This experience has stretched me, softened me, deepened me. It has grown me in ways I never asked for, but now humbly carry. I may still be in the unfolding, but I no longer feel lost in it.
There is a light here.
And there is me - wiser, gentler, more whole because of it.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey … here we go.
My Mirror And My Moon
Have you ever had that one person in your life - that go-to person?
The one whose personality just syncs with yours like a perfectly tuned harmony.
The one who could raise an eyebrow and have you belly laughing for 20 minutes without saying a single word.
The kind of connection where simply sitting on the couch with a cup of tea turns into a soul soak - hands naturally reaching for one another, lingering, because touch feels like home.
You know… your person.
The one you call in the middle of the night with the good, the bad, and the beautifully ugliness of Life. And the one you call for no reason at all – just to hear their voice, to feel their energy travel across time and space through a phone line, reminding you they exist. And that’s enough.
My firstborn, my oldest daughter, was that person for me.
We were that for each other.
She wasn’t just my daughter - she was my mirror and my moon. The one who reflected me back to myself with startling clarity and tender love. The one who lit up the darkest corners of my being, even when she didn’t know she was doing it. The kind of closeness that felt cosmic, not just maternal, like we had known each other long before this life.
She was my mirror - showing me who I was and who I could be.
She was my moon - orbiting just close enough to guide me with her light.
And then, the silence came.
Twenty-Two Months
Nearly two years ago she disconnected from me.
It didn’t happen all at once.
There was no explosive fight, no dramatic fallout, no ‘I’m right, you’re wrong.’
Just a slow, insidious unraveling – like a silent cancer.
The space between us widened gradually, almost imperceptibly at first. As she deepened her relationship with her partner, she quietly walked out of my life.
No door slammed. Just the sound of footsteps fading down a hallway I never imagined she’d walk.
They Call It : Ambiguous Loss
They, though I’m not sure who they are, named it ambiguous loss. But had they asked me, I would have been more descriptive in my naming of this experience, perhaps :
A Daughter Shaped Echo
The Passive-Aggressive Olympics
Zen and the Art of Pretending It’s Fine
But we’ll stick with their term.
Ambiguous - meaning unclear, undefined, blurred edges. A word that lives in the gray. Not here, not gone. Not closure, not continuation. It hovers like mist in the morning dew - formless, shifting, refusing to settle. It’s an ache without a wound you can see. It’s mourning of a presence that still breathes, grieving without a funeral, carrying love without a landing place. It’s the dissonance of having someone exist and not belong to your world anymore - like shouting into a canyon and hearing no echo. There’s no clean line to trace, no map to follow, and only the quiet discipline of learning to live inside the question, what happened?
Loss - meaning something gone. It’s the state of no longer having something or someone that was once present, valuable, or loved.
Ambiguous loss teaches you how to love through silence. It’s not the kind of loss that shouts.
It whispers.
Long after the door has closed shut.
Put those together - ambiguous + loss - and you get a soul-wrecking cocktail : a tsunami meets Category 5 hurricane meets 6.0 earthquake meets Red Level forest fire.
The kind of loss that swallows you whole with a single wave, shakes the ground on which you walk, and then turns everything you’ve ever thought you knew into ashes.
You don’t raise a child in your body – literally grow her from two microscopic cells, birth her through the sacred passage, feed her from your own breast, keep her alive through sleepless nights and endless worry – for her to disappear on you after 25 years.
Because at that point, you’ve got serious skin in the game. You're in it until your last breath. Anything short of that feels...unimaginable.
Literally, Beyond imagination
This strange kind of grief shows up in ways no one warns you about. Twenty-two months of purgatory feels unimaginable in many ways :
Not hearing the sound of her voice for almost two years - unimaginable.
Not feeling the warmth of her loving bear hug for almost two years - unimaginable.
Not watching her face light up when she tells me about how she stayed up all night writing the latest song lyrics - unimaginable.
Not knowing if she’s okay. Just okay. For almost two years - unimaginable.
Not getting a ‘happy birthday / happy mother’s day / or just ‘love you, Mom’ text or call for almost two years - unimaginable.
Not being part of her world, for almost two years - unimaginable.
Not sharing in the little, ordinary daily nothings, for almost two years - unimaginable.
Not knowing the person she’s becoming - unimaginable
Not being her safe place to land - maybe the most unimaginable of it all.
I’ll meet you in Part 2
Let’s pause.
I need a few deep breaths.
Maybe you do too.
Though I’ve made much peace with this life circumstance, I still need to to pause and meet myself inside a few deep conscious breaths when I write and spend time in the many memories that are entangled in this writing.
In next week’s pub, Part II , I’ll continue weaving this tender, sacred journey with you. A quilt woven from loss, love, and the quiet wisdom that only heartbreak can teach. Together, we’ll keep exploring how even in the ache, the soul finds a way to stretch, soften, and awaken. This isn’t just a story of estrangement - it’s a story of becoming.
See you there.
And thank you for being here.✨🙏✨
XO Dr. Tamy, Soul Surgeon
Self-Inquiry Journaling Prompts✨In what ways has loss broken you open - and what has been revealed in the breaking?
What parts of yourself have surfaced or softened in the absence of what (or who) once was?
Where are you still gripping - and where are you learning to loosen, to let be?
How has a relationship loss stretched or reshaped your understanding of love, acceptance, and grace?
If your soul invited this loss as a teacher, what sacred wisdom might it be offering you now?
Offerings from Dr. Tamy
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If you feel inspired to click on the link below, you’ll treat me to my fave decaf oat milk latte.
*p.s. i love you❣️
I feel how much you care. I hear your pain. I see your vulnerability. You’re strong to share this.
Beautiful, beautiful piece, Tamy.