We recently connected with Meredith Ochoa and have shared our conversation below.
Meredith, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
My 17 years of pain with endo have been anything but smooth, but it has fueled my mission: showing others how to face their pain and see themselves for who they really are.
Every 28 days, since around fourteen years old, I have had debilitating menstrual pain (up until about four years ago). I have crossed over to the other side and returned, I have woken up in pools of sweat and blood, and I have gone unconscious due to the shock from the writhing, knife-bending, piercing stabs of the cramps. I usually had to go to the emergency room when I could afford it. I have had surgery, been on multiple medications, birth controls, and consulted with countless doctors who have said ‘it’s all in my head’ and told me to ‘just have a baby’ and it will go away—all of the usual medical sales pitches that turned out to be completely false.
There was one month the pain was so intense that I passed out and felt like I had died– I was completely powerless and felt complete surrender. After dying, I knew that I needed to start honoring & listening to my body, and could no longer hide or be embarrassed by it if I wanted to truly live. I realized I needed to see myself for who I really was and face all of the areas in my life where I had been inauthentic.
So in late 2019, I began to unravel all of the medical lies I had believed and educated myself on how women’s hormones actually worked and healed myself.
I visited hell monthly—the prison of endometriosis. Until I realized that I held the key to that prison, unlocked the door, and healed myself. I healed a chronic condition with my mindset, diet, and lifestyle—what most Western doctors deemed “impossible,” I did anyway. I educated myself on how food impacts hormones, revealing what endo truly is, so I could see it clearly and then leverage my biology to transform it from my weakness to my power source. I have had the most generous and caring pelvic floor physical therapist, sex therapist, and powerful health reading material to guide and help me get where I am today. I will be forever grateful for them. However, my own willingness to look at the inconvenient truths is what helped me find the person I really needed to get me through it all: myself.
I learned through my experience that all healing starts with being authentic.
I would come to realize later on that we can’t even recognize what it is that we really want until we experience the unwanted. That contrast gives birth to us feeling joy from our own desires.
I am thankful to all of the doctors who called me crazy because of their own lack of knowledge. I am thankful for my sexual abuse and trauma. It isn’t until you actually become grateful for something that you truly have power over it. They really are the compressed coals that have become gems in my crown. If I did have the doctors’ help, I would have been denied the absolute privilege to discover this power on my own. And I wouldn’t be starting this series. In no way am I diminishing the pain of what I have gone through, but rather celebrating the makings of the absolute empowerment I have now because of my willingness to face my pain.
As an artist, I was so empowered and inspired by this journey that in April 2021 I felt compelled to create a 13-year ongoing art series about it called ‘Every Phase’–where I powerfully illustrate how I healed myself as I live by the phases of the female hormonal cycle. The artwork shows what’s happening in the brain and the body during each phase and reveals how to biohack & leverage this energy in your life. I have included a link to the series below: https://www.meredithochoa.com/every-phase
I am actually living the art, so it’s about more than just healing. The writing and art discuss truth, freedom, our current financial & healthcare system slavery–and the way out. Watch for the newest release on the last Friday of each month and be the first to see it by subscribing on my website.
I also self-published the first year of the series as a printed art book with Augmented Reality (AR) interaction. I have very appropriately titled it, Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself. Below is a brief video explaining the book and series:
https://www.meredithochoa.com/face-your-shit-heal-yourself-book
In addition to the book, I have an accompanying podcast, Face your Shit, Heal Yourself, to help other women dealing with ‘chronic’ pain and hormonal imbalances by introducing some of the experts and practices that helped me achieve what I thought was impossible:
https://faceyourshithealyourself.captivate.fm/
True freedom is not given; it is discovered and claimed. It is a choice. It’s the kind no one can take away from you because it’s completely yours. It’s only in hindsight that we realize all of those seemingly inconvenient things are actually benefiting us if we let them. I realized that nothing happens that doesn’t benefit me. It’s not a lie you tell yourself, but an available awareness and reality. I kept the desire, and I gave up the struggle. My wish is for this freedom to spread to all women dealing with endo.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I began my visual arts journey at 17 years old after being a ballerina for 14 years and battling recovery with an eating disorder while failing my way through high school. One day, a small voice told me, “draw, just draw”. I listened, and I could. I really could. I became fascinated with light and shadow in drawing & photography. I loved how you can only see the light because of the dark and vice versa. This contrast showed up not only in my art but in my life.
I started making my own pinhole cameras and skipping class to experiment in the darkroom. Imagine my surprise when I miraculously got a scholarship to SCAD (then another for my Master’s degree later on). When I got there, because of my darkroom roots, I was pretty upset about the digital ‘takeover’ within the photo world.
I decided to make a ‘mockery’ of digital photography–turning a scanner into a sort of ‘large format’ camera. This became an entire practice & technique within itself and became the scanning process that I am known for today. The subject becomes the “negative” through digital degradation with a portable wand of light. The portable scanner describes the subject through a life-size depiction of the number of pixels the subject amounts to. The subject becomes the “negative” describing the subject digitally with a flattened focal plane. These images create ‘totems’ of the subject, dialogue, and/or relationship they portray.
This artistic practice and journey served as the foundation of what would lead me to the discovery of my mission, helping others to see themselves for who they really are.
One of my favorite demonstrations of this through art is with genealogical art, or family photo curation & image management.
I talked about facing your shit in describing how I developed my mission, so what about sorting it out?
So I have recently launched a new segment of my business for curating, backing up/syncing, organizing, sharing & creating art from family photos. Very appropriately titled: The D.A.M. (stands for Digital Asset Management) Curator.
I have a saying in my business: Photography Affords Immortality.
Time is the most we can give to anyone or anything because we can never get it back.
By having an experience created or documented, we memorialize that in time. While we can’t go back in time, our minds can take us back to what really matters in life—all of the things that cannot be bought: relationships, emotion, passion, and connectedness.
With my help, photos will be backed up safely, syncing and sharing systems will be created, and what was once lost or damaged, can be enjoyed as art.
I have 3 areas of focus including:
✅ DIGITAL CURATION
– Consolidate all of your devices
– Sync icloud photos (PC to Mac issues)
– De-duplicating library and curating the keepers
– De-clutter, highlights, face/topic tags
– Create and organize into a consistent, searchable file structure
– Simple Maintenance Workflow
– 3-2-1 backup strategy
✅ PHOTO RESTORATION
– Bulk, high resolution scanning available
– Custom retouching, restoring any damage
– Color correction, color restoration (black and white to color)
– Secure & archival permanent digital & physical storage
✅ GENEALOGICAL ART & BOOK DESIGN
– Custom design and photo book printing for cookbooks, family history, weddings, milestone events, travel & more
– Visual story-telling with personal photos and documents as custom art
– Alternative printing for unique photo gifts and prints
– Digital photo film ‘mini biographies’ & slideshows
– Genealogical art example with St. Paul’s 175th-anniversary story: https://www.meredithochoa.com/timelineart
There isn’t a manual to being an artist, and there isn’t a manual for being alive. Obstacles and challenges throughout life are inevitable. However, when we make creativity a habit, we continue to learn new, resourceful ways of solving problems not only in our space, but in our lives.
Your life is art.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron absolutely changed my life and reconnected me to my creative practice. I cannot recommend it enough!
Also, one book that I think all women would benefit from reading is Womancode by Alisa Vitti. The information in this book served as the primary foundation for understanding my body, my hormones, and opened the door to bringing me….back to me. It was a huge inspiration for the series, as well as the second book I read by her, In the FLO, which explores the infradian rhythm female hormonal clock deeply and was another vital foundational building block for scheduling work in my business & how I live my life. I want to shout from the rooftops how incredible and impactful her work is!
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Face Your Shit, Heal Yourself is more than a book & podcast. It is a movement. A #FYSHY movement.
A movement where you see yourself and honor yourself and your body for who you actually are.
I remember being scared of my body. Uncertain when the train of pain would run me over and rule my life. I lived in fear of my period, of my pelvic floor, and my entire reproductive system. I was scared to face it, to really know more about it, even though I was taking the typical western medicine ‘actions’ on the outside. To the outsider, it appeared as though I was virtuously working through this horrible disease of endometriosis, yet I had not looked on the inside and faced myself — that was too scary.
Not looking (out of fear) is what kept me stuck.
As societally taught, I was relying on others (doctors, therapists, etc.) to tell me about me, instead of looking for myself. These half-truths or illusions give people a false sense of stability & comfort which they may ‘trade-in’ over really looking at the truth when in reality, facing your pain and seeing yourself for who you really are is the only way to any kind of power or freedom.
When I started to look, by facing my pain, I started to see myself for who I really was. I started to see why I chose my trauma, to awaken certain aspects of myself. I started to see that my pain & sexual trauma caused me to gain a depth of knowledge about the universal truth of oneness, freedom, and a rich understanding of the masculine & feminine polarities.
Upon educating myself on how women’s hormones work, and the realization that the modern world operates on a man’s hormonal clock, I stopped scheduling my life in the ‘every-day’, and zoomed out to the seasonal, cyclical nature of not only my body, but the universe — every phase.
I am a biological woman, so I began to honor that, to be proud of that, instead of trying to make it fit into a man’s world. I started to see my cycle as my super-power, something unique to my femininity, and to be celebrated. My cycle is what makes me different, but it is also what has connected me more intimately to the oneness with others because I am connected to the source within, myself.
Both masculine and feminine polarities are two halves that complete one whole within each person. You need both, which is what makes ‘competition’ between the sexes pointless and really laughable. Everyone has both energetic polarities within, regardless of what’s between your legs. The goal is to address and balance both. They are both equally valuable, but they are different. Each bring different insights and should be celebrated for that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.meredithochoa.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meredithwochoa/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anotherfingartist
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithochoa/
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/AnEffinArtist
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anotherfingartist
- Photo portfolio: https://www.anotherfingartist.com/ ALL photo + art services: https://www.anotherfingartist.com/services
Image Credits
Austin Gill Photo