Letting go

In October 2023, my dad passed away from rapidly progressing ALS . One month later, my cofounder, Michelle Stephens, PhD, CPNP, RN and I shut down our company Oath Care . Today, after some time to grieve and heal, I am sharing a bit about this journey. ?

This has been the hardest season of my life. I feel molten from the intensity of pressure and heat. I don’t know what comes next. So instead, I’ll share what is true for me right now:

I’ve spent most of my life resisting, wanting things to be different than they are. Most of us do this most of the time. I was so used to resisting that it felt comfortable and known, even though it drained my energy, as it does for all of us.

Over these past few months, it took everything I had, every bit of courage, to surrender to “what is.” Surrendering my resistance meant facing and moving through what felt utterly impossible, what every atom in my body didn’t want to be true but knew was true. I had no context for this kind of grief. All I had was surrender, putting one foot in front of the other.

This season has felt impossible.?

In the hospital, it felt impossible to stay in that sterile room, facing death and it felt equally impossible to leave, slowly shifting my dad’s warm hand out of mine as we said goodbye.

It felt impossible that I would part ways with Oath team members I’ve known for years, and that we collectively would say goodbye to this beautiful vision of a new system for maternal and child health we worked tirelessly to build.

The scales of grief were different, but they all came in together at the same time.

And what I have learned is that facing the impossible is a flow state. Anger is a flow state. Grief is a flow state. Heartbreak is a flow state. Discomfort is a flow state.

Before this season, I believed that being in my Zone of Genius and being in flow meant uninterrupted bliss.?

I was wrong.

Being in flow, being aware, and giving my gifts means feeling everything as it arises and allowing each of these feelings to continuously bring me back home to my true self. It feels “good” not because it is blissful, but because it is raw and true and home.

My dad, Peter Hermann was a founder. He’s the reason I knew the word “entrepreneur” in kindergarten long before it entered the mainstream. He was also my biggest champion, always eager to talk through the intricacies of the business when we spoke and often the first person to comment on my LinkedIn posts. He was so proud of me. He is so proud of me.?

Even as I grieve my dad and the shutdown of Oath, I am overwhelmed by the myriad of gifts these experiences have brought.

I learned to see past my own stories of people to the nuanced, contradictory, utterly magical reality of who someone truly is.

I learned that to move consciously through the impossible requires deep surrender… and found myself on the other side.

I learned about a much deeper level of trust than I had ever known. I learned that I can want something to be different and also trust in how events beyond my control are unfolding.

I learned to sort the files of what I can actually control and to let go of what I can’t control.

This has been the ride of a lifetime. I am so profoundly grateful for my co-founder, Michelle Stephens, PhD, CPNP, RN , our incredible team, and the world-class investors, all of whom had the courage to bet on this wild, completely new vision for maternal and pediatric health. Your devotion, hard work, talent, and heart are a testament to the best of what humans have to offer the world.

Thank you,

Camilla