As I have walked my journey and opened up as I go the understanding of my story changes. How I see people, events, experiences are looked upon with new eyes. So how do I share with you my path when to me the deeper understandings keep emerging along with the purer opening to All That I Am?
Our paths are not much different. Perhaps the story line is altered but I believe the underlying truths and understandings are there to step into if we so choose. I didn't really step into mine until I was in my forties.
I can give you my background which laid the foundation to my patterns that I eventually sought to release. However, please understand I am not angered or hold resentment but rather a deeper sense of gratitude for the people in my life and what I have uncovered about myself which perhaps wouldn't have been so unless I fought to find my truth.
I grew up in a family where the mom stayed home and hand-me-downs and homemade clothes were the norm. That's great but I have an older brother and a younger brother so now I look back and understand why we were bought the exact same gender neutral jacket in the exact same color. Easily to give to another child and actually pretty smart on my moms part. My dad was absent in many ways. He traveled a lot and showed us the world which ignited my love of travel. I learned to speak when I was spoken to, that some emotions weren't relevant and love was bought. I learned that cuddling wasn't really the norm and you do what you're told. I learned to live within parameters for safety but also internal confinement. I learned that men take care of women, that saying I love you and thank you were robotic and not felt. I also learned to see the positive in all things, be optimistic, to explore people and places, to give back when I can and to love animals. I learned what my parents knew and I understand that they taught from this space in the best way they could.
As an empathic child I felt others so easily but didn't understand it and on top of that I was being taught to not express myself or talk about what I thought were my feelings, taught to compress it all down and this was confusing. Looking back I see how Spirit was speaking to me then as well, but I followed the lines of not sharing what wasn't of the "norm" so I lived an internal battle. This showed up in weight issues, in stomach pains, depression, anxiety, in devaluing, in low self esteem. The men I choose also fit the how I saw love and not valuing myself.
With my foundation, I took what I learned, what I understood and grew up. I lived a life of following, of observing, of not sharing about myself because I didn't believe what I had to say mattered and I looked for someone to save me. Something my inner child wanted so bad. She raised her hand to anyone and everyone with money, love, self worth. In hindsight, those were all temporary fixes of course and a pattern that continued until I started getting to know myself. I really didn't know who I was.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. After high school I didn't know what to do. I had this underlying thought that a man would save me which was conflicted with go to college and get a degree. Deciding a major was difficult because I didn't know who I was and really what I wanted to do. So off I went, following what I was told to do. I think I was a semester away from a Bachelors degree when I met my first husband and moved to Washington. Aw I thought, someone to save me and take me away from my life. However, no one can save you from your patterns. You can move all the way across the world and what has been taught, what creates your patterns isn't going to change unless you change them with a different thought, feeling and choice.
The good thing about that marriage, I got to see the beautiful state, my son was born and I realized I missed California sunshine. Funny that I was looking for someone to save me and he didn't even want to work. Totally not what I was looking for. After four years I moved back to California and toggled between San Diego and Los Angeles - my parent's homes because well I still had no idea what I was doing or how to create what I thought I wanted. I ended up in San Diego and met my second husband. Aww another one to save me perhaps. I very easily looked past the warning signs because I knew I could change him and I mentally fit him into my parameters.
I really didn't know who I was married to until three years into it. He did very well at hiding himself, but than again, so did I. His demons took heed but since I was good at being a chameleon I could endure the emotional dysfunction and damaged home more easily. I blamed myself at first, then tried to save him and then realized I couldn't do either. I could very easily see the patterns and conform with them no matter how challenging. My daughter emerged from this marriage but my step son and son suffered in this relationship. I'm not proud of that. Toward the end I kept feeling and hearing there was more to this life. When one is involved in something that is so limiting to ones soul it's easier to hear, I believe, this message. I waited until he finally took the initiative and left. I was relieved and scared. My house was being foreclosed on, I was loosing my job, I needed a place to live and had little to no money.
Somehow it worked out. I had support to help me financially, I found a quiet place to live and eventually another job. But I was still scraping by. Money was challenging. If one is equating money to value and one doesn't see value in themselves how then can money? Meaning, I was attracting the value I saw in myself and with money it was minimal. The Universe equates our vibration, what we put out we get back. Thus if I'm not seeing and feeling my worth I will attract what supports that. The same with relationships and careers. In all areas of life. There is no separation with the energy which is amazing when you're in the space of receiving what you truly desire. Energy isn't compartmentalized.
As I stepped more into my own space I started exploring my intuition, where I was called. This led me to working with a Shaman practitioner, intuitive counselors, channeling coaches, an Earth Wisdom guide and a yoga teacher. I started down a new avenue, one of self discovery and in this I let go of old patterns, beliefs and teachings that didn't represent who I was. If you agree that God, Source, You, are an expansive energy than you will understand to stand in this space one must release what is limiting or not supportive of this.
In this space I have understood and appreciated those voices in my head, my knowing and my empathy. I have welcomed in how these and my other gifts are tools for myself and for others I offer in service to.
Spirit moves us or helps us move forward sometimes forcefully and sometimes more gently. In 2015 I was pushed to leave the corporate world. It was time and I was dragging my feet because I still didn't know how to take action for myself or from internal direction. This time it was a slightly more easier transition then my marriage but still scary. I was trusting but with hesitation because I couldn't see what anything looked like. I eventually moved in with my than boyfriend. That relationship brought me the most internal growth and understanding. One that allowed me to step more fully in who I am, one that taught me how to communicate and be me. But after a couple of years I once more wasn't following my guidance and the Universe stepped in again. He moved to another state and I was left trying to find my footing.
How the hell do I create what I desire when I still don't stand in my value? How the hell do I create shifts when I still look to others to tell me what to do? How the hell do I be me fully, completely, unapologetically?
This past year has been the most challenging for myself. It has been the year I have most stepped into me, seeing All I Am and knowing that is more than enough. I have realized that I don't need to be accepted by anyone but myself, that I show the love I desire to me, that what I feel, think, believe, know is perfect and doesn't need to be accepted or denied by anyone.
I have cried, laughed and felt every emotion some so foreign I had to learn and accept what those felt like to me. I have forgiven, loved and honored each soul along my path because without them I really wouldn't know me. Without them I wouldn't have had gauges or understandings to determine what my truth is.
I have come to a space of deep appreciation for all in my life. I am able to look back and see how each soul has helped me on my journey. Each boyfriend or choice with food and exercise and career helped support my stories of what I believed and thought I deserved. My first husband actually was there to support my story of wanting to be financially independent but at the time I didn't know what that looked like nor how it felt so I chose old patterns and perspectives and stayed in my struggle. My second husband helped me get to a space of really feeling or not feeling myself, more so than I ever had, and in that I heard the inner voice, finally, saying go seek. Find you. My family also have supported my story. When we start to find ourselves we can truly watch from the cliffs edge and see really how each person has supported us whether we term that healthy, dysfunctional, or whatever. This awareness is a space of freedom. This awareness is a space of expansion, no longer tied to blame or pain or disconnection. This space is true gratitude and opening to All One Is.
What does the path inward look like? Messy. What does it feel like? Freeing. What does one gain from it? Peace, freedom, worth, knowing, understanding, deep love, unlimitedness. Think of God or Source and what that may represent to you for that is the path inward. It is rediscovering who and what you are. It is being in that and living each moment from that space.
I wish you well along your journey.
Namaste beautiful one.