Masks, Mirrors and Magic

I am no longer willing to confuse familiar patterns with destiny.

For a long time, I believed that because something kept repeating, it must belong to me. The struggle. The stress. The anxiety. The disconnection. The feeling that life was something to survive rather than something to experience.

But repetition does not always mean fate.

Sometimes it means the nervous system has become accustomed to what is familiar—even when what is familiar is painful.

I spend much of my day listening to stories of anxiety, depression, trauma, fear, oppression, and disconnection. I witness what happens when people lose hope, abandon themselves, or become trapped inside stories about who they are and what life will always be.

And I have had to ask myself:

What belongs to me?

What am I absorbing?

What am I repeatedly reinforcing because I am surrounded by it?

I can have compassion without becoming consumed.

I can care without carrying every story home.

I can say:

**I witnessed it, but I do not have to carry it.**

There comes a point when awareness becomes a threshold.

Are you teachable?

Can you truly listen?

Can you set boundaries, even with familiar patterns?

Can you release the need to control what happens next?

Can you put the past behind you without denying what it taught you?

Can you open yourself to a version of possibility you have never experienced before?

And what if everything is always working out for me?

What if the disruption is direction?

What if the ending is making room?

What if what feels unfamiliar is not danger, but expansion?

I know the darkness.

I know the light.

But I am beginning to understand that life contains far more than those two extremes.

There are colors I have not yet seen.

There are conversations I have not yet had.

There are people, places, experiences, and ways of living that my survival mind could never have imagined.

I did not come here only to suffer.

Maybe possibility has been tapping for a long time.

Maybe I am finally calm enough to hear it.

So, hey Universe, I have a request:

**I want you to show me how good it can get.**

I am going to release my grip, let you do your thing, and remain open to what arrives.

Thank you in advance.

# # Change, Growth, and the Soul’s Mission

We have all experienced pain. Some have carried more than others, and not every devastating experience needs to be excused, romanticized, or called a gift.

But destruction can become an opening.

When an old foundation collapses, we are given the opportunity to examine what it was built upon: fear, survival, approval, obligation, abandonment, inherited beliefs, and patterns we never consciously chose.

The destruction was not proof that we were broken.

It exposed what could no longer support the person we were becoming.

Change can rearrange the outside. Growth rebuilds us from within.

Growth is like new life appearing on a plant. That first green shoot is exciting because it reveals that something beneath the surface is still alive. Roots have been developing. Light has been received. A new expression is preparing to emerge.

Perhaps we do not really want to change other people. Perhaps we long to witness their growth.

We are not asking them to become someone false or unfamiliar. We are hoping they will become brave enough to discover more of who they already are.

But growth requires courage, and many people are comfortable living inside boxes, roles, routines, and repeating patterns. Not everyone will take the bold step required to answer the calling of the soul.

Especially when the calling feels impossible.

Ridiculous.

Out of this world.

Too different from what everyone around them understands.

As Aunt Frances says in *Practical Magic*:

“My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage.”

Yet what if there is a chance?

What if the vision that frightens you most is frightening because it asks you to stop living beneath your capacity?

Most people give up before they ever reach the starting line. They listen to those around them who have also surrendered their dreams. They absorb the language of limitation, practicality, fear, and resignation. They participate in conversations about misery while pretending they are not living inside their own.

People gather around problems, repeat the same explanations, and offer one another validation—but never take the action required to address the challenge.

Validation can soothe pain, but validation without accountability can also protect stagnation.

Some relationships help us grow.

Others quietly make agreements with our smallness.

They do not challenge us because our growth would confront their refusal to grow. Our courage would expose their excuses. Our movement would disturb the comfort of the group.

So they tell us to be realistic.

To calm down.

To stop thinking so deeply.

To stop expecting more.

To accept the same disconnection, distraction, and disappointment everyone else has accepted.

But our souls did not come here merely to fit into patterns that keep us asleep.

We came here to make an impact.

The mission is not validation. It is not collecting the most likes, receiving constant reassurance, or endlessly searching for something outside ourselves to make us feel special.

It is not about consuming more so that we can briefly feel like more.

Material wealth, beautiful homes, travel, motorcycles, financial security, and the freedom to enjoy life are wonderful things. There is nothing enlightened about glorifying deprivation. But when material wealth is not balanced with spiritual wealth, possession becomes consumption without satisfaction.

You keep spending.

Buying.

Collecting.

Upgrading.

Reaching for the next person, object, experience, group, or distraction that might finally quiet the emptiness.

But spiritual hunger cannot be satisfied through consumption.

Without connection to the soul, abundance becomes accumulation. Entertainment becomes avoidance. Community becomes noise. Success becomes another performance designed to prove that we matter.

Spiritual wealth looks different.

It is peace.

Integrity.

Wisdom.

Discernment.

Meaningful connection.

Devotion.

The courage to tell the truth.

The ability to sit quietly inside your own life without needing to escape it.

It is the capacity to love deeply without abandoning yourself.

It is the willingness to repair, renew, reconnect, and recognize that relationships require accountability, intimacy, understanding, and action.

When the obsession shifts from appearance and approval to the soul’s mission, resistance rises.

That resistance is not always evidence that we are moving in the wrong direction. Sometimes it is the threshold.

It is the place where our survival patterns recognize that the old identity is losing control.

The soul’s calling often activates the parts of us that are afraid of rejection, ridicule, failure, visibility, abandonment, and success. It asks us to uncover the gifts we buried because someone told us they were unrealistic, excessive, strange, impractical, or not real.

The greatest fear may not be failure.

It may be reaching the end of life knowing we never fully used what was placed within us.

That we never unlocked the gifts.

Never developed the qualities.

Never allowed ourselves to discover how useful we could be to the world.

How could we become a model for love?

For devotion?

For courage?

For justice?

For rising after the deepest and darkest seasons?

The heroes portrayed in our stories are rarely perfect. They are essential.

They experience loss, trauma, rejection, confusion, and defeat. They enter the unknown. They confront their shadows. They discover who they are beneath the masks they were given.

Then they become someone capable of standing for truth, justice, protection, healing, or liberation.

The hardship did not automatically make them heroic.

What they chose to build from it did.

Pain can become resistance training for the soul—not because we deserved it, and not because every wound was divinely assigned, but because we can decide that suffering will not have the final word.

We can build from the ashes.

We can refuse to become another hard-luck story, another person repeating the rhetoric of helplessness, another human being who allows rejection and disappointment to determine the size of their life.

That takes authentic courage.

It takes bold vulnerability.

It takes recognizing that you are already whole, even while parts of your life still need healing, repair, discipline, and development.

Wholeness does not mean there is no work to do.

It means the work is not being done to earn your worth.

There is love in this world. There is connection. There are people capable of presence, intimacy, accountability, tenderness, and devotion.

And there are people who will continue fighting the ocean.

They will cling to fear, distraction, disconnection, misery, and the illusion of control. They will exhaust themselves resisting the waves rather than learning how to move with them or finding safety on shore.

That is their journey.

You do not have to drown beside them to prove that you care.

You can be grateful for the experiences, for the tears, and even for the wisdom that emerged through suffering, while still acknowledging that the suffering hurt.

You can see hardship as an initiation without pretending it was easy.

An initiation into overcoming poverty, abandonment, rejection, fear, and the mental patterns that keep the mind captive and the heart disconnected from the soul.

The real answers are often discovered in silence.

Not necessarily in the opinions of family, friends, coworkers, or the people who have known us the longest.

People can love us and still be unable to guide us toward a life they have never had the courage to live.

Before accepting someone’s advice, we must look at the life their beliefs have created.

Does their way of thinking lead to the life I desire?

Does it create intimacy, peace, purpose, health, accountability, and freedom?

Or does it create repeated cycles of complaint, disconnection, distraction, and resignation?

This is not judgment.

It is discernment.

Discernment creates healthy boundaries. It allows us to stop handing authority over our lives to people who have not answered their own calling.

This becomes a turning point in the journey.

We begin to understand how our gifts, skills, experiences, and desires can be used to build a life with intention. We notice synchronicities. We recognize opportunities. We become aware of the excuses, behaviors, identities, and programming that have kept old versions of ourselves alive long after their expiration date.

We stop asking only, “Why did this happen to me?”

We begin asking, “What can I build from here?”

The struggle, the constant effort, and the imbalance often reveal where we have lost connection with ourselves and with our higher power.

We have become accustomed to looking outside ourselves for answers.

We quiet our own knowing.

We minimize our wants.

We neglect our needs.

We adapt ourselves to unhealthy patterns because doing so feels safer than being alone.

But there are reasons we desire to travel, explore, create, adventure, learn, teach, build, and experience life.

These desires may be invitations.

They expand our perspective beyond the tiny microcosm of difficulty, distance, distraction, and disconnection.

They remind us that life can be larger than the patterns we inherited.

I believe I can grow.

I do not have to participate in every thought my conditioning produces.

I can create safety.

I can create security.

I can build meaningful relationships.

I can develop spiritual and material wealth.

I can live the mission my soul came here to live.

That is not passive magic.

It does not simply appear because we wish for it.

It begins with a clear decision, followed by actions that support the decision.

And yes, growth may mean losing people.

It may mean heartbreak.

It may mean releasing relationships, identities, plans, and futures we once believed would be ours.

It means grieving what could have been so that we can become available for what is meant to be.

The soul’s mission is vulnerable because it asks us to reveal what matters most.

It is powerful because once we recognize the calling, we can no longer pretend we did not hear it.

“Always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can.”

Fall in love with the unknown.

Fall in love with your mission.

Fall in love with the life that begins to emerge when you stop asking permission to answer your soul’s calling.

Change alters the scenery.

Growth changes what we are capable of creating.

And mission turns that growth into impact.

Sometimes words are too small for what we feel.

We use the same words—love, grief, longing, loneliness, desire—to describe experiences that live at entirely different depths. We say, “I miss you,” when what we mean is, “Some part of me still reaches for the place I believed I could rest.” We say, “I miss sex,” when perhaps we are longing for a kind of intimacy we have never actually experienced: slowness, safety, eye contact, tenderness, surrender, and the freedom to be fully present without performing.

How do you name a feeling when you have never been given language for it?

How do you ask for an experience you have only felt as an ache, a possibility, or a faint remembering?

Sometimes we cannot express what we need because we do not yet understand it ourselves. Other times, we come close to naming it and then sabotage the very thing that might lead us toward it. We retreat, provoke, distract, shut down, choose the familiar, or create evidence that nothing can change.

Not because we do not want growth.

Because the nervous system may experience the familiar—even when it is painful—as safer than the unknown.

The status quo offers predictability. Growth asks us to release the identity, patterns, and relationships that once helped us survive. It asks us to risk being seen, risk disappointment, risk asking for more, and risk discovering that we are capable of creating a life beyond what we have known.

Self-sabotage is not always a desire to destroy ourselves. Sometimes it is a protection strategy that has outlived its purpose.

But when we continue protecting ourselves from every unfamiliar feeling, we also protect ourselves from intimacy, expansion, creativity, connection, and change. We block the doorway and then wonder why life cannot enter.

Growth begins when we become curious about the feeling beneath the word.

Not simply, “I miss sex,” but:

What kind of connection am I truly longing for?

Not simply, “I feel lonely,” but:

Where am I unseen, untouched, or unable to reveal myself?

Not simply, “I am afraid,” but:

What would become possible if I no longer organized my life around staying safe inside the familiar?

The work is not to force ourselves forward.

The work is to create enough safety within ourselves that we no longer have to sabotage the unknown.

Because sometimes the life we ache for cannot be described with the language of the life we have already lived.

Soul wounds do not disappear because we become busy.

They do not heal because we stop talking about them.

They do not dissolve because we find a new relationship, join a new group, buy a new identity, or convince ourselves that the past no longer matters.

A wound can become quiet and still remain active.

It stays alive in what we chase.

In what we fear.

In what we tolerate.

In the people we choose.

In the rooms we keep trying to earn our way into.

Unresolved trauma develops patterns designed to protect us.

At one time, those patterns may have kept us physically or emotionally safe. They taught us to scan the room, anticipate danger, control what we could, disconnect from what we felt, and survive what we could not escape.

But survival patterns do not always know when the danger has ended.

When they remain active, they begin protecting us from the very things we long for: intimacy, vulnerability, joy, trust, freedom, and authentic connection.

They do not murder the soul.

But they can bury it beneath vigilance.

They can silence the voice, override intuition, harden tenderness, and make it difficult to show up as the person we truly are.

And often, shame becomes the guard at the door.

Shame tells us the wound should not still hurt.

That we should be over it.

That speaking about it makes us weak, dramatic, ungrateful, needy, or broken.

So we distract.

We minimize.

We deny.

We perform.

We learn how to look healed while the wound continues shaping our choices underneath the surface.

And sometimes what looks like freedom is simply a more attractive distraction from the same old pain.

The wound of not belonging may become a hunger for inclusion.

The wound of not being seen may become a need for attention.

The wound of feeling powerless may become control.

The wound of rejection may become performance.

The wound of abandonment may become the refusal to need anyone at all.

When we enter relationships still living in survival, the person we love can begin to feel like the enemy.

Their silence feels like abandonment.

Their independence feels like rejection.

Their questions feel like criticism.

Their boundaries feel like punishment.

Their closeness can feel dangerous, while their distance confirms every fear we already carry.

We may begin fighting the past through someone who is standing in the present.

And when we do not understand the wound beneath the reaction, we begin searching outside ourselves for what we did not receive.

We look for it in partners.

In groups.

In attention.

In achievement.

In purchases.

In new identities, new places, and material objects.

We hope that being chosen will heal rejection.

That being admired will heal shame.

That belonging to a group will heal loneliness.

That owning the right things will finally make us feel worthy, powerful, safe, or complete.

But what was lost through disconnection cannot be restored through accumulation.

External things may soothe the wound temporarily, but they cannot reach its origin.

And when we ask another person, place, group, or possession to repair what remains unhealed within us, the pressure eventually becomes destructive.

We consume instead of connect.

We control instead of trust.

We perform instead of reveal.

We chase instead of receive.

We may damage our relationships, exhaust our resources, and abandon ourselves again—this time while believing we are searching for freedom.

Shame can attach itself to every one of these patterns.

It says:

Do not let anyone see what you need.

Do not admit how deeply this affected you.

Do not ask for more.

Do not risk being rejected again.

But what we deny does not disappear.

It goes underground.

And from there, it keeps choosing for us.

Healing begins when we stop asking, “How do I make this feeling go away?” and begin asking, “What is this feeling still trying to show me?”

It begins when survival is no longer allowed to make every decision.

When we learn to recognize the difference between danger and discomfort, between what is happening now and what happened before.

The goal is not to shame the patterns that protected us.

It is to understand them.

To thank them for helping us survive.

And then to teach the body, mind, and soul that survival is no longer the only way to live.

Because healing is not learning how to look untouched.

It is learning how to remain present, connected, honest, and fully alive without letting the past keep choosing the future.

Here we go!

I am reflecting after having Thanksgiving and all the feelings and questions I experienced with it. We are approaching the end of the year 2025, the year of the snake. This year, I have been forced to choose between the necessity of my own rebirth and a continued existence with the poisonous and toxic behaviors existing within myself and others. I shed my skin or get thrown in the pit with vipers. To change, I needed to create an awareness of the old thought patterns and past experiences that perpetuate the same behaviors and outcomes in my life.

I practiced gratitude yesterday, through moments, movement, and observation of my thought patterns. I was brought to tears many times as beautiful experiences unfolded for me, where I could witness changes and forward movement towards a higher version and perspective. I felt the connection to a higher realm, a version of myself and life that would be life-altering for the greatest good.

I was brought to tears by the contrasting feelings of loss and longing for people who could not be present, and feeling the heaviness of guilt, regret, loss, and finally accepting this is for now. I had to surrender control and my propensity to take on all the responsibility and all the accountability for others, leading to my own self-destruction. I had to let go of the need for anything to be any different than what was being given to me now.

As I rode the thoughts, emotions, and what I was observing. I saw love, I saw people being accepted for their own version of who they are, and choose to be, I saw a deep reverence for the higher power, and how they KNOW healing comes from faith. I was met by family, friends, and “strangers” who were all aligned with sacred love, grace, gratitude, and forgiveness. I was met by honesty, raw, authentic truth, and understanding all around.

For me I have adopted this mindset, a perception, and a way of choosing to turn my life around by choosing what I see. Saint Augustine petitioned for this very idea, 'Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe."

It is a choice, a call to action, to live for the future or stay in battle attempting to slay those dark reminders of the past. I hear many, including myself, resist and defy the way forward. I have championed for the victim I used to be. I listened to her cries and her screams of suffering, agony, and prayers begging God, please, I am so tired of suffering. I sat with her, rocked her, and listened as my soul said, “It is ok, I am here, I got you.”

It was so difficult to believe with the experience that came before…before now, it could have been presented any differently. Now, my mind is focused on questions and finding the answers within myself and the answers my Higher Power provides. I am listening more intently now and fine-tuning my intuition. I have been hearing the call through the static of distractions. It is like a radio dial; I can hear garbled voices under a heavy static on 101.1, but once I get it dialed to 111.1, I can hear it clearly.

I am tuned into the messages, and I question and test this new reality:
Could this be true? SO, you're telling me, I can be happy, I can have my desires met, I can create the vision and version of myself that experiences those feelings, those adventures, the secret longings of my heart?

You mean, what was in store for me isn’t more disappointment, more heartbreak, more demons to slay, more rattlesnakes in the brush. I don’t have to be a superhero/villain anymore? Can I hang up my disguises, my masks, and the roles?

I can be like Steve Rogers, Captain America, and give up the fight? I now have a choice: I can be with the love of my life and create the life I have always dreamed of. I can jump timelines and step away from memories, beliefs, patterns? I do not have to continuously exist around battles, dichotomies, and two sides. Seriously?

I DO have a choice. I CAN be living the life I love! I can surrender the memories, the beliefs, the patterns, and drop the heavy load! I CAN choose to be a creator. I CAN look at doubt and say, “OH YEAH! WATCH ME!”

I understand this is not a fairy tale. I mean, I have been met with opposition. It truly irks me when people assume you have no idea what you are doing. It is their own fight for life sucks, people reject, people lie, people betray. Here is my evidence. No one in fairy tales has ever met opposition like this; there is no such thing as happily ever after, RIGHT?.

Of course, this is no fairy tale. There is no happily ever after because I have not experienced it; there is only conflict and pain. I can see how this can be true. I have also met people who have created their dreams, their desires, their own version of happily ever after.

I am confident I have met the Devil in carnate on many occasions. In most of these occasions, I had to look inside and recognize the “devil” in me. My mind works in funny ways. There was once I had this thought, “Hell came with its handbasket again, AND decided to jump right in! AGAIN!!!” All the while I screamed, “Yippe-ki-yay, Mother F*****r!” I laughed so hard at myself. My therapist got a kick out of it, too. We agreed, John McClane would be so proud! He would lovingly say, “Welcome to the party, pal!”

I had to recognize how I welcomed Hell, the Devil, and all the darker entities into my reality now, when they no longer existed. I am here, surrounded by support, love, and protection. I also now know I can banish and befriend what comes towards me, depending.

In the past, I chose to suffer along with those who are suffering and continued along the path and patterns that keep the misery and suffering alive. Misery loves company, and when you feel lonely and abandoned, it seems the only way to be. It is better to live with what you know than what you don’t know.

I believed it to be noble to suffer and endure to protect, provide, and share with others. It just didn’t feel right. I have come to a time where I consult the great questions of the artists of the past. Hamlet's famous "to be, or not to be" soliloquy, which questions the virtue of enduring life's hardships versus fighting against them.

“Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing them, end them.”

A sea of troubles? Don’t we all have them? We share how our bosses, the neighbor, the spouse, the kids, all cause this chaos in our existence. We share our pain. We share our victimhood. They did this, they did that, and we share our own versions of how we are also kept down by the actions of others.

This begs me the question, what if I rose above the suffering, what if I rose above the waters, boarded a boat, and became a sailor? What if this is how I opposed the sea of troubles by sailing across them, by navigating through them, and thus ending them? I can sail to a shore of safety! A safe harbor with a lighthouse that led my way.

Once I start sailing the ocean, seeing the wide open skies, smelling the fresh saltwater air, feeling the breeze giving me a good wash and blowing the dark dusty things out of my mind, my space, and recognizing a brighter horizon, what would I find on my adventures with this open mind?

I witness myself at times sharing all my “outrageous fortune,” which, let me just say, has been monumental, it seems. I want to share what it is like to be a sailor, maybe even a pirate, and claim all the treasures belong outside the grasp of those who do not know how to share. I love the image of searching for buried treasures and then sharing the wealth with those who have not recognized their own as of yet.

I can see the beauty, the brilliant becoming, these opportunities to share understanding, transformation, and a higher power that is waiting for us to decide. It is like reaching a crossroads and my soul asking, “Which path will you choose?”

It is also realizing, after making that choice, the Universe opens the doors to opportunities, new connections to real, authentic connections of support, who truly value your soul. I can feel the synchronicities, love, and potential the future holds for everyone. I observe people, and I witness them becoming as I become a greater version of myself.

Up until now, my experiences have been traumatic, outlandishly chaotic, and destructive. I felt I had to continually fight against a system of repression, labels, rules, and logic. I have fought to advocate for others, to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, to be accepted, and to be understood. I know what it is like to just want one person to understand. In the end, I had to create an understanding for myself, I had to transcend the labels, the rules, the logic, and find a deep peace knowing I am gifted, guided, guarded, and loved by forces I cannot see.

We claim we’re ready to shed the pain and the patterns of the past, desperate for the new—so why do we keep betraying ourselves by choosing the old, outdated versions? The same versions we complain about, we cry about, and we feel disempowered in. The same versions that keep us separate from our true hearts' longing and our true souls' desires.

I have gone inward to find the answers. I am beginning to believe that I have been provided with many painful favors. It is like swords in the Tarot; they bring disappointment, angst, and cut to the core of our understanding. The swords also represent communication, courage, and the ability to cut our connections to the lies we have been telling ourselves.

I use the Mirror to look at myself and see where within myself I hold fears, avoidance, and rejection. It is not about anyone else, it is about me! The people in my life who cause certain reactions, I have learned, I hold that somewhere in myself, and I must learn to recognize, adapt, and change.

I am learning to be Rawthentic!

What fears am I allowing to keep me locked in a prison?

What am I avoiding that keeps me separated from what I desire?

What am I rejecting within myself that causes the heartbreak I experience?

In my experience, we label. Generalize and victimize - point fingers and place blame on something, someone outside of ourselves, for our feelings and behaviors. I have an education, experiences, and my personal journey through trauma and toxic relationships, which provide me with resources to recognize this in myself.

This is a personal, individual, unique journey, and honoring it sometimes means walking away. Instead of pointing fingers at others, I have to remember, when I point a finger at someone, I have 3 pointing back. In certain cultures, the fingers all represent certain values and concepts.

The finger we use to point at people when we are angry is associated with leadership and ambition; it is the ego trying to control the narrative. It is the “trigger finger, the one that pulls the lever back on a gun. The bullets we shoot are accusations, questions about character, and how actions sometimes come with lethal reactions. It is the name-calling, the threats, the power of holding freedom from another.

Interestingly enough, the three fingers pointed back at us, the middle finger represents responsibility and balance. Ring finger, love and commitment, pinky, connections to family and friends. I find it interesting when we are telling other people how it is, blaming them for an experience, metaphorically finger-pointing, we use our leadership and ambition as “authority” over them, but we are pointing the responsibility, balance, love, commitment, and connections back at ourselves. So, I choose to step back, fold that finger into my palm, and maybe even choose a mudra and mantra to calm myself and maintain my own self-control. I embody, “do not seek to find someone to validate your value, they may be wrong.” Jessica States

This is not victim shaming or blaming; this is a pure shift in consciousness. Yes, up until now, I have been a victim, I have been abused, I have been hurt, I have been rejected, people have acted without consent and been possessed by certain frequencies and vibrations, and I had to do the work of healing for myself. I cannot heal for another; it just takes me back to the pain I have already transcended. I cannot help another; it just prevents them from accessing their own inner compass and strength. I can show compassion, grace, and accept them where they are; I can choose to let go of the outcome.

It is definitely like leading a horse to water; you cannot make them drink. In fact, many people will often question whether there is poison in the water. I have even requested a royal taste tester for myself, “Please, sir, will you taste this and tell me what you think, to see if they die from what I am being served. He enjoyed the drink and said, “You are safe.” Thankfully, his face didn’t contort, he did not gag, and he definitely did not die. It would have put a big damper on the wedding for sure.

I have found that by being “rejected,” I have been given time to go within myself; rejection is protection, as so many say. I get to choose the meaning. Did someone find me unworthy of their time, or was my higher power protecting me from further darkness?

How do we talk about the people who have hurt us? This is important. Now, I understand in relationships, some people come from a place of lack and not abundance. We enter relationships to fill some void, which can never be filled. It is supposed to cure some inner turmoil we have. We fight the voices inside that tell us, This isn’t it. We fight the urges to take a different path. We settle for less than we really deserve, all the time lying to everyone around us that we are happy. “Yes, this is what I really want.” We adopt roles, we take on traits, and we pretend we are not screaming from the inside.

We live on the surface. We live for recognition, money, and connection to outside influences who lead us astray. Every success book I have read says things like, keep your circle small, your life is a reflection of the 5 people you choose to associate with. I am not saying judge people, I am saying be discerning of how people act, what they say, and what their lives look like. What they say is important; it determines the life they experience. Do they have anything I desire? It doesn’t matter the role they have in my life, either. This is my life, I only have one. Do I want to live like others, for others, or do I want to create for myself?

It is an act of discernment, and as I said, it isn’t about judgment. If I throw the first stone, it will be at who I am outgrowing, what is not worthy of who I am becoming, and the mindset that keeps me locked in my own fortress.

I forgive the versions of myself who experienced the pain, the ones who still shows up today trying to create the same chaos, and instead of rejecting them, I hold them close, let them cry, and show them the new boat I bought.

I am not obligated to save anyone anymore. I am bound to a higher power that protects, provides, and presents me with gifts. My purpose is not to create more pain, more chaos, more distractions; it is to create more trust, deeper connections, and greater understanding. It is about gratitude, forgiveness, and heaven on earth. Instead of drifting towards the people who are unable to see the forest for the trees, I am gifted with places where there is celebration, safety, and love.

I have visions, I have feelings; feelings are sacred. They either provide me with evidence of success or a contrast to the success I desire. I have been studying failure. There is no such thing as failure, just experiments that did not work out. Now, it is time to explore what went right and what did not. It is time to try another experiment and see what values it brings.

I am learning to create the feelings within myself, with no expectations. It is just feedback, like the radio I explained before. It is time to dial it in a little more.

Many of us just celebrated Thanksgiving. I am not blind to the fact, I am very blessed. I have had years where Thanksgiving was stressful, marked by conflict and heavy friction. I shoved the pain, the past transgressions down, and walked with my head held high. This year felt different.

This was, fundamentally, an invitation to shift consciousness—a perception, a reawakening to my life by simply choosing what I see. I lean into the wisdom of Saint Augustine, who whispered across the ages, "Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe."

I pray our collective faith manifests a reality of grace and renewal. In the afterglow of my recent communion of Thanksgiving, I am reminded of the profound power of acknowledgment. To truly see and honor what is present in our lives that is good, sacred, and holy. It was an act of faith to recognize the spiritual abundance available. This is what births genuine appreciation, deepens sacred connection, and nurtures the holistic well-being of our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Yet, I hold space for the tender truth: when the soul has lost something precious—a cherished being of light—the pervasive presence of grief is undeniable. We honor this sacred sorrow, recognizing it as a testament to the depth of our love. My love remains, and I can move on to share it again, with a new and greater understanding of my values and the gifts I have been granted.

I have to say, in the past, I have loved the easy way out. I ran, I avoided, and I pushed against the challenges that real love and commitment require. I am not anymore. I am taking responsibility for myself, my behaviors, and how I have contributed to the pain and suffering.

It is not the person I wish to escape; it is the frequency. My nervous system understands the comfort of the known, the drama, the chaos, and the mindset that keeps me down, depressed, anxious, lonely, and scared. I have learned, I can have peace, I can have love, and I can have the life I dream of. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes faith in a higher power that wants what I want. As I have come to understand, “The Universe has my back.” What else could I need?

I can rewire my programming. It is scientifically proven through neuroscience, neurobiology, and neuroplasticity. I have to change my core beliefs and know, I am safe in my body, I am lovable.
I am worthy of love, and so much more.

I am regulating the nervous system! I work in an environment where I hear trauma, I hear pain, I hear heartbreak, I hear the worst of experiences, and I must protect myself. When you hear someone talk about painful things, you can embody this within yourself. This, too, is a scientifically proven fact. If someone trauma dumps on you, you feel and receive that trauma in your own body, and it connects to your experiences. The body keeps score. I never realized how much I was taking on of other people's pain, connecting it to my own, and attempting to heal so much at once. I am a strong woman, but I am not strong enough to carry everyone’s pain. I tried it. It sucked.

I sit with myself, I give up scrolling, I give up streaming, and I work at being cognizant about sharing my pain. Instead, I feel it, I alchemize it, and create a new story. Talking about it with others only continues the pain and unburdens theirs. I do not wish to share or connect in this way. I choose to connect with authenticity and unconditional love.

I contemplate changes I need to make. Non-negotiables, because I feel I can be drawn into negotiating anything that makes others happy. Like Tim McGraw sings, “Just to see you smile..” This is where I am now, blank pages waiting to be filled with bucket lists, yes, no, and maybe. I am excited and humbled by where I find myself now. I am excited and welcome what the Universe wants to share as I go to the end of the light I can see, and take the next step.

Here I go…