I finally feel this breakthrough that I didn’t quite know how it was going to sort out. A silent prayer some future version has been praying for me.
This is for my younger self, and for anyone who might be going through something like this now, or in the past. This is for you.
Our past doesn’t define us. Yet as my fiance has been telling me recently, as I grow and am this ‘higher’ version of myself now, I must bring my younger self with me.
As a teenager and in my very early 20s, I was in a really dark place. I reached a point where I was done with this life. So done with it. Not many people now know this about my story, I don’t think, but I went through a really dark time from my early teenage years to about age 21. I was harming myself in many ways for years, and could have died a few times from choices I had been making. In a nut shell, I wasn’t happy inside, and I didn’t feel like I belonged here.
My spiritual awakening really began with one big psychedelic experience. It was exactly what I needed at the time to jolt my Eyes open, and awaken my inner strength to climb out of the pit I was in. Everything was different the next morning when I woke up. I literally saw everything differently, and questioned so much of what I was conditioned to think or believe. I woke up that next day and decided to stop taking my anti-depressants / anti-anxiety medication and try meditation instead. The meds I was taking for years weren’t helping me; they had only made me feel more numb and disconnected from Life. I remember feeling shocked at how less than five minutes of meditation in the morning gave me the tiniest bit more space between my thoughts throughout the day, and began to help dramatically with anxiety. Most of the five or less minutes were spent with my monkey mind going crazy, and yet I still received so much benefit. I didn’t know anyone around me at the time who was meditating, and there weren't a ton of videos about spirituality and meditation online like there is today. I started slowly making healthier choices for myself and life from that point on.
Five years later, at 25 I was diagnosed with MS, an "incurable" autoimmune disease of the nervous system. I knew exactly how I manifested this chronic illness– ultimately from a life of constantly suppressing and repressing my emotions. Against the recommendations of neurologists and some family, I made the choice to decline pharmaceutical medications and to instead heal myself naturally, following my intuition as a guide. I can honestly say now that I don’t have MS. In fact, I never said that *I have* MS because I know how powerful our words are and what we attach “I AM” to. I have always said that this has been *an experience* or a diagnosis.
Over a couple of years, my MRI scans showed the spots in my brain were actually disappearing with the work I was doing. I worked at healing from the roots: physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
I chose to claim my life.
I couldn’t just have a lukewarm life, as I say sometimes. That felt like slow death to me. Just surviving didn’t feel like an option for me for living out the rest of my life because I already knew what it felt like to not want to be alive anymore. To live lukewarm, I would rather have left. I’m here for a reason somehow, and I needed to get in touch with that. First, I needed to heal myself. I believe that once the ‘teacher’ is healed, AKA the symptom, then the body doesn’t need to play that timeline out. As a soul, when we get the lesson or the message that is trying to be communicated, we can move on to experience something else.
A lot of what has been coming up for me this year so far has been about revisiting those past versions of myself… with love, openness, and greater acceptance. I realize now that the reason I’m still here is because of this version of me now… She has been the one who was back in time with younger-me, protecting me during all of the harm, and whispering to me in the background that somehow, one day, it would be worth it, it would get better.
I laugh a lot in the last year because my calling has stretched me well over my comfort zone. I haven’t naturally been someone who prefers to be up in front of people, LOL. My calling has and is currently asking this of me. I accept it. I see the beauty in that, and I have received countless blessings from choosing courage over fear. My calling asks me to speak and to share. I know my story is helpful to other people and while it is terrifying to speak about for a lot of reasons, it’s time to. It helps. It also helps me because I think in this way I can bring those other versions along with me, too. I don’t need them to sit away, hiding in the dark.
I pray I always choose the calling. Sometimes it is scary to jump into the unknown. To follow what our gut, intuition, inner knowing is saying, even when it completely goes against the status quo, ‘authorities’ such as doctors, family members, etc. To follow the breadcrumbs. The one thing I know from this life now, is that my heart always has me. Spirit/God/my intuition whatever you want to call it, is the one source I can forever trust and has brought me out of that hole. This inner guide has led me here and will continue to lead me forward as long as I live, like a spark of light or instinct that leads the way through the dark.
As I was reminded last night, when we share vulnerably, it helps other people to also be themselves. To be free, essentially. To remind folks that they are not alone, and that they too can claim their lives. This too shall pass, and that it can and it will get better.
My mind doesn’t know yet how this is going to weave into my work, but I think it can start with this share.
Thank you to my King, always, my beloved for everything over the last nine+ years. Thank you to my mom, my family and loved ones who are here, and the ones who came and went. Thank you to Tasha for your love and support. Thank you to my other teachers and practitioners who have worked with me over the years. Thank you to the earth for holding me. Thank you to the Trees, the original ones who saw me and held space for me. Thank you Great Spirit. Thank you everyone who has shared a sound bath, circle, or other space with me– connecting with you and witnessing you is always a blessing.
Love, Sabrina
^kid me <3