My journey back to self-discovery, healing, and finding purpose.

If you were to ask me what I wanted to be growing up, I couldn’t tell you. I honestly never knew, even though I’d pretend to come up with some idea of something just to get people to stop asking that lame question. I never felt I wanted to be anything other than just myself. I never saw myself in some career or felt driven to be a pilot or doctor or even a nutritionist, which is what I pursued in college for a time because I felt so pressured to just pick something. Truly, I just wanted permission to be me. But deep down, I knew and always felt that life shouldn’t be defined by your career. And you, as a person, are more than just the title or roles you have in life. Why couldn’t it just be considered normal to want to be happy in life? Can’t that be a career? I always felt that myself and others were dynamic people with many layers and more than just what small boxes we might put ourselves in. Still, we have to define things because it’s comfortable for us to do so. We have to have some kind of label and name to things so we can at least attempt to describe and talk about it. After many years of deconditioning myself and working to get rid of brainwashing, personal bias, whatever lies that I learned from society, and discovering who I really am deep down, I finally came back to me and who I always was… a healer.

I could never put a finger on what I wanted to do because I hadn’t found a name for it. It wasn’t the degrees I got or the education that made me who I am. Rather, I uncovered myself. In every situation and experience I had along my life path, I realized that the way I processed things wasn’t typical of others. For a long time I felt like my life just wouldn’t work out for me. I would watch others study and get degrees, find their calling, their dream job, and yet I was stuck in these repeating patterns; often, I felt, to no fault of my own. My life circumstances were difficult, though, maybe not as horrible as some, but such is the journey of some that find themselves called to the shamanic or healers' path.

Every circumstance wasn’t just a series of bad luck, but rather deep life lessons and experience to integrate. Now when I look back I no longer feel bad for every time something didn't work out or when I experienced years of abuse, bullying in school, sexual harassment, horrible toxic bosses, and never-ending collection of bills and medical expenses that just kept piling up. In every situation I always tried to understand and still try to understand people, life... I questioned everything. Often if someone asked me what I did in my spare time I’d say hiking, or watching TV, or reading. Often what I was really doing, in my head, in silence, in the shadows, and in the background was always tirelessly working to uncover deeper meaning of why people did what they did, how could I change, heal, or find a solution. I would put myself in others' shoes, I would feel what they felt, try deeply to understand them and what they needed to heal, even uncovering the darker parts in all of us and how to work through difficult emotions like shame. Later in life when I began to study psychology I learned this to be called “shadow work”, a term coined by Carl Jung and used often in healing spaces today.

I would never tell someone else that if they were going through a hard time in life that they just needed to practice shamanism or that they’re being called to be a healer and learn about chakras and energy work. I think everyone is already a healer, but they’ve forgotten or maybe haven’t tapped into that part of themselves. I also think that not everyone is called to this kind of path, though they might experience the same kinds of challenges. I can’t speak for anyone else, only that I know for me, it was an unraveling, an unbecoming, for me to finally recognize who I really was. And now instead of feeling like I never made it anywhere because I couldn’t find the right career or job, I realized every situation, good or bad, was leading me back to the healer I was the whole time.

Being psychic sounds cool until you learn how frustrating and absolutely mind-boggling it is, especially living in a world that constantly criticizes people who are intuitive or who deeply feel things they can’t begin to describe. I could always tell when someone was lying. People would come to me and share their deepest, darkest secrets. I couldn’t even enjoy my "hoe phase" because I was too busy trying to understand what led myself and those people to “fucking around and finding out.” I would just know things or have prophetic dreams—knowing something was going to happen before it did. I could sometimes even know what someone was thinking, which didn’t help when I was in front of a classroom giving a speech and already had enough low self-esteem weighing me down. I had a strong sense for clairsentience, which is a psychic ability for feeling other's emotions or physical sensations energetically, which often led me to either diagnosing myself with various illnesses or feeling sick in my body all the time from feeling other people’s illnesses and energy including my own.

I had the worst time growing up because I didn’t have anyone to explain what I was going through and no way to process it. Growing up in the Christian religion also didn’t help, as many might have said I was demon-possessed or wouldn’t be able to recognize the gifts unless it fit their very narrow-minded description of what it looked like to work with Spirit. My deepest healing came when I finally started learning to integrate my gifts and become empowered by them when before people would just call me “too sensitive.”  

I honestly think I could have been a great many things. I think I could have chosen a different job or started off by learning a trade in my early 20s like I felt my intuition was telling me. But I really believe that it wouldn’t have mattered which way I went in life, I think I was always meant to come back to this, come back to me, and do the deep healing work I’ve always been called to and been doing in the shadows this whole time. I don’t think it’s a trend or just something people do when they can’t figure out their life. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that so many healers are coming out during a time when it’s desperately needed in this world. Of course, with everything good, there are ways it gets convoluted and corrupted which is why it’s so hard to discern what’s real from fake.

I think that being a healer doesn't mean you're some magician that just learns to manipulate energy really well or even healing other people. I think being a healer means healing yourself and through that process you are reminded to look back toward the light, and point others in the direction too. Healing work is exhausting and difficult and not for the faint of heart. It takes courage to be able to explore the dark parts of yourself without judgment and learn to make real changes that last. It’s hard doing ancestral work and learning to stand in your power when you tune into the spirit realm. It’s hard to face yourself, especially when you’ve been your own worst enemy. I've often felt that my whole life is one big spectacle—my imperfections and insecurities laid bare for everyone to see, my awkwardness and cringe, low self-esteem, my struggle to learn how to socialize, all of that open and leaving me vulnerable to constant speculation, projection, judgement, and criticism. But I'm here to embody healing work to show others and remind them to come back to themselves. To practice being in my authenticity and show that it’s not only possible to heal and change but that you can create a beautiful and abundant life that you deserve. That we all deserve.

Still, this is just who I am. I can’t not find a way to heal through something, I can’t just ignore issues in society or at a collective level. I feel alive when I can see real changes being made and lives changed because of this healing work. Every situation in life has taught me, and I’ve done the work to learn to process and work with various healing modalities. There’s so much available for us to heal if we only can recognize it, and many cultures have their gifts of healing practices if we can take the time to learn and listen to them. Our world desperately needs healing, and especially the United States as it’s going through what I’d call its own “silent revolution”...or not so silent.

We have to stop thinking that abuse and a tough life make people more resilient because it doesn't. Abuse made me weak. People lying to me and hurting me made me weaker. This is not a life we want for the children of the future, and no one should have to go through what I went through as a kid. I made myself stronger and more resilient because I had to. I had no other choice if I wanted to get out of my own suffering. I may be a strong person, but that doesn’t mean that the things that happened to me were justified. Let's be clear, those horrible things should never have happened, and we desperately need to start creating a world where no one has to grow up in abusive homes, toxic dynamics, and get harassed and objectified. This is why I rise to the task of encouraging all of us to heal. To learn about restorative practices, reciprocity, community circles, sustainability, honoring the land and letting those things guide us. We have to stop thinking that abuse, neglect, or the inability to move through our emotions in a healthy way is normal and expected in this life.

I fully believe we can make a heaven on earth. There are no excuses anymore... it just simply comes down to: do you want it too? If so, let’s find a way to make it happen. Let’s find a way to heal and make sure no child of the future ever has to grow up like I did or feel left behind and forgotten.