True healing takes discipline.  It takes dedication, sincerity, and courage.  Strength.  Similar to exercise, you only get out of it what you put into it.

I am referring to mental, emotional, psychological healing, although I imagine that extreme physical rehabilitation, such as learning how to walk again, is a very similar journey.

From my teens into my late twenties I struggled with severe depression and anxiety.  I also had Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), which is not an official recognized mental disorder according to the American Psychiatric Association, but I feel that is to do with technicalities in definition and nothing to do with whether it exists or not.  As I tried to figure out what was wrong with me that made it nearly impossible to function as a contributing member of society, I also ran into suggestions from specialists of being on the autistic spectrum, being a highly sensitive person, potentially bi-polar, and I was officially diagnosed with ADD.

I had my first nervous breakdown at 19.  I was already a divorced single mom.  My son’s dad (ex-husband) was already gone by then, and never did return despite the joint-custody agreement, and so in my mind I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.  My son was still just a baby and needed me.  I truly believe that I still exist in this world today due to him, because he gave me a solid reason to not give up.  Through the years, no matter how shattered I was in pain, no matter how desperate my situation . . . and there were many of those . . . never did I reach a state where I could abandon my son to this world and leave him alone.

But I lived in hell within myself.  Daily I was tortured.  There were years where I was just trying to survive from minute to minute.  Breathe Jenn . . . take another breath.  Now do it again.  Again.

In my late twenties, as I hit my Saturn Return, it felt like my entire physical, mental, & emotional being hit a brick wall (which is very Capricorn/Saturn-like).  It was triggered when my son, who was just turning 12 at the time, spent a week in the hospital for suicide watch.  (I also had Pluto transiting my MC/Midheaven.)

I had only thought I suffered before that.  What followed next had me begging for the days I knew before.

I had thought that I had worked hard enough, suffered, and sacrificed myself enough, to spare my son the same pain that I lived in.  But I was given a wake up call and shown just how very wrong I was as I sat there in shock signing papers to admit him into the hospital.  Everything I thought I knew and understood about life got flipped upside down that night.

I had barely been making it, but as long as my son was doing well and thriving, I could handle it.  But he wasn’t doing so well, was he?  Now what?  I had no guidance or manual for what to do.  I had done everything I knew to get this far . . . where did I go from there?

We had just gotten new kittens the week before . . . Raven and Gir.  They were from a shelter and they were both temporarily on antibiotics that I had to give.  I remember when first returning home after they admitted my son, trying to pull myself together enough to make sure the kittens got their medicine.  I couldn’t handle anymore bad news, anymore feelings of loss, or being out of control and so it felt like at least with this I had control of something.

So I put into them, focused on them the care and love and kindness I was needing myself.  They became my focal point, my anchor, to keep my shit together while I tried to make sense of my newly shattered world.  To those of you who are regular readers, you’ll remember that it was this time last year almost to the day . . . that I got that fateful call from the vet to hear that my Raven girl was in stage 4 renal (kidney) failure and died shortly afterwards on May 5th.  Cinco de Mayo.  Perhaps it makes a little more sense now why that was so devastating to me.  She came into my life the week before everything I knew fell to pieces and was the glue that held me together through the next 7 years.

But what she did was start the process of removing that same focus from my son, and helped me transition from using him as an anchor and reason for living . . . to finding that anchor and reason for living within myself so that my son would be free to go live his own life without me falling apart or losing my reason to live.  This last year since her death is the first year without my training wheels.  My first year of trying to live for my own sake and not the sake of my mother, or my son, or any substitute outside of me  And it’s been hard.

That first night that I came home after admitting my son into the hospital for the first time, I remember being in a daze.  I also remember calling my consciousness to me so that I didn’t black out.  I had already gone through so much discipline trying to pull myself together to be the best mom I could despite being so broken inside.  I had already learned to not run from the pain, to not run from whatever situation was unfolding in front of me.  I had enough faith in myself and the universe to know that this was all happening for a good reason, even if I didn’t understand what that reason was.  I knew instinctively that this was a blessing in disguise, and so I took a deep breath and with eyes wide open . . . I walked straight into my pain to see what message waited for me there.

And as I said, it was like walking into a brick wall.  In a flash I saw visuals of images from throughout my life, I heard all of the things said in my childhood that never quite made any sense, I felt the repressed and suppressed (one is done consciously, one is not) feelings and emotions that had led me to that moment right there.  I was in a flurry of scenes, sounds, and feelings and all of the connections between them that summed up the root causes of my pain and suffering.  Including a therapist who my mom had taken me to when I was 8 years old and was so frustrated with me because I refused to cooperate and take his questions seriously (I honestly had no idea what he was trying to get me to talk about), told me that if I didn’t deal with the things I had been through then one day when I was about 30 it was all going to come out at once and I’d have to deal with it then.  Which I thought, and may have even said, that’s good . . . I’ll deal with it then.

So there I was, around age 30, and all of this stuff suddenly unlocked in me.  I then knew why it had to be like that, why it had to wait until I was older.  All of these things were too much for a young girl to handle and process.  They were beyond little girl me.  I had to build enough life experience, as well as build enough emotional strength and discipline just to reach the point of being able to handle knowing and remembering what little girl me went through.

Only then could the real healing process begin.  I cracked wide open.  I went through the “My whole life has been a lie” period where the very foundation of your life gets ripped from underneath you and you don’t have anything solid to anchor or orient your life to.  And it’s not that my life had been a lie necessarily, but little girl me was incredibly creative and resourceful and so she painted my life in the way that she needed to in order to survive until she was strong enough to face it and heal from it.

The next couple of years were the hardest of my life.  It felt like I had acid burning and running through my veins 24/7.  I felt like someone had peeled my skin off of my body and my nerves were completely exposed to the elements.  I was in overwhelming, excruciating physical pain.  The diagnosis being batted around at that time were things like Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  I reached a point of not being able to walk.  I had to use a cane for a little while.  Mentally I was pushed into moments of true insanity from the toll of everything.

I used to be concerned with my sensitivities, such as seeing visuals and hearing things, etc. that I might be crazy.  But I am VERY clear now that there is a big difference between true insanity and being sensitive (or psychic if you wish), although there is a thin line between the two if you are not on top of your shit.  I cannot emphasize enough how foolish it is to try and force that state for recreational purposes without some sort of discipline, or training, guidance, and a healthy dose of respect for what you are doing.  I never needed drugs to have those experiences, and during the periods where I temporarily lost those abilities, I can understand why people do use drugs to reach it . . . there’s a kind of desperate feeling of being disconnected from Sprit.  It’s horrible.  In my current understanding of things, it is the root cause of all addictions.  Trying to regain connection with Spirit.  Whether drugs, sex, alcohol, etc.  It temporarily opens you back up in your body and allows that connection to take place, and it feels so good because that is more of our natural state.

When you become overwhelmed with hurt and pain (guilt, shame . . . choose your poison), that connection starts to dim and gets covered up and you start to never feel good.  So then you start to use artificial things to try and help you feel good such as food, shopping, reading, partying, drinking, etc.  But it never sticks . . . it never stays.  Why?  Because you’re trying to shortcut straight through your pain and hurt without actually dealing with the issues.  Which brings me back to:  True healing takes discipline.  It takes dedication, sincerity, and courage.

Do you want to continue depending solely on temporary fixes for fleeting moments of feeling good, or are you willing to put in the hard work and dedication needed to make the feeling permanent and long lasting?  Because I’m here to tell you, I don’t care what label or diagnoses has been laid at your feet, I don’t care how bleak or hopeless you think your cause is . . . it can be overcome.  I have overcome many supposedly impossible things.  I have personally walked this road.  There is a way through.  You are not doomed to your diagnosis.  You are not doomed to suffer the rest of your life.  You have a choice.  It’s not easy, and not everyone is at a stage in their life where they have the strength to take this journey.  But knowing the universe like I do based on observations and personal experience, if you’ve found your way into my life . . . to my words . . . then you are at that stage.  You have what it takes to find your way through.

In every generation, there are the pioneers and those that lead the way to something new.  Like the pioneers who went west in the early US.  Their life was hard.  Many died trying to make the journey.  They suffered and paid a great price just for the opportunity for a better life.  With those first few, came a few more.  Then railroads, roadways, airplanes.  Now how hard is it to reach the West?  How much does a person have to sacrifice and suffer to access it?

This is the same.  It is the unknown, and so it seems dark and scary.  We make a bigger monster out of it as a whole, because it scares us.  What current average person isn’t scared of a Psycho or Socio Path?  Who doesn’t cringe and start backing away slowly from Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar?  Who doesn’t look at Autism as being a shame and in some form tragic?  How many look down upon addicts or mental patients?  Do you see our learned attitude about these things?  Yes psychology has made great leaps in mental/emotional health, but it is still not being seen for what it truly is and so the solution is equally difficult to see.

We hurt and we suffer because something is out of balance or not right.  When it’s something that is out of balance or not right in the culture or society as a whole, it emerges as mental disorders and diseases.  If it is increasing each year, a false belief or something not aligned with natural law, is spreading or worsening.  And for as long as the group insists on running from the truth instead of actually dealing with the things they should be dealing with in the way they should be dealing with it, openly and honestly, instead of being distracted by nonsense and bullshit . . . it will continue to worsen before it gets better.

It worsens and spreads until there isn’t a single person that isn’t affected by it in some way.  Until people can no longer say, “Everything is fine.”  Until people are suffering from it so much, and after trying everything they can currently think of that is allowed within the current paradigm of thinking, it eventually leads them to a place where they’d do anything in order to make it alright again.  Including praying, maybe for the first time in their life.  Swallowing their pride.  Being humbled.  Realizing maybe they don’t know everything, maybe they don’t have as much control over things as they thought.  In those moments a person either opens their heart or they snap completely.  Have you noticed the increase in people losing their shit in recent years?  We are at that breaking point both as a collective and as individuals.

We are in uncharted territories.  We cannot currently rely on outer authority to help truly navigate these waters because the authorities aren’t *out there* yet . . . they are just now coming into being.  They are being shaped, formed, and refined as we speak, by the very horrors our world is being forced to live through.  These are not individual sins we are dealing with, they are collective sins.  Things that over generations of time, individuals let get so out of hand instead of dealing with them, that they are now all of our problems.  But at the same time it’s all we’ve ever known and so we’re blind to them.

We are the modern day pioneers, and our unknown territory is the human psyche.  To be a true pioneer, you must have a warrior heart.  You must find the strength and courage to walk alone.  You must be an adventurer, you must be curious.  You must be sincere.  You must do it for something bigger than you.  It can’t just be for you alone, or you won’t find the needed strength and motivation to get through the darkest nights.  You have to take calculated risks and chances.  You have to be willing to keep going and trying no matter how many of your ideas fail or don’t work out.  You have to risk looking a fool and being made fun of.

You have to be willing to let yourself crack open and fall apart.  You have to be willing to let go of everything you believed to be true up until that point.  And not in an endless mindless woe is me way, but consciously.  What do I mean by that?

Imagine you have before you a path of burning coals, and you just happened to be barefoot.  The bed of coals before you is only about 10 feet in length.  It’s too far for you to jump, and suddenly there’s a wall behind you and two walls alongside you and the path.  You must walk barefoot over the path.  This is very much what it’s like when having to face down one of your inner demons which are like the gatekeepers that test you to see if you’re allowed to pass through or if you need to repeat some lessons.  Your choices are to stand there for eternity making the same mistakes, or start learning how to walk on fire and burn the darkness out of you that clouds and weighs you down with burden.  When I say consciously, I mean you purposefully and intentionally step onto those burning coals and you let whatever sensation you feel, come through you without trying to fight it or make it stop.  Let it happen.

You do not close your eyes, you do not try to pretend you are somewhere else, you do not run.  It is a decision, a resolve deep inside that you will do whatever it takes to make your way through.  And as you take each step, and you initially feel that excruciating burn, you use the only resource you have at your disposal and that is your internal guidance.  You must stay aware and breathing and open in order to know what needs to be done.  If you panic, if you let yourself freak out about your situation in any way, you make it that much worse for yourself.  That much more painful.  You have to walk the coals anyways, so you might as well figure out a way to endure it.

Because something happens in a human when they are tested to this degree and they are not so rigid that they break.  A transformation takes place.  Blocks, things that are stuck, worn out beliefs, things that are not true . . . are forced from the person’s being.  In that situation, you have no room or time for ANY bullshit because you need everything you have to focus on what’s happening in that moment.  When you refuse to run and you refuse to black out or lose consciousness or awareness, you give the darkness no choice but to flee because that’s where the burning and pain comes from.  It forces it to leave, and then you are left with only what is real and pure . . . You.  And I promise you, when the last of what isn’t true leaves you, the pain and suffering within you will cease.  You will have learned the firewalker’s secret for walking over burning coals without being harmed.

It can happen quickly, within moments.  It could happen slowly over years.  It depends on a number of things, but mostly on how resistant you are to let go of what you think you know and what you believe to be true that isn’t actually true.  How stubborn, how prideful are you?  How open are you to learning?  How much does it mean to you that what you believe is right be right?  And suffering for years walking over the burning coals does not earn you extra brownie points.  It should not be considered a badge of honor.  “Yeah, I’ve suffered 20 years longer than you, so I am probably wiser than you about these things.”  Uh.  No.  That’s not how it works.  If you haven’t started to find your way out, if you haven’t continued to get closer to that state of peace and happiness in you for longer periods of time through (what seems like) superhero efforts, then you’re doing something greatly in error and you’re the last person I or anyone should be taking advice from unless we wish to learn how to be perpetually stuck.  It’s not something to be ashamed of either, because this is a fluffing hard ass path to take . . . but it takes more than just walking it to truly understand where you are and what’s going on.

To get more out of this path, you have to walk slowly, purposefully, and consciously.  The point is not to simply get past it and then recover, because it is not the only fire pit that you will be facing on this journey.  And it’s also not the point of the fire pits.  When you’ve truly learned through personal experience the point of them, and you put in the hard work it takes to slowly, consciously, and open-heartedly walk across them to the point that you not only stop fearing them, but look forward to them . . . then you will have begun to reach the place I call Healed.  Being whole within yourself.

It is a state of grace.  It is when a human is re-centered properly in themselves and they are able to hold open and stay in connection with their Spirit, Soul, as well as the Divine . . . at all times.  It is a life without fear, a life without addiction, and no longer being a slave to your senses or ego.  From that state you live and know the Truth and nature of things.  Your eyes and ears are wide open, your heart is wide open and you are fully protected and safe.  You know in the deepest depths of your being that you are okay . . . you are safe.  It’s beyond faith, beyond knowing you are safe and protected, beyond praying, hoping, and wishing you are protected . . . you are in the active state of always being safe and protected.  It’s not even a topic of discussion or a question in your mind.  It would be like asking if there is still oxygen in the air for your lungs . . . it gets to that level of silly.

The world, the physical world around you, literally shimmers as golden light.  And when you zoom your focus in on it, you see . . . you feel . . . you know . . . it’s conscious light.  You understand creation at a whole new level that you cannot see, cannot experience, and cannot know while you insist on staying small, hurt, and broken.

So if you haven’t reached that place, if you haven’t experienced that state of being while conscious and awake in your human body . . . then you are not done yet.  You have not reached the place you seek and you must keep going.  Keep trying, keep growing, keep learning.  Learn about love, learn about truth, learn about who you really are inside and not what you’ve been led to believe.  You are not doomed to suffer your whole life, not if you truly, genuinely, and sincerely are done with it.  You are not cursed and you are not fated to be miserable because of any set of circumstances that have or will happen in your life.  You can overcome.  You will have restrictions, you will have challenges, but they are there to strengthen your weaknesses that are needed in order to successfully navigate this journey . . . not to punish you.

There is so much more to life than what we’ve been taught . . . in fact Life doesn’t truly begin until you reach that place.  It’s worth all of the hard work and frustration.  Not only is it worth it, it’s what is needed most right now.  The more people who make this journey and reach the desired destination, the easier it will be for others to reach it as well.  The more people who reach it, the more support we all have, the stronger we become, and then the easier it will be for others to make the journey when their time comes.  Before you know it, people will be able to fly airplanes there.  😀

Can you imagine such a world, such a future?  Where we are healed and whole both as individuals and as a species?  What could humanity accomplish in such a world?

What if all you were asked to do in this life to play a part in bringing that future about, was to find the courage, strength, and faith to truly heal yourself.  To overcome your circumstances and to rise from the ashes?  To find it in you to overcome, to do what they said couldn’t be done.  To become a firewalker?