On Love and Loss: A conversation with my higher self

I connected with my higher self this morning in meditation. It's a practice I have just recently begun, with the intent of getting to know the wiser, more spiritual part of my soul. As part of my healing journey, I am noticing old wounds that manifest themselves in my daily interactions with people. I am healing those wounds through self reflection and meditation. The most recent of those wounds I've noticed is the fear of loss. "Let's examine my fear of loss," I said. Interacting with my higher self is interesting and quite different than communicating with my spirit guides. In the latter, voices 'appear' in my head that are distinctly different than my own. With my higher self, the voice that appears is my own. So it's quite strange to listen to myself.. talk to myself. 

    I wanted to share today's conversation in particular because loss is a universal human experience. Throughout our lifetimes, we experience many losses over a range of magnitudes, from the small to the grand. My own fear of loss drives anxiety in my day to day interactions with people; worrying about losing someone puts my lizard brain in overdrive, which takes a great deal of energy to overcome. My higher self took me through an exercise that was quite enlightening. It's best presented as a first-person narrative, so that is how I am going to discuss it below. I'll discuss my feelings and reactions as I went through this exercise afterward. TW: miscarriage. 

   "Put your hand over your heart. Think about all of the loss that you've experienced in your life. You've experienced a great deal: all the people that you loved that have left you or never showed up properly. The babies you lost. Your innocence. The homes, jobs that you loved....

Now think about all of the love that you shared with those people and things that you've lost. You loved openly. You need to know that love is universal, infinite, and indestructible. The love that you shared still exists. It can never be destroyed or taken away from you. It will stay with you forever. 

The pain you experience with loss is temporary. It absolutely hurts. But the thing that remains, and remains always is love. Know that there is nothing to fear about loss. You will feel pain - that is a given - but you have experienced the pain of loss and made it through to the other side. You have the strength to endure that pain. And what you're left with after the pain subsides is the love. The infinite, enduring emotion that transcends everything."

    As I sat and listened to my higher self, I wept. At first it was because of the memories of loss. My two angel babies. My dear best friend who died way too young. The grief of never having the parents and family unit that I deserve. The loss of a job that I thought would be forever. The feeling of a place of belonging and safety that I always needed but never had until recently. My marriages. I wept for all of it. As tears ran down my face, my higher self changed the focus. 

   Listening to what my wise higher self had to say, the nature of my tears changed. I instantly knew that what was being said about love as an infinite, indestructible force is true. I wept now because I knew that the love I gave and received will forever be mine. The other thing I truly believe is that I have the strength within to endure the pain that comes with loss. It used to be that I lacked the self-efficacy to believe that. Thankfully after 47 years on this planet, I've finally found that strength. 

    Whether this will permanently eradicate my anxiety and fear about loss remains to be seen. However, whenever anxiety arises, I now have the tools to remind myself that there is nothing to fear. Any pain I may endure will be temporary and will lessen with time. But what remains - what always remains - is love. That is something to be celebrated.

Reflections on my Journey

Today's message from my spirit guides, as divined by tarot was that I should reflect on how I got here. It's something I have been meaning to do anyway, as a form of both understanding my path but also as a way to show gratitude for the trials and tribulations I've faced and the lessons they taught me. It's my understanding that it's common for those of us with gifts to be given or to have 'chosen' paths in this life that are difficult to walk. The thought is that these difficult paths refine and hone our empathy, and enable our gifts to be used as a result. 

    I have mixed feelings about this. There was a time in my life where I felt, "why me? Why am I having to endure all of this misery?" I also thought "you know, I could write a book about all the shit that I've been through." I've posted on social media before about the struggles I have faced: my birth mother has schizophrenia, which resulted in me being raised by an alcoholic father and an abusive stepmother. A first marriage at a young age that fell apart because neither of us knew who we were and we were both escaping something. Numerous SA's as a teenager. Struggles with substance use. And most recently the kicker of them all: the dissolution of my 20 year relationship to the father of my children, the death of a beloved mentor, and the loss of a job I thought I would have until I retired. I suppose I could still write that book - it would likely resonate with an unfortunately large number of people. 

    Despite all of these trials, I had the realization this morning that my soul is finally, finally at ease. I developed the self-love and sense of security that I had always searched for in other people, places, and things. Really until this fall, I had been desperately searching for a place that felt like home. I never felt at rest, even though I had a stable family and a comfortable home. Home was this far-off place that I yearned for but could never reach. All along, home had been wherever I went - I just didn't have the experience and insight to see it. 

  I left my job under duress through circumstances that weren't of my making. However, it was a gift that I didn't realize I needed. I took the deferred resignation program with NASA, which gave me 6 months of security. During those six months, I have moved twice (see aforementioned dissolution of my marriage). I have done a ton of reflection and healing. I realized that I have been blessed with the gift of communicating with spirit. But most importantly, I have finally found a home in myself. It's one thing to try to trick yourself into thinking this way; but it wasn't until I did the healing I needed that my soul truly felt it and really believed it.  

    I wouldn't wish the trauma I've experienced in my life on my worst enemy. I have done so much work to break generational traumas and not pass any of this on to my children. However, I can say that everything really does happen for a reason. The important work is to find the lessons we are supposed to learn along the way. I'm grateful for all that I have experienced. This soul, forged in fire, is finally home. 

Scenes from a Past Life

This morning during meditation I wanted to practice my clairvoyance. So I asked my spirit guides to show me pictures. I sat quietly as images drifted in front of my vision: angel wings. a bird skull. faces of people. a cat. The longer I sat, the more things moved from vague, dark outlines of things to full color. After sitting like that for a bit, I asked my guides to show me scenes from a past life. Specifically I asked to see scenes from my life as a Druid, as I was told that was one of my past lives by a medium I recently met. 

What I saw was from a first-person perspective. I was shown the inside of a circular dwelling. The walls were crisscrossed with timber. In front of me was a flat mortar sitting on top of a rock. It had pine needles and berries in it. In the center of the room was a fire ring. I looked up and saw a hole in the middle of the ceiling for the smoke to escape. On one side was an arched doorway. The opening of the doorway was covered with animal hides. I was given the sense that the concoction in the mortar was going to be ground into a paste, which would then be applied to my face in preparation for a ceremony of some sort. 

    I found this quite intriguing. I searched for ancient Celtic dwellings and this was the summarized description: 

'Ancient Celtic dwellings, especially in Britain and Ireland, were predominantly circular roundhouses, built with timber frames, wattle-and-daub walls (woven saplings plastered with mud, clay, and straw/dung), and conical thatched roofs, featuring a central hearth for heating and cooking.'

Y'all. I know precisely zero about ancient Celtic culture. I had no idea this was the form of dwellings at the time. Once again I am blown away by the validation of what I'm being shown as a medium. 

A modern recreation of a Celtic roundhouse

The inside of a roundhouse. from Mark Fisher