Outlier of God; Forging Your Own Path of Faith

In this episode of Higher Paradigm, host Laura delves deep into her personal path of spirituality and growing relationship with God. 

Born into a Catholic household, she shares how her upbringing caused rebellion against Christianity during her teenage years but eventually led her to forge a unique, meaningful relationship with God. 

Laura does not identify as a Christian or Catholic but speaks about how her spiritual journey, including overcoming addiction and navigating personal trauma, deeply intertwined with her faith. 

She discusses the power of discernment, spiritual guidance from ancestors, and maintaining a personalized relationship with God, all while addressing common themes like struggles with addiction, emotional healing, and the spiritual crisis that led her to a profound divine connection. Tune in to explore a multifaceted perspective on spirituality and faith.

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Interested in diving into your own healing work? Or taking your already established growth and healing journey through a deeply transformative and spiritual experience? Check out my website to see if my work may be what you’re looking for

www.sacredhealingwlaura.com

 00:00 Welcome and Introduction

01:18 Laura's Spiritual Journey Begins

05:01 Questioning Faith and Family Struggles

09:43 Struggles with Addiction and Seeking Redemption

13:33 Turning Point and Path to Sobriety

16:58 Spiritual Awakening and Ancestral Healing

20:13 Spiritual Crisis and Deepening Faith

28:43 Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Much Love and Many Blessings to you.

Transcript

0:36

Hello there and welcome back to the Higher Paradigm YouTube channel and podcast. I am your host, Laura. Thank you so much for being here. Before I dive in, I just wanna encourage you to, if you haven't already, like, subscribe, follow the higher paradigm to stay connected and up to date with new episodes dropping, and be sure to share it with those in your life that you believe would benefit from hearing the content of these episodes. Would love these episodes? I am really excited to be growing this little community into something big and like-minded and full of love. Now this episode I'm going to talk a little bit about my own path of spirituality and growing in relationship with God because it's a unique path and I believe we all have our own unique stories, of course, of being guided. Into a deeper relationship spiritually with God, with our spirit teams, with our spiritual supports, however, or whatever that looks like for you. My own unique journey begins as a child growing up in a Catholic household and how that played a role in the rebellion against Christianity as a teenager, but then how it also allowed me to deepen in a. More meaningful and loving relationship with God in my own way. I do not consider myself a Christian. I do not consider myself a Catholic, but I do have a deep and and meaningful relationship with God, but I did not get there in the same way that we may hear a lot of other people's stories of growing deeper into their faith. So stay tuned. Take a listen, and I hope you enjoy this episode and find something within it that resonates with you. Of course, as always, connect with me in the comments below. Start a conversation. And let's get started. I wanna share my stance on Christianity, on spirituality, having a relationship with God, Jesus, your spirit team, your wise, well, and healed, all the things. I believe that Christianity is a beautiful pathway to take if you are feeling lost. If you're looking for a pathway to healing, to deepen into faith, to build or cultivate or grow in relationship with Jesus and God, to reinstate your values, to find your way out of a dark place. However, I do not believe from my own personal experience that Christianity following the Bible, um, going to church and claiming Jesus as your savior is the only way to. Freedom to salvation, to building that relationship with your faith, growing in faith. I, myself have a, uh, a story worth telling to share why I feel the way that I feel, but also why I find value in Christian beliefs. I am not a Christian. I don't claim to be a Christian. God told me that was not why I was created, and that was not why I was brought to this planet, and that is not my path. But I so often find myself, and I can imagine that so many others out there find themselves feeling well if I don't believe in. All of the Christian values this is how it's supposed to be done, then how can I know that my beliefs, that my values, that my spirituality is just as. It is just as true and just as good, what I know to be true about my relationship with God is that there are a lot of people who are pulled into Christianity and then there are people who are pulled into other religions, and then there are those of us who are going our own way, finding our own path, but deepening in our own relationship with God. I, myself was raised in a Catholic household, and this is why Christianity holds value for me. I know that because it is in my bloodline, it is in my lineage. It is in ancestral. My sister is a devout Catholic. She holds deep and strong values. And as a child growing up, there were values that were not necessarily upheld by my parents. There were certain aspects of, of being a good Catholic that my parents did uphold. But if I called into question anything in regards to going to church in, in regards to, you know, doing the things that. Were required I was condemned. By my parents, by my father. I was told that he didn't like me as a person because I didn't understand certain things when I was, in certain times of my life going through a lot of pain and a lot of suffering instead of. You know, my mother and father teaching me how to navigate that pain and suffering with God. I was made to feel unlovable. I was rejected. I was condemned. But aside from that, there was a lot of judgment. A lot of verbal, physical, psychological, sexual abuse going on in my household. So it caused confusion in my relationship with God and with being a Catholic, and at some point in my teenage years, I became. Agnostic. I believed in good, but I didn't necessarily believe in God because at that point I had no real relationship with God. I didn't know how to have a relationship with God. In religious education, you learn about what the Bible says and you learn about communion and confession and. Being confirmed and all these elements of being a Catholic, but I, it didn't, I didn't absorb it as well as maybe some other. Children do, and I think a lot of that has to do with my own trauma, but whatever, regardless. The point is, is I lost my faith because I had endured so much trauma between the ages of birth until up until whatever point I decided I am not a Catholic and I wasn't supported by my parents in what I had gone through and. I didn't know what to believe because one of the things I went through was my mother brainwashing and manipulating and gaslighting me to believe my truth was not true. So this transferred into my relationship with God. And how could this be true? I am a former addict. I've been clean for almost six years. As of January, 2026, it'll be six years. But before getting clean and sober, I. I was really struggling in life and I had been for nearly my whole life at that point, and I was in the depths of addiction. I had overdosed a few times, one of which, my husband and my family were acutely aware of because. Police were called and things like that. And my husband threatened, rightfully so to protect our daughter and potentially get a divorce because this was going on and on for years at this point. So he didn't know what to do anymore. And I think. I'm not quite sure if he actually would've left because he's so devoted to me, and even back then he was deeply devoted to me and our child, but he was so scared and concerned, he threatened all of that, and so therefore, I needed to get my shit together and I did. Start going to outpatient rehab. But I also started to go to church. I was going to church multiple times a week trying to redeem myself from all the pain that I was causing and all the, and how troubling I was and how. I was just walking this dark path with, with Satan. I knew it back then, but I also at the time was not taking into account that I needed to heal. I had this notion that I could just go to church and I would be healed. But that wasn't how it was gonna work for me. It didn't work. That wasn't it, because I couldn't accept Jesus into my heart. I was still angry with Jesus. I was still angry with Jesus. But I also. Was not at all in a place ready to forgive myself for not only causing pain, but also allowing myself to take on so much pain, so much abuse, and so my journey of sobriety and getting clean and healing and, and growing in relationship with God. While that experience of going to church multiple times a week while I was attempting to get sober and stuff, which by the way, during that time I was not actually getting sober. I was just going to church because I was scared of what was gonna happen in my life. I wasn't ready to take responsibility. While also opening up the door to a, to the divine, but it was cracked. I, it, I wasn't, I didn't open it wide and say, come on in and let's go. It was. It was a crack, I still was holding onto my anger. I still was holding on to all of the resentment, the grief, whatever it was that I was feeling or not feeling back then, I was still holding onto on to. So fast forward, let's see. It was like 20 15, 16, let's fast forward to 20 18, 20 19. After my second child was born in 2018, I started to backslide. I was sober for a while, but I started to backslide after she was born. I went back to work as a nurse. I was taking on more. It just consumed me. There was a lot of things that were out of integrity with my values as a human being within the nursing field. I also wanted to be home with my babies, so I was out of integrity with my values, which I didn't recognize. As a value that I had at the time, like I value family so much. I thought it was selfish of me to want to be home with my ch my children because I thought that it's not okay. I should be working. I need to be working. So I was, you know, aside from those two things, I was downward spiraling again in addiction, in depression, anxiety, all these things. From 2018 through 20, the end of 2019, I was outside begging my grandmother's spirit, not God, my grandmother in spirit, because she was the thing that made me feel the closest to something holy. So I. Would beg her spirit, please help me wake up and do things differently tomorrow. And it would, this would go on and on every single evening. I'd smoke cigarette after cigarette and beg my grandmother and whoever's listening, I would say, whoever's listening in my grandmother please. So something I don't know shifted inside of me. At the end of 2019, it was my 34th birthday, and my intention was to get fully sober by 30. So now here we are, 34. I had multiple tickets, multiple car accidents, flipped my car. I was like on the verge of losing my job, and I was on the brink of insanity, honestly. And. I went to a college to go to driving school to try to get points off of my license because I had so many points. I was gonna lose my license. So I got to the school and it turned out I went to the wrong college. Because there's a north campus, there's a south campus, there's a city campus. I went to City and it turned out it was at North. And I had a nervous breakdown. That was my breaking point. And in that moment, I, I think, intuitively but unconsciously gave it all over to Spirit to God, but I wasn't willing to like. Admit that yet, but that was a turning point for me. And I started to wake up a little bit and say, you know what? The first thing I gotta do is quit this nursing job. Like I can't get my myself together if I stay here. Then we hit the pandemic, which forced me to stay home. And in this time intuitively, I started journaling. I wanted to journal on what I was grateful for in my life and start focusing on the positive blessings in my life. And I journaled every day for 30 days, and that was the very beginning of my journey of healing. When I quit my nursing job, that led to me getting sober because I was at home. It was not easy. But I at that point had been through withdrawal many times before. I knew I could get through it and. I did instill my faith in my grandmother's spirit like guiding me. And interestingly, once I continued into this journey of sobriety and starting to incorporate journaling and my intuition was turning online, and my brother who passed away from a drug overdose. In 2007 was also then showing up in spirit, and he was guiding me to stay sober and he was guiding me through healing some familial trauma because he had endured a lot of what I had endured. And so we were like. Spiritually working together to heal and for me to continue down this path of sobriety. And it was him and my grandmother mostly that kept me on this path for a long time. Still like a year into my. Healing journey. This new path that I was on of life, I still wasn't sure if I could call upon God. I was opening myself up to my spiritual gifts. Of course, there was a lot of learning and a lot of discernment that I cultivated because of my. Intuitive gifts. I have had run-ins with demons, many times I worked with a spiritual teacher. Because of the psychic attacks and the different things that I was experiencing that were demonic. And so I learned the art of discernment through continuing to do the work. Continuing to show up and continuing to notice what is what. So I got into ancestral healing probably by, when was that? 2022. And that was really powerful and potent of an experience for me. I was connecting with my ancestors wise, well unhealed, the unhealed as well. I still had a deeply spiritual, life, but I wasn't necessarily certain about God., And last year, August of 2024. Was when I really started to have a spiritual crisis. I was learning about. Other spiritual people who converted to Christianity because they were recognizing that their lives were consumed by demons and they were using divination tools like Oracle cards or crystals. They were doing energy work and all these things that were similar to the work that I do that. Has guided and supported me so much. Now our stories are not exactly the same, and I have a different experience of how to discern what is what these people were proclaiming that any spirit that comes to you intuitively It's a counterfeit, it's a demon masquerading as a true. Spirit and I just couldn't subscribe to that. After my experience of, my grandmother and my brother protecting me, guiding me, supporting me doing the healing work with me on my journey into this new way of life, after decades of living in the dark and living this unhealthy, unwell. Dark lifestyle. I, I, I just couldn't subscribe to it. It is sometimes a mind off when you hear some of these Christians speaking about how demonic everything you do is if it's not an alignment with every word in the Bible, in my experience. It's the power of discernment that is the most important. And I, I feel like we're seeing this playing out today with everything going on in our country. And you don't know what is true and what is not, because you're learning information coming from all kinds of people, all sides. There's such combativeness, there's such, division, there's so much information. There's AI now that we have involved in everything and it's, it can be scary if you aren't feeling spiritually in relationship with your own divinity and with God, this can feel really. Jarring and really fucked up part of my French, but, I totally understand how this could put you in a mind, spin this person saying this, this network is saying this, this commentator, this journalist on YouTube is saying that this person, all these, these people spewing negativity and evil. It scares you. Well, that is where the power of discernment comes in, and I really don't believe that the intended path for all of us is to be a Christian. As I continue on with this story that I'm sharing, how it led me into relationship with God, Because of that whole spiritual crisis in August of 2024, and especially with my sister deepening into her Catholic values. After years of her also feeling disconnected from her spirituality and her relationship with God, she was deepening back into what we grew up with. And that was really hard for me because. It called into question everything that I knew to be true and everything that, I grew up with. And also my relationship with her. I, I became concerned because what I grew up with was very judgmental and. Condemning Christians, and so I was afraid I was gonna lose my sister because. She was gonna condemn me and my beliefs and values, but the difference between a true Christian a true woman or person of God is that they do not condemn you or cast you out or reject you simply because your values and you're spiritual. Truths don't align with theirs. My sister and I do get into debate and my sister and I do disagree on various things within her belief systems in mine, but there's so much love and it's unconditional and that's what God is Unconditional love. So if there is condemnation going on because of your beliefs, that is not in alignment with God. It's fine if we don't agree or we reject something somebody else believes in, but rejecting a person because they believe in that thing that you reject. Is not of God, is not, love. It's not loving. It's not of the good. Circling back to August of 2024, because of this jarring experience I had of learning about. Spiritual people converting to Christianity and what they discovered to be true and how everything that is outside of the Bible is counterfeit and all this stuff. It really actually deepened my own faith Somehow this activated and awakened. A direct relationship with God, and it was so profound and sacred. And it was so clear that I am not meant, and I never have been meant to. Operate or come to a conclusion in a, in the same ways that maybe a lot of other people have. God shows me. The Bible, like the bi, the Bible literally showed up on my doorstep at the beginning of winter, 2024, and it was an invitation. It was a Bible study book. It literally said on the front, this is an invitation into The Old Testament. And. I know that God was guiding me to learn from the Bible, not for the purpose of me becoming a Christian, but for the purpose of understanding and ha, and using my power of discernment, and also deepening in relationship with God and hearing the spiritual truths that God has to share with me. Which might be very different and they, some of them are than. What is shared in the Bible? Why does God do this? Because we all are here for a various purpose. We're all here for different reasons. God has a plan that is unique and different to each and every one of us, and so therefore, mother and father's plan for me is for me to speak of. What it is that God wants me to share, and it's not gonna necessarily align with the scripture that only men wrote what I'm here to share are spiritual truths that come through me directly channeled from source, God, mother, father. And the teams that God has formulated to guide and support us in this crazy world we live in. And it's to remind you that. There is more than one way to have a relationship with God. There is more way than one way to grow in relationship with Jesus, which I did not get a chance to share in this episode, but I will. So I look forward to sharing more about deepening your relationship with Jesus as well. And. That has looked like and been like for me because again, I did not find my way to heal and become devoted to my spiritual life through Jesus. Jesus is a brother and. I deeply value my relationship with Jesus, and I have no disrespect whatsoever. He knows that he has given me his blessing to share exactly what I'm saying, and he's not at all condemning me because of. The way that I speak of him, or my own unique journey of finding my way to salvation, what Jesus has helped me with and has guided me into, even before I could really trust and let him in again, I say again because. I know I had faith and trust in Jesus, obviously when I was a soul before I entered into this life that I live. I have trust in him again. Because he has purified my spirit. He has helped me cleanse the. Aspects of myself that need in healing and do away with what no longer serves, and he has forgiven me and I have forgiven myself because of him. And he also has shown me, like many of us who believe in Jesus Christ, he has shown me what it means. To stand firmly and in conviction of your faith, regardless of what anybody else thinks, and knowing that when people do harm to you, it's because they are in pain. It's because they do not know what they do. They are unaware spiritually and morally. Of what they do, but it's not a reflection of us and we have nothing to fear. If we fully surrender and trust in God's plan for us and in our faith and in our truth, and no matter what and who tries to destroy us because of it, only God has the power. To destroy us, and that is not God's intent whatsoever. So what we really do when we shrink down and hide and waver on our truth and waver on our free speech is we destroy ourselves and we give ourselves to Lucifer. And I know that. The good thing about it though is, is that, I mean, there are some people I think that probably are, once they give themselves over to Satan or Lucifer, there's no coming back. But what I know to be true. Is that it is possible to come back. It is possible to break the chains. It is possible to get your power back through your own healing, feeling your grief, your rage, your anger through instead of letting it harbor and become who you are. When it becomes you and you allow those emotions to fester and live within you, that's when the demons and that's when Satan has all power over you. And so what I know to be true is that God gave us these bodies in this life, in this human experience on this planet so that we could. Excavate so that we could remove, release, feel emote. And allow God to work through us. So i'm just getting started. I'm so excited to share more. But I just wanted to start here because I think it's so important, especially with the current climate and Charlie Kirk's death and our stance on demons versus good and angels versus demons, or however you wanna say it, darkness versus light. And knowing that he was a Christian, what I know to be true and how I feel about it is that his words and his message and his leadership are not intended to steer us or persuade us to become Christians per se. It's to persuade us to find our goodness again. It's to persuade us. To lead our lives in faith, in trust and love, in purpose, in conviction of what is good and faithful and loving to have compassion for one another, to find our way back to God. To me, this is not a religious thing. It doesn't mean that I can't have my own relationship with God. It doesn't mean that when God speaks directly through me and I am the vessel for God's message, that it's not true because I'm not a Christian. When you call upon a higher power, it is possible to find your way. It is possible for your inner divinity, and your soul to activate, to begin guiding you into the light. Thank you so much for listening. Before we go, don't forget to like, subscribe, follow, and stay connected to the higher paradigm, and please feel free to share this episode or this podcast with anyone you believe would resonate with it. Would benefit from hearing the content and. Would help to build a community of like-minded thinking like-minded souls who are here to raise the vibration and bring more light into this world. Until next time, much love and many blessings to you.