My Mystical Experience with God, ACIM, and Living on Purpose

It's storytime with a vulnerable share about the mystical experience I had with God during Vipassana meditation, calming my OCPD/OCD, gaining weight and the healing revelations that have come from that, reading A Course in Miracles, along with embracing the shameless expression of my truth, purpose, and passions. 

I've had a long, winding relationship with Christianity, and this is just capturing a moment in time... where I find myself today. I'm speaking openly, from the heart, with more questions than answers. But I hope something I share offers you a bit of comfort, inspiration, or warmth.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello, hello. I am very proud of myself that I'm back here sitting down to actually do the thing. Feels good, not gonna lie, it feels good. Um just taking it all day by day. I think this has been a gosh, a weird season, but a really cool, beautiful season. When I look back at the beginning of this year, my word, if you're someone who chooses a word for the year, mine was buttery. It was buttery. And I would say that that has been a an apropos word selection that I made. Um it's really nice to see how there's always that kind of dual nature of this world where on the one hand, our intention is, you know, tuning our headset, and therefore we see what we have attuned to, we see what we're open to, we see what we are looking for. Um, and also was I, yeah, like is life just kind of coming to meet me in that same space that I'm, you know, I'm bringing that energy to it, and therefore it's meeting me in a similar space, or or was this already just a path that was written and I tuned into it, and therefore I'm on the path. Honestly, I have no idea. Uh last year was a lot of uh brain breaking moments. Uh, that was also part of my intention. I think looking back, it wasn't my my term or my word or phrase at the beginning of the year by any means. Uh it just kind of ended up going that way. And by August of last year, that started to be the theme. I became very aware of just so many lingering, you know, as we all have in our human brain, all of the lingering, um, which it's not like there will ever come a time where that's probably all gone. So long as I am alive. But um, the lingering, you know, what do I want to call them? Gaps, limiting beliefs, uh, areas to tighten up, uh clean up the ship, um, things holding me back. Yeah, just all of the above. And through that process, um, the best way I could describe it was just that I I needed a brain breaking. I was due for one. I then thoroughly embraced it and I started just looking for anything within like science and reality and neurophysics and psychology, anything that could essentially further along my self-induced psychotic break that I think was very needed, and I highly recommend it every once in a while. Uh, the liberation that comes from dismantling just so many big things and kind of flipping your identity on its head feels really good. Also comes with so much pain and discomfort. So, yeah. Um looking back at kind of the shadowy underbelly of that, that also came with just endless bouts of crying. Um, the IFS stuff that last time I was talking, like last time I was doing this podcast where I was talking about my IFS journey that I pretty much accidentally stumbled into. Um I'm still gonna live on in infamy with my my therapist for that that move. Um it was the way it was supposed to go. I'm gonna tell myself that and it was okay. But yeah, I think even just acknowledging how my like I can do anything attitude sometimes is super, you know, empowering, and like that's a really helpful, just yeah, strong side of my nature coming out, and other times it is recklessness and it is impulsivity and it is really just having such a egocentric, like disconnected from God kind of approach to this world that I think I needed to swing off the deep end in order to recalibrate. But because of that and everything I unlocked really quickly, it was just so much crying that I couldn't stop. Now my dog's scratching at the door. She gonna stop. No, all right, one second. Okay, we're back. So yeah, part of the shadowy underbelly of all of that looked like a lot of endless bouts of crying and feeling very hypersensitive to a lot of subjects. Um, and that's okay. And I'm very proud of myself with how I let that expression come through, even when it was not easy, or I was talking with people who aren't necessarily complete strangers, but distant enough where it felt extra vulnerable and sticky to be, yeah, to be crying. And as someone who had, you know, a stretch of time in my teens where I shut down crying and I repressed that very fully. And I took a lot of pride in my robotic self. Um, I know that was healing and important for me. Uh, another part was gaining some weight back, which again, I've gone through many fluctuations mentally around all of that. Um I for a long time had been so proud of the fact that I, you know, first relationship I was in from like 17 to 20, I gained about 80, 85 pounds. Um, and then after that breakup went through very just, you know, big healing focus where it was more so emotional and mental was my priority. And therefore, daily walks and like lifestyle and nutritional shifts just came with the territory. And because of that, over like a five-year stretch, I lost that extra weight. Um, and I can see now how there was a lot of just pride in my identity from that. And yet there were a lot of things left in the like foundation that had not been addressed or acknowledged and healed. And therefore, I continuously just lived in a state of body dysmorphia where because I still have a stomach pouch, like a kangaroo pouch, as I like to call it, um I just saw myself as like humongous and a bunch of very, you know, cruel, mean names that I should not be calling myself or certainly any person on this planet. And yeah, I just really seen how like even as a kid, like that stomach weight was always there with me. And I was bullied a lot in pretty much after like fifth grade. And I had some flickers, flurries of it earlier than that. But yeah, I moved to school several times because of it, and I yeah, just really took on this identity in my mind, like my weight or my weirdness, the things I say, my personality basically just repels people and feels disgusting, and everyone, you know, doesn't want to to be a part of that the closer they get to me or the more they get to know me. Um so I am now very, I am very grateful that I gained some weight back in the last year, um, all divinely perfect and part of the healing journey. And I think if I hadn't, you know, what my mind initially called regressing, which I don't believe that it is, um, but if I hadn't swung the pendulum back a little bit this way, you know, would I have become aware of just a lot of these, you know, thought patterns playing out, the ways I still spoke to myself, saw myself, how I treated my body, how I felt about my body, how I felt other people saw my body, or what that then like meant to me. Um, a lot of ways that I was just so hard on myself, or seeing where all of the, not all, but where probably in large part the masochism were like self-sabotage and self-harm in many forms, you know, where that sprouted from because I just physically didn't feel safe, comfortable, accepted, okay, worthy, deserving, you know, of of safety and love and affection. And it's really, it's really nice to see those things. Also very confronting and uncomfortable. And yeah, just comes with all the feels, but better to be seen than shoved under a rug. It's my approach. So that being said, um, for the first time in my life, perhaps truly the first time, um, I feel like so many things have shifted. Um, because there has been one very important shift that I don't I still am in a very new season with, and therefore I don't properly know how to even bring words to it, um, which feels really nice, but feels weird. Um, I'm someone who likes to have all the words and know how to explain something. And yeah, this the nature of this is that it's a humbling. Um, and that's good. So uh as someone who had meditated many, many times in her life, I was meditating about maybe like a month and a half, close to two months ago at this point. I mean, gosh, time's moving weird. So it's probably like two months out at this point. Sorry, my dog is just making a fort in my bed, and she's burrowing herself under all of the sheets. Okay. So um, I was meditating, and there had been a series of synchronicities and you know, droplets that I took had taken note of. And so I did go into this meditation with a bit of like an intention, but it I don't know. I yeah, it was a bit of an intention and it was a bit of an opening. I just didn't realize what was going to greet me there. And basically, I I hadn't been hearing about vipassana. Vipassana basically is a form of meditation that's similar to like noting, if you've heard of that, but you know, a lot that could be said around it. All I'm gonna say is that you're essentially sitting in silence, um, trying to stay very still, and you are kind of labeling when you are thinking. So instead of actually just aiming for silence, like you're and again, this is someone who is not trained, I've not been to a vipassana retreat. I I am picking this up from what I've read and learned. But essentially sitting there thinking a thought and then catching it by just saying thinking. So if I start to go down a rabbit hole and I start to think, you just literally start replacing that with like thinking, thinking. Or if I would just really start to feel something strong, I would go, oh, feeling, feeling. So it's just kind of like a catch and bring back. So you start to spiral and then you just catch and bring back thinking. So whole process, very helpful. I enjoy it. But again, that was during when I first started to unpack just the Vipassana part. There was a lot of oh, just yeah, like endless, again, endless tears, seemingly endless tears. I would give myself, you know, uh like a mini miniature sensory deprivation sort of setup. So I would wear like my eye mask and have headphones in. I wouldn't turn on any music, I'd keep it very just still and grounded. And yeah, I basically would just start crying. Super again cathartic, therapeutic, but it was heavy and intense and glad we're through that phase. But I then wanted to tack on some kind of like basically other anchors so that it felt like the meditation had movement to me, I guess is what I was craving. And so I found this type of meditation called the centering prayer, which is a Christian form of meditation, which is you have an anchor word, you come back to that anchor word, so very similar to Vapasana, as far as just kind of the catch and release bring back. Um, but the entire point of this centering prayer is that you were doing nothing, you're doing nothing but opening yourself up to receive. And you are opening yourself up to receive God's love. And that just sounded really beautiful to me. I was intrigued by that as someone who has really struggled to ever actually feel like I'm receiving love. Just, you know, you hear people talk about that, and I think we all have a, I don't know, just like our own lens and our own filter of what that really looks like. And yeah, there was something in me of saying, well, I I know I'm loved, like I know my family loves me. Do I really know what that is like to feel loved and to let that in and let it hit me? I couldn't really say that I felt that. Um, I could think of maybe a handful of occasions, but even if I feel it, it's like a spark and then it's gone. Um so I felt like the idea of building the muscle through this kind of prayer of just receiving divine cosmic love from like the God universe source felt really good to me. Um, I don't think it was the first or second time I did this. I'm pretty sure it was the third. It could have been the second, but I think it was a few, few in. Um, I I don't know. I experienced an actual opening. And all I can say is that it was like my what we're either gonna call my crown chakra, or just basically my head, head space up here opened up. And like again, it sounds strange, but all of these, I guess, moments sound strange when we put words to them. So it felt like a hand was reaching in and like holding my brain was all I like.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

It felt like um felt like someone was, yeah, like massaging my brain. And even when I talk about it now, I can I can feel that. Um maybe just like you know, that image of like your partner or parent, like if you're a little kid, like someone putting their hand on your head and just kind of being like, you know, I'm here, it's okay. And I just felt this love and this warmth rush through me. That I've just yeah, I have never felt before. And it was so good. Um so good. So to me, what I what I experienced, what I took away from that was that that was a direct experience with God. And again, as someone who um has intellectualized her spirituality for a very long time. Yeah, I just I don't think I I don't think I was experientially like ready for what that was really gonna feel like. It was really nice. Um it was really nice. So after that point, I feel like I have undergone what I can only say is some kind of um healing in my in my brain.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

You know, back when I started working with my therapist a couple years ago, um I was, you know, diagnosed. I I don't mean to use air quotes to in any way like devalue a diagnosis because I do believe that they're very helpful and important for like context, but I also feel like they can be confining or labeling or feel like they, you know, or doomed in some way to be stuck, especially with anything personality related. And I was diagnosed with um OCPD, which is obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, and um, you know, generalized anxiety, OCD, especially tied to my phobia with hair, which has been like a lifelong thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

And there's just always been so much noise in my head. And I've just, you know, I've worked so hard in the last year, or not last year, sorry, last decade, I should say last decade, to like quiet the noise. You know, obviously you just go through so many things where you just then end up hitting your head up against a wall saying, is any of it gonna work?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

And I'm really proud of the fact that like years ago I, you know, did find this strength within to commit to like trying so many things, and you know, trying the medication path, trying the not medication path, trying the journaling, trying the meditation in all of the forms, trying the talk therapy, trying expressing myself with the music and performing and overcoming those fears, like whatever I could do to just express and rewire and build trust and safety with myself, because that was really important to me. And that being said, I've just tried so many things and still somehow often come up, you know, with like I've come up short, other than to say that I'm still a human and my brain still worked the way it worked. And the acceptance I think that came with that was really important, and that was part of the process. But again, I'm only two months into this, so knock on some wood. But it's like I finally found a volume knob in my head. Sorry. Um, I finally found a volume knob that wasn't there before. And I've like glimpsed at it, I think, in the last year, especially. Again, it was like I was, you know, getting like teaser, like a teaser trailer, and then the full trailer came out, and then like, you know, we're inching towards this. So I knew there was some kind of compound effect growing, but whatever that was in that moment has just poured this warm, buttery light over my brain. And it's been so much easier to quiet the noise or to surrender and relax, or to accept myself, or to trust in the unknown. Like all of these things that before I felt like my approach, I could make progress with them, but I often felt like it was still kind of through being my own inner, inner dictator, like still being a yeah, just like a tyrant about it to an extent. And this new I don't even know what to call it. I literally I don't know what to call it. Um this new experience of my mind just feels spacious. Um so essentially all of this is to say that I have grown up, like I grew up in a what we called a Catholic plus. Um, I can't remember if I ever talked about that. I kind of feel like I did in an earlier episode, but I grew up in what we called was a Catholic plus family where we were, you know, predominantly Catholic, but we believed in other things beyond that. So that included, you know, reincarnation, astrology, just extras. Um and then I think we kind of transitioned, I don't know, just speaking as a family into more of a Christian kind of stance or distance ourselves from the Catholic Church when my sister and I went to Catholic school. So I was in seventh grade, and not only did I undergo a lot of bullying there, but there was I had never done a confirmation as a young girl. I was baptized but didn't go through confirmation, and so therefore I couldn't participate in a lot of things and activities that I wanted to. I very badly wanted to um be an altar girl with some of my friends. I wanted to be a lectern and get up and literally read um at mass in front of the entire school. Like I always had public speaking in my bones, and I really wanted to do that. And in seventh grade, yeah, was when I was there. Long story short, just a couple um, I think it was a couple days. Like I had signed up for the program. They had assigned out different um psalms that we were gonna be reading. So I had mine. I was learning my like lines essentially, you know, trying to um be prepared and memorize it and at least feel like I would, you know, go up. Yeah, knowing I was confident in it. I don't know. Um and a couple days before one of the like faculty members, she wasn't a teacher, but she was, you know, kind of someone who worked in the the intersection between the church and school there on the staff. She pulled me into a classroom, and I still remember it was dark. For some reason, that like stuck out like there were there was windows, but it was just like a dark, she didn't turn on the lights. That seems like it's going somewhere. It's not going anywhere. It was just like a vivid thing in my brain that I took note of. Anyways, she sits me down and says that basically I am quote unquote not Catholic enough, was the like kind of vibe of it, that because I hadn't gone through confirmation, that they've changed their mind. And they initially said I couldn't be an ultra girl, but I could do the lecture and reading. And now that was no longer the case. And that's, you know, fair. That was their decision to make. But uh, she asked for the paper back and said that I, yeah, would not be reading with my friends. Um and yeah, then just we left for various reasons. That just being one of them, the bullying being the main reason. I ended up leaving that school. When we left that school, we stopped going to that church. And I think that's kind of when we stopped really closely identifying as a family with the Catholic Church. Um, but yeah, I mean, the term God was always around. And I I remember talking to my first boyfriend, again, that like 17 to 20 year old relationship. Um, and he like that was one of the only things I ever brought up as far as like an issue to work through or something that like bugged me. And it was that he was making, you know, a lot of classic teenage boy jokes about Jesus. And I asked him to just not make those when I was around, that they made me very uncomfortable. And it's like, I really don't care if you make them on your own, you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Just like don't make those around me, please. Um and it's funny because at that point in time I wasn't a practicing Christian. I didn't overly identify with yeah, just anything within the faith. It was very much on like a distant, distant horizon.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

And yet, for some reason, there's always been this level of protectiveness or deep closeted care that I have for what I would consider like a spiritual family that I personally feel a connection to.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

I'm not in the faith in again, any kind of practicing way right now that's you know, would assign me to any particular religion. But all I can say is that coming out of that meditative experience and having that direct connection come back online. Um yeah, it was just one of like the most special moments. Um and it really just reminded me that like this is a huge part of what makes me feel really good in this world, and I don't actually need anybody's permission, obviously, of course, about that, and nor does my heart need validation or proof of like his existence. I I actually don't need that. I don't need any of the lies essentially that my thinking mind, my logical, analytical, super critical mind has always told me, or at least in the last again, maybe decade has told me that I needed, which resulted in me coming at spirituality from a very scientific lens and building in a lot of technically a lot of avoidance. And I think that when I really look now at my relationships with my parents, my relationships just in life, like romantic relationships or friendships, or my relationship with my spiritual family. Oh the attachment, like the attachment theory, attachment style um is pretty consistent. And yeah, I don't think we I mean, if people do really talk about attachment theory with, you know, your spiritual family, or I'm just using that term broadly, because again, to me, I would that feels like God the Father, that feels like my brother Jesus, that feels like my angels. And my angels have always been my friends, and I've talked with them a lot in the last several years. That has felt pretty distant and neutral, which is funny because again, in my life, my my friendships seem to be really easy to sustain or like feel comfortable with or build more trust with. What's a lot more difficult is my parents. What's a lot more difficult? Romantic relationships or the non-existent brother spot that I keep trying to like metaphorically fill with people because I deep down feel this huge ache and yeah, just unmet need for a brother. Um, so I think to me, there's still the psychological lens in my brain that says I like because of my attachment style or because of these unmet childhood needs that therefore my spiritual family, whether literal or metaphorical, are meeting those needs. And again, I can click straight into, you know, um, yeah, just the psychological uh analysis and the labeling and therefore a bit of the to be honest, like demeaning. It's like diminishing it. It is constricting or confining the nebulous, untamable, unknowable, divine into a psychological framework that my brain can hold and process. So is there still truth to that? Probably from the realm of being a human, yeah. I think that's fair. Is there also some avoidance there? Yeah. For me, does it also feel like that's a bit of cowardice? Yes. Um is there just straight up a desire to control again the vast and uncontrollable? Yes. So again, I think that one of the most beautiful things about this season for me has been the deep humbling that is coming from this budding new relationship that I am actively trying to nurture and deepen. And even just simple things like getting to express all my emotions and kind of sift back through moments when I'm in like a it doesn't have to be active meditation, but just a meditative, you know, state communicating with God, um, whatever you'd call that. Um I've been working through some anger, you know, just a lot of that straight up, very human anger of how could you, how could you let that happen? Why would you do this to me? You know, just yeah, getting out like those temper tantrums, like those childhood temper tantrums that needed to be expressed, and then coming through that and truly feeling like that love hasn't gone anywhere, and it's still just as strong, and it's still just as ever present, and it's still holding me. Like it's so simple, it's so simple, and yet that's so mind-blowing to, you know, my fear-based logical, controlling ego. It is. And again, that's okay because that's just where we're at in the process. And I am very much still in this process, but I can tell that there's gonna be a lot of healing that comes through like healing of my human relationships that comes through healing my relationships with my divine family. And I think using, not like I'm using them, but like, you know, using um, yeah, just I guess all of it to kind of feed and nurture one another. Like again, the deeper I go in the inner realms and within and you know, without as far as internal, does that even make sense? Internally without. Um, and I mean, okay, that's another another point real quick. It's just that yeah, I I think I really struggled with this when I'd hear other people talk about it from being on, I don't know, I don't wanted to say sides, it's not being on a different side, but from kind of seemingly standing on the side of the hardcore spiritual, not religious perspective where it's all self-directed manifestation. It's all I am God and I am the one, and I still inherently therefore feel alone. Like there is a lot of communication or I don't know, like a lot of language. There's a lot of language of still being connected to everybody. So you know that you are. And again, there's a lot of people who still sink into their heart space and do connect, I think, from a very pure, interconnected, interdependent kind of way that's creates a lot of light and a lot of beauty. So I'm not going to personally knock that at all. Um, but there is just, yeah, something extra kind of sweet and painful and stretchy to the ego and to the mind when God is personified or externalized as far as separate from the ego thinking mind, because I see how in my personal spiritual path there was still a lot of my best intentions, my most loving intentions, still being hijacked by that self-serving, fear-based, separate-minded ego. Um, so again, I think personally it's all part of the path. And I think one of the most beautiful things I've been um going back to A Course in Miracles, which I had started nearly a decade ago, got a probably a couple pages in, to be honest. Um, but I'm fully properly it's done here, um, deeply reading it. And it has just been meeting me right where I'm at. And it talks a lot about the like level corrections that we all, you know, receive or that we need to have a level of healing or a level of miracle that meets us where we're at. And it talks about how there's no level of difficulty in our spiritual family, you know, our brother, our father, our angels, whoever, our our mother, the goddess, whatever term floats your boat. But that there is no like a hierarchy of difficulty for them. But there is a lot of you know, perceived hierarchy in our human experience and how space and time obviously creates differentiation. So to me, that has been a very again helpful and healing, kind of calming perspective to bring in and give myself essentially grace and compassion for saying, Yeah, I didn't, I didn't know at that stage, and that's okay. And I still don't know many things at this stage, and that's okay. Um, so yeah, I think that just seeing how the nuggets were always there, the seeds were always there, that love for God has always been in me. Um, and yeah, I just I've I've learned too much about too many religions that like I have so much love for pretty much every religion that I have spent any time researching. Um, which you know pretty much includes for me right now in my life. I hope to learn a lot more. But that includes Catholicism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, um, you know, just even things within mythology are like uh like polytheism. So like the Greek gods, the Egyptian gods, um just like yeah, more or multifaceted structures and seeing the overlays of you know myth in any philosophy or religion, and the clearly inextricable divine thread that somehow connects every every religion sharing the same, you know, principles. But that being said, for me, there is richness here, like there is there is fruit here, and I I finally feel like I get it when people talk about that. Um, that the fruit is really good. And you know, maybe that like I don't know. I just I don't know how it's all gonna evolve. I'm too, I am truly too new into this to say, but something is cracking and softening and breaking within me, and it's right on time, and it's so wonderful because even then it's you know, just life keeps unfolding every day, and I have moments where I would normally feel very anxious or overwhelmed or sad and depressed. Um it's like I can now just literally hand all of that mental noise over to God and place it in his hands, and that's and then everything just kind of goes quiet. I don't know how else to describe it. That's just how it's feeling right now. It's like everything just comes to a peaceful kind of you know moment, and that is really nice. Um, it's really nice. So, you know, TBD life will keep unfolding, but it feels amazing to at the very least have healed something that I know is and has been an important part of who I am and you know how I grew up and yeah, just even past life things that for me have always resonated. And a lot of that came down to, as always, you know, religious trauma, twisting things and creating divides and separating us further and creating more fear and more pain. And I think truly just for the moment, like stripping the religion out of it, stripping the dogma, stripping the patriarchal, controlling, you know, power-hungry, money-hungry influence that does not feel to me at all of God and anything that you know, the tenets of what Jesus spoke of does not smell or feel anything like that. And just coming back to true, direct relationship, saying that, you know, if this is all available to me as emotional and mental support, then it's always been there and it always will. And to me, Jesus coming here was quite literally just a an awakening, a reminder, a very vivid, lived, undeniable example of what's possible. And I think for so many years I really loved and resonated with Joe Dispens's work for pretty much all the same reasons because the debris go into his work and all the testimonials. It's like the healings are miraculous. You know, the science tracks, like we're getting consistently more and more data and research and studies that absolutely back up everything he's been working on, and and many others like him out there. So it's not like he's doing anything new, nor do I think Jesus was doing anything new. But there was a lived example, you know, a lived example of not come and worship me like I am an ego who needs your submission, but truly like come and only worship the love and the light and like that, that those higher realms of thought, the higher realms of frequency, because that is life-giving, and that is what's eternal. And worshiping the illusions of this world, like, you know, money and yeah, just desire and uh, you know, gluttony, all the things that I know, I and most humans have fallen victim to, and we've all tried them on for size, and they cause stress and anxiety and fear, and they leave us so empty. Like they leave us so lacking. And yeah, again, this no matter which way you slice it, as far as um I just, yeah, all those roads lead to dead ends. It doesn't mean that we don't still live a human life that is full of dreams or desires or anxieties or fears. But I think there's something so beautiful right now of just kind of reigniting the part of my brain that somehow, somehow, actually does know how to surrender and trust. When I lived so deeply in a state of control and fear and anxiety for so long, that feeling a miraculous healing unfold because I now have a door open where I closed it. You know, I shut that door, I locked it, and I walked away. God didn't go anywhere, that love didn't go anywhere. You know, the universal fabric that holds this whole thing together is always there. But yeah, I think it's our own individual journey of when and how we we open that door. And all I can say is I am profoundly grateful right now that I am I'm in contact again. And therefore, life feels a whole lot less lonely or overwhelming or yeah, just you know, meaningless. Like it feels so meaningful, and like really being so grateful for just the fact that we get to wake up every day and that we have air in our lungs, and that there's sunlight, and there are animals, and there's good music and yummy food, you know, just like the real simple things, like it actually naturally occurring to me now when I'm eating to say thank you again. I was good about that years ago, but it it left my brain. Unfortunately, I'm sad to say, that I I ate on autopilot or I ate to fill a void versus really coming back to holy, holy. I get to eat. Like there's a lot of people who don't have that access, who don't have food in their fridge, um, who don't even have a fridge. Um and I think when we really just come back to those basics and we let that in and we let it hit us, life feels so magical. And you feel so, yeah, just genuinely in awe of this experience and the roller coaster of wherever it's taking you. But if you trust that it's taking you to good places, not always comfortable places, not always painless places, but spiritually good places that will have meaning and fulfillment and depth and like juice to them. I don't I don't know if like we need to complicate it beyond there. And I've loved intricacy, I love complexity, but but I've been told, you know, on several occasions that there is a an overcomplication that occurs in my brain. And I see that now. I see that the the OCPD running on just autopilot overcomplicates a lot. And I still want my depth and I still want intricacy because I love yeah, I love the texture that that brings. But it does get to be simple. I think it really does get to be simple of saying if we have the just basics and the gratitude connected to those basics, like the awareness or the recognition of how truly amazing those things are that like I can see and I can hear and I can taste. And if somebody gives me a hug, I can feel it. I love hugs.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Um, yeah, like what more do we need?

SPEAKER_01 49:20

You know, what more do we need? So on that note, I yeah, I'm just excited to keep exploring what this all feels like and looks like to live life as a more openly expressed human because now I feel like there's purpose. Now I feel like there's actually purpose to me coming on here and sharing and speaking and using my voice. I see how when you are living your life in service of something that you really believe in, it's so much easier to just get out of your own way or get out from underneath the ego and the pride and the shame or the yeah, just all like these sticky human feelings that keep us trapped, you know, or keep us stuck and keep us frozen. And uh, it is so liberating to just say, I'm gonna basically not, I'm gonna just not um let the voices of my prideful, scared ego stop me. I'm not gonna think unkindly about myself and when that voice is there and I will expect it to be there. I just won't, I just won't listen to it. Like I won't um honor that voice, you know, I won't praise that voice, I won't give that voice power. I will give that voice compassion, understanding. Uh it can be there until it just naturally goes quiet. But I think the more that I keep turning my head towards the the loving, empowering voice that says, I am here for a reason. I do have something to share. It doesn't need to be the most revolutionary thing. And, you know, it just, yeah, it it doesn't need to change the whole world. But if it is like getting out of my own way of blocking my light to say that I do have light and that maybe that actually belongs here in the fabric of society right now, and that maybe that could bring light to one other person, and they can therefore get out of their own way and bring their light to one other person. We have this whole domino effect of people getting out of their way and not listening to the fearful, egocentric voices that care so much about what other people think about us, and instead say, What do I have to give? What do I have to contribute? What do I have to share? And I'm going to honor that above all, regardless of literally any of the noise that could stop me. I'm just gonna get out there and put this on the table because I believe in that and I believe that's my role to play. And the comforting excuses in our head, oh, they're so seductive. Like it's so seductive to just literally think, you know, I don't matter. My voice doesn't matter. It's self-indulgent to do these things. Um, who needs to create? We, you know, can blame it all on AI now. Like who, yeah, who needs to hear it. And the thing is, is like I know I wouldn't be where I'm at. And I I really love how far I've come and where I'm at and how my life feels because of so many random women that I've listened to over the last decade. I would literally not be here. Um if it wasn't for them sharing their stories, inspiring me, motivating me, reminding me what's possible, giving me alternative ways to think about things, them opening up something in my brain, even if it's something that I femininely disagree with, even if it's through the opposition, that is still helpful. That is still important and powerful. And just seeing somebody be open and liberated and creatively expressed is infectious. And I'm so grateful to them. I'm so deeply grateful that yeah, that God's love moved through them enough that they had the courage to take those scary leaps. And I would like to let divine love move through me and speak through me so that I get out of my own way and I actually show up consistently from devotion. I would like to demonstrate to myself, to the world, and to all of those above and beyond that I, yeah, that I can be committed here, that I am capable of that commitment in service to something that I love, which we'll go into that in another another episode. Um, because there is uh a nucleus at the heart of all of this. There is something that I am I am working toward with sharing. Um, but God comes first and love comes first. And this is an important part of the story that's getting me there. So I needed to address this first before we we get to that chapter. But yeah, it just it all feels easier is not necessarily the right word because it's still hard getting on here and sharing and setting this time aside and working through any of the negative thoughts that arise while I'm literally sitting here talking and pushing past that is tough. Going to the gym this morning was tough. Like all of the things that I'm doing, you know, to love myself and take care of myself and nurture myself and push myself for the sake of things that I love is tough work. And yet it's so meaningful and it's so important. And I know future of me is going to thank me so much for showing up. So I will, I know I was trying to end this a minute ago, but I will actually end it now and leave you on the note that if there is anything that you can do, no matter how small, that your future self would thank you for, I really encourage you to do it today. If there's anything that your heart wants to do that you are feeling like you cannot do because of any excuse, because of AI, because of what people will think, because it won't make you enough money. I like I literally, I don't care what it is, just uh the amount of what's the word I'm looking for, just like warmth. The amount of warmth that you feel, just taking like one little step in service of those things is really worth it. It's very underrated. Um, and it's so easy for our mind to talk us out of. So let me be your cheerleaderslash annoying um trainer. I don't know. Do the thing, no matter how small, you will feel better tomorrow for having done so. I will talk to you soon because I will be showing up here consistently and not overthinking or overcomplicating my production setup because that's what got me into trouble last time. And this just don't need to be perfect. It's gonna be raw, as raw as my ego will let it be. But we're gonna get there. Uh, keep peeling back those layers and one day at a time. Till next time. Bye.