When I was a little girl, I saw things that scared me. Things that other people didn’t see. I felt things. I heard things. I experienced things. When I shared this with others, they would look at me as though I had sprouted horns and maybe, just maybe, I really had sprouted horns that only others could see. I was always looking for those horns. Looking in the mirror to see what others saw when they looked at me with wide-eyed shock and something akin to horror.
I didn’t want to be called bad names. I didn’t want to scare people around me. I didn’t want my parents to look at me as though I wasn’t their creation. I didn’t want to feel their terror when I spoke about the things I was seeing, the things I was feeling. I didn’t want to hear their thoughts when they scorned me and called me words I didn’t understand that were laced with emotions I couldn’t process, but of which I could feel the agonizing pain.
So I made a choice. I denied that I could see things. I denied that I saw spirits. I denied that I saw ghosts. I denied that I could feel my daddy’s fear and my momma’s sadness. I denied that I knew what my friends were thinking. I denied that I had to walk a certain path because there was something sitting in the middle of the room that I could see, but didn’t want to meet. I denied all that I was.
All that I am.
I denied all my gifts and they went away. I stuffed them myself into the closet and they I disappeared.
A few years ago, I got invited by Spirit to come out of that closet. It was a pulling sensation from my heart as the center of me opened to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it was safe to come out and be me. I didn’t know how and I felt scared so I chose to come out of the closet into a healing sanctuary of my own creation that was sealed and dedicated to healing. A space where I could walk inside, shut the door and breathe into the amazing gifts of who I am. A space where I knew I was safe to feel all that I could feel for myself and for anyone else who came into that space. One of my first clients referred to my office as her own private Heaven. It was in that space that I chose to open up. To open up to the Light and Dark of me. To embrace my ability to commune with Spirit. A space where I was safe to open up to the language of Heaven, to hear their voices, to speak their words to others. It was a space where I could see things for them that they couldn’t see, but were longing to know. It was a space where I was protected and sheltered from the barrage of emotions of the human experience on this planet. It was a space where I could open up to feeling the experience of another because it was only one other person’s experience and that felt safe. In that space, I could be ME.
A short time later, my trainers and mentors began inviting me to come out into the world fully as ME… 24/7. I spoke to this experience on Everyday Joy today for the first time. On air, I shared that my experience of that invitation felt literally as scary as having a baseball pitched at my face without having a mitt or the hands to catch it. It was that scary. It was that big. It felt that overpowering to me back then, so I didn’t accept the invitation for a very long time. Speaking that today was the first time I had ever spoken about that experience. It helped me acknowledge how big and how scary it was for me to come out of that closet. I had never before paid attention to how absolutely terrified I was of my own abilities until I spoke it out loud this morning. It makes sense to me now to understand how scared I must have been a few years ago and it has become crystalline clear as to how petrified I was as a child.
Petrified…
Yes. I was absolutely petrified as a child. Part of me went solid hard and got stuck there in that closet when I chose to go in as a tiny girl with white-blond curls and wide eyes that were the color of summer dusk. Part of me was petrified, literally, in that choice to go into the closet. I chose to go there because it was the only way I could survive. Back then, there was no language in my world that could have helped me through the process of being a natural-born psychic, an empath, a visionary and an energy worker. Each day, I am reminded of things that I saw back then. Some were amazing. Some were bizarre. Some, even now, I cannot understand. My earliest memories are dreams. I was visioning at age 2. I remember those dreams. They’ve never left me – even while I hid in the closet.
So, I petrified myself to keep myself safe and now, as an adult I am a direct reflection of my creation. Hard. As. Petrified Wood.
In some ways, I am four years old again, learning that it is safe to feel these things, see these things and hear these things. At times, I am just now learning to walk the path of an Empath, a Psychic, a Visionary, an Energy Worker – even though I came here to earth with these gifts. I am just barely finding the language to identify it and I am beginning to have an inkling of what that all means.
At times, this gets messy because I AM four years old with this and if you know any four year olds, you know they are not the cleanest of creatures. They like to get in and make a mess… they paint with abandon and especially love to fingerpaint. They play in sand boxes and create mud. They don’t care if their clothes are dirty and they would rather go barefoot than wear anything on their feet. At least… that’s how I was back then.
I feel scared. I feel vulnerable. I am not sure I know how to be ME now that I’ve come out of the closet. I feel such tender appreciation for who I am. I recognize my gentle heart and my ability to love beyond comprehension. I acknowledge my ability to feel the whole world when it is in the huge emotions like it has been for the last couple days all while feeling myself.
I am learning how to be me. I’m learning how to stand upright and walk and run on this path. I’m learning that it’s okay to stretch and crack the wood that I’ve encased myself in…. awareness… I am The Phoenix… no irony there, my friend, right? I’m burning through my petrified shell with the energy from within. *sigh*
And I’m just new at it. Newborn.
Ah… funny… I just watched the Twilight series and in the third one, they talk about how messy and powerful Newborns are because they haven’t learned, really, who they are.
Yep. I’m Newborn.
With only a glimmer of awareness of who I really am.
AND…
WOW… I’m making messes everywhere. So, I’m thinking… my four year old self LOVED making messes. She found it to be great mounds of scrumptious fun.
From that, I’m hearing that it’s time to start enjoying these messes because I! AM! IN! IT!
And, as I stretch, the wood is giving away to cracks which are spreading and… my fire is bursting out… and… hmmmm… there is monumental relief in my release.
