The Closer I am to Fine.

"And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains

I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains

There's more than one answer to these questions

Pointing me in a crooked line"

-Indigo Girls (Closer to Fine)

Disclaimer: Thought train. Buckle up.

New year Musings: 2020

My thirties seem to be a whirlwind spiritual journey. As I reflect on the last decade, I have grown at an incredible rate spiritually.

I have fallen in love, gotten married, given birth twice, (not in that order..but still), I have moved 7 times, made countless friends and lost a few, I have had some cross that spiritual divide and leave me in this plane, I have made friends that opened doors of my spirit that had been closed forever, who entered my life to help me tear down walls, and who let me know that being human was being beautifully broken. I have made relationships, lost relationships, held onto things that I needed, let go of things that I didn't, learned more who I was, and stopped denying it.

Relationships are the most important thing to me in my existence, It was Mother Theresa who once said: "If we have no Peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to one another"

We are all connected, in a beautiful web or tapestry of a greater truth. 

I have been having to face a lot of things in regards to my own mortality lately. As you saw in my last post, a good friend of mine passed away somewhat recently and unexpectedly and it sent me spiralling into this crazy spiritual experience, I all the sudden felt so connected to the spirit that was my friend, he spoke to me, spoke through me, laughed at me, smiled at me, as I wept for his loss. He has held me, reached out to me to reach out to his loved ones, filled me with more love than I can almost handle.

I went through a period of time that I was convinced my time was up as well, I started to see things as signs of my own demise and for a good week or so I was convinced I was going to die. Turns out anxiety is also rampant in your grieving process sometimes, but since I realized I cannot predict my own death I have just started to focus on what my spirit was trying to teach me or show me.

I believe that the spirit is infinite, it is an energy that cannot be created and cannot be broken, all of our spirits are this undying energy. If it leaves this plane in one form, it can enter as another, I believe in the man and the spirit that was and is Jesus, but as I tell most my friends I am not a conventional christian, I am more spirit led than scripture led, my spirit, the holy spirit that lives in all of us, is the same spirit of the creator of everything, if we are in touch with our spirits we are in touch with almost anything you can fathom.

A lot of western theology puts God and Christianity or religion in a box. I believe most religions are just simplified versions of a greater truth, all religions are created almost equal by the creator of everything, and each religion speaks some truth to its followers, but in a language that their spirit understands.

The language of love and peace and truth are not the same for everyone. 

God is the same today, yesterday and forever, I don't believe in one true religion, I believe in truth when I find it, when I discern it, I have had several spiritual encounters with Jesus, but I also feel connected to energy that modern simplistic religions cannot explain, or don't even mention.

I figure none of this makes sense, it's all very new to me.. My mom and I were recently talking about universal salvationism, and I think that's highly where I stand.

I believe that God is love and love is real.

I believe that every time you love someone you are using the hands of God.

and when I say God I am talking about the life force that created everything .. it's just easier than saying, "universal life force" (plus it makes you look less crazy)

I believe that your spirit guides you to love, to truth, to where you need to be.

I believe that intuition, and empathy can be important tools in things like prophecies, visions, truths.

I feel very connected to the spirit of lost friend Reece. I hear him ask me to check on his brother, his friend, his father. I have heard him laugh at me, I have felt him smile at me. I know his love is filling me for his loved ones, in a way I cannot explain.

Whenever someone I love dies, I feel like part of their spirit flows through me and for a time, I am on this crazy spiritual journey of revelations in love and life. And I have learned that the grieving process is hard and it hurts, but its also important.

"When Will my soul get it right, has any human being ever reached that kind of light?" -Indigo Girls (Galileo)

This past October I was hospitalized for about a week, because my anxiety sent me into this spiral that had me vomiting profusely, this has happened many times in the past, usually around change or when I am about to travel or have travelled, these episodes started when I was 9 years old. Doctors never had answers for me when I would be hospitalized for days at a time with non-stop vomiting and all my tests they would give me, blood tests, mris, catscans, urine tests would all come back that I was healthy as an ox. SO this last hospital stay I just broke down when they would tell me yet again that all my tests were normal, but I was as sick as I was. I told them. "I don't want to live" and they started to take me seriously. They sent in their onsight psychiatrist and he sat down with me as I explained to him that I have had these bouts of sickness since I was a child, with no explaination and I was losing all hope that I would ever live normally again. It was then that he diagnosed me with CVS (cyclic vomiting Syndrome) it's a relatively new diagnosis, and doctors don't know too much about the cause, some think it's all psychosomatic, or related to mental illness/anxiety disorders, and some think it's gastrointestinal and has only to do with something in your GI tracts, but what it boils down to is that stress triggers a loop in your neurotransmitters communication with your gut, and essentially you get in this loop where you are stressed and it makes you sick, and you cannot stop.. Doctors have for some reason or another discovered however that a certain tricyclic antidepressant has been shown to eliminate or prevent episodes from occurring, and so I was prescribed it. 

When Reece died, if it was before I was taking this new medication, i would have 100% landed in the hospital with a violent episode, grief is a huge trigger, but I was fine, I didn't throw up, I felt grief but I wasn't sick and I knew then, that I was actually being helped.

My husband and kids and I went to Disneyland immediately after the funeral (it was already planned a year in advance) and that trip didn't make me sick either, whereas the last two times we had travelled to san diego or southern california before that, I had been sick for at least a day, and at one point was hospitalized the entire time I was supposed to be visiting with family. 

this christmas break I decided (just this past week) that I was going to drive my kids by myself to san diego so I could see my family,( My mom, dad, step-mom and siblings,)

My daughter was concerned that the trip would set off an episode and she was scared what we might do without my husband there, but I had every faith my medication would do it's job, and it did.

this past week in southern california was filled with personal triumphs. I mean previously I would have become very ill from the anxiety of traveling alone with kids, but I didn't get sick at all... I had doubted myself that I would be able to survive that trip episode free and I was proved wrong. there were a couple times I doubted myself.. Like "oh I cant get out of this parking lot because the spots are too small and I might hit someone" but I did it fine and never hit anyone...and other little times I doubted I could do something and then I was able to do it perfectly... at one point my kids said to me "mom why do you keep doubting yourself?" and I didn't really have an answer.

I think at some point in my recent years I just sorta lost sight of how strong I am. I have survived all my worst days so far, and yet, I feel every little anxious moment is the end of the world or something. I have now begun to sorta laugh at myself when I become doubtful, like why would you doubt yourself? You're powerful, wonderful, full of love and light. Trust your spirit.

This visit with my family was so wonderful. I got to spoil my siblings and my mom a little bit, I got to visit my earth sister who is expecting a baby and got to joke around with her, I got to travel and show my kids all my old stomping grounds, my old schools, the places I hung out, ate at, worked at, lived. I took them to my favorite beach twice...

and the second time is when I feel I really encountered a miracle..

My kids had been begging me to go to the beach again, so I brought them down and we sat to the south of the main lifeguard tower. I sat down with my stuff and was playing with rocks when the lifeguard announced over a speaker that there was a strong riptide and swimmers should move north of the tower, so I picked up my stuff, rallied my children and walked to the far north side where there were yet again some big rocks I could sit on, however, the tide began to rise, and one wave hit the rock in front of me and swept over me, so that was the end of that.. I moved further up the beach alongside the tall sand berm so as to keep away from any more rising tides. As I sat there watching my kids splash around, I played in the sand with some rocks and a woman walked up to me and asked me to take her picture in front of the ocean, I took her picture and talked with her a bit, she travelled there alone from arizona and was housesitting and dog sitting for a friend. It was when I was gonna ask her to also take my picture in front of the ocean that I realized.. I DIDNT HAVE MY PHONE! I began to panic, I looked in my beach bag and purse like 50 times, I dug around in the sand underneath me, walked all the way to the south side of the beach where I was sitting before and found a man and his kids playing where I once sat, he said a couple were sitting there before, but that he had seen no phone, I walked up to the lifeguard tower and asked if anyone had turned a phone in, they said nobody had turned anything in that day. I walked up the hill to my car, tore it apart inside trying to find my phone, found nothing. A panicked feeling swept over me, my head felt like it was filled with cotton, my stomach felt like I had swallowed a brick, my legs felt like Jell-O I felt like I was gonna throw up or pass out, I wondered what would happen if I did. Would they know I had kids playing down the beach who had no other guardian? Would I be ambulanced away and they'd be stranded? I decided I had to keep consciousness and I began to pray, I prayed lord jesus, I am asking for a miracle. Please, I am calling on you for a miracle. I went back to where the kids were and saw a woman sitting in a chair right in front of where my rock was, she hadn't been there before and I felt I needed to ask her if I could use my gmail account on her phone to locate where my phone was, I went up and asked her, and we tried to sign in, but because it was on a new device it texted me a verification code... I obviously couldn't get the text message so again I was thwarted. I then had the idea to have the woman text my phone "if found, please return to lifeguard tower" but I felt like the attempt was useless.. I thought.. what am I doing? it's lost forever. I then asked the woman what time it was and realized phone or no phone, we had to leave because we were meeting my earth sister for lunch. Sad and defeated, my kids and I grabbed the rest of our stuff and started to head up to our car, that's when I saw a man standing in front of the life guard tower holding my phone.  I screamed and cried and hugged him and thanked him. he told me he got the text message and that he had had my phone for over an hour, he found it where we were originally sitting. he said he saw me walking up and down the beach in my yellow rainboots but he didn't know I was looking for the phone. I had never been so happy before, I was completely elated. I had envisioned on the beach that a man that looked like him would swoop in last minute with my phone, I knew what he would say or how he would say it, I knew I would be elated, I had envisioned the scenario before it had happened. around the same time that I had prayed for a miracle. My spirit soared. My son kept yelling "this is the best miracle ever" and it really did feel like it. 

in the anxious panic stricken state that I was in looking for my phone, I doubted myself a lot, I felt like an airhead, a failure, I imagined calling my husband and telling him what happened and hearing his disappointment in me. I thought, of course this happened on my first trip solo with the kids, of course this thing went arry, but I also had hope, and faith and a spirit that helped guide me to do what needed to be done and that course of action brought the miracle to fruition with the help of other spirits in people along the way.

that was January 1, 2020. A day I will never forget, and I think 2020 is going to be more full of miracles, and spirit guides, and the love of so many people around me. My new years resolution is to love MORE. to learn more, to trust more, to listen more and to follow my spirit more and to doubt less.

I want to seek out happiness where I am, to realize that the spirit will show me the way, I don't have to worry if I am a good christian for believing what I believe or experiencing what i've experienced. To not label myself one thing or another but just to accept things and myself the way they are.  the indigo girls put it perfectly:

We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah, we go to the Bible, we go through the work out
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine

...

the closer I am to Fine.