On Learning to Embrace My Spirituality

I don’t believe in fate exactly, but I’d also say that in some ways I was fated to live the unconventional life I have. I’d attribute it to my middle-child status, the negligent upbringing with a depressed stay-at-home mom and workaholic dad, and having a chronic autoimmune health condition. All of these factors, together with being poorly socialized and having an umkempt appearance, led me to be extremely self-conscious and insecure throughout my childhood. As I entered early adulthood, of course I felt a desire to make up for lost time, to rebel and overcompensate for my traumatic childhood.

In some ways, living on the outskirts is perhaps in my genes. As a child, I was endlessly preoccupied with the mystical and the “occult,” despite having a staunchly atheist academic dad and being raised in an overwhelmingly secular environment. I have to think that despite this secular upbringing, with my mom essentially renouncing her Judaism at the request of my atheist father, my Jewish heritage helped propel me toward a spiritual quest. I could sense there was something impoverished about life as I knew it, in the mostly conventional American way of life.

Though I evaded fully connecting with myself and ceding to my power in my 20’s as I fell prey to all of the external stimuli of NYC, l took solace in the alternative lifestyle I had managed to build for myself. I managed to forego a traditional career path, though I had many gigs and a few full-time stints in education and education administration. I embraced capitalizing on my sexuality on the side, across the spectrum of SW, though in ways I thought stayed private and disconnected from my personal self and life. Of course, this path of professional moonlighting in such an intimate manner inextricably becomes connected to one’s authentic self. Yet I became lost in this culture and the roles I’d taken on, relishing my sensual power and my freedom from the conventional life while at the same time mourning my lack of direction, my disconnection from myself and my purpose, and my inability to find deep, lasting, romantic love.

Of course I should have been investing in myself, my future, and my finances, but I couldn’t see how. And my way of life worked for me until it didn’t. The arrival of my 30s and my journey to motherhood brought me to finally come home to myself. Finally I learned to seek to embrace myself and my reality rather than to escape myself and my reality.

Though my awakening has been a long time coming, I am reminded of all the hints I saw along the way, all the glimpses I had over the years. I’d long sensed there was a more conscious, connected, authentic way of being. I struggled to reconfigure my relationship with myself, my femininity, and my sexuality, but both gradually and suddenly, I developed healthier boundaries and ways of being in the world. I’ve learned that, while empowering in some ways, this earthly portal to the divine needs to be counter-balanced with deeper spiritual connection.

My journey has taught me that self-belief and self-love are foundational for a successful, happy life. Earth medicines helped me to find healing, to tap into and reconnect to my power, to re-calibrate my self-understanding, and to recognize that the work I am here to do is to help others understand their divine, innate worthiness. Whatever conventional or unconventional path you’ve taken, it is never too late to find redirection or renewed purpose. However unworthy or damaged you may feel you are, ultimately you are only determined by your self-perception.

I’ve come to realize that my work has always been spiritual in nature. Though until I found my own healing and changed my self-perception, I wasn’t following my true purpose. In regaining alignment with myself and picking up on a higher frequency, I’ve learned that while not healing and taking the easy path is an option, it eats away at you and only furthers your pain. There is no easy way out. Until you repair your relationship with yourself, your relationship with others will suffer. I felt too unworthy, too weighted from my traumas, too stigmatized for my moonlighting profession, for too long; but thankfully, I’ve learned that the deeper the pain, the heavier the sorrow, the greater you can shine your light. The wounded healer archetype: I can see why it exists. The heavier the pain you’ve endured and healed from, the greater your ability for strength and compassion.

I’ve always felt called to be a writer and to work with earth medicines, but it was a path I saw as being too foreboding, too inaccessible, too challenging. But all work is iterative, and the only way to forge a path in your desired profession is simply to start, and to keep working at it. This is the true art of manifestation; want something enough, and work on making it happen to see your dreams come to fruition. It’s okay to have to do whatever work you need to do to pay the bills, but don’t forget your calling. Nurture your dreams to make them a reality. With my re-awakened, heart-centered purpose, I share my story as testimony that no pain or trauma is too great, that no person is beyond hope or the transformative possibilities of healing.

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