UNCOVERING MY ORIGINAL ESSENCE
I feel like a whole new being. Alchemical shifts in perception have changed my rhythms.
In the past year, I lost forty pounds. I shifted the way I show up for my work by closing my monthly membership and on-demand course library. I left a place called home for most of my life to land in a place healthier for my little family. After decades of being my own healer, it is awe striking to me how once we agree to traverse the healing spiral, the adventure is never complete. There isn’t some healed destination we one day arrive to - there is only the continuation of the healing journey.
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Our Original Essence is the true presence of our energy before conditioning and societal rules broke the freedom of our belonging to the great mystery of life. When we attune to our Original Essence, the spark of inspiration shows us how we can contribute to the divinity of life. We receive direct access to our unique overflowing source spring of creativity. Remembering our Original Essence requires our light and our shadow to meet, become friends, and hold each other beyond the illusion of duality, for without this union we cannot be whole, well, holy. Without this union we cannot heal. In receptively having boundless compassion for all that we are and all we have been, our Original Essence is revealed.
Perhaps it’s important for us all to feel a little lost sometimes so we can sentiently associate the unnecessary in our lives. Somewhere, in the midst of being a working mom, sole breadwinner in my family, and becoming more of a public figure, I got caught up in a whirlwind of busyness, and then the whirlwind became the familiar. Mostly through word of mouth, my work has garnered a large following since I began over twenty years ago. I have always been able to see a lot about folks by seeing their auras and started using what I saw to encourage them to be their own healers in a modality I created called Medicine Readings. I feel this offering has little to do with me, and at the same time, it is one of the only things I can do really well, so I’ve stuck to it. In 2015, due to some major press outlets discovering me, my work started becoming even more recognized. Suddenly, I had to be aware of my image, something that never mattered much before. Without noticing, this triggered a lot of old trauma from times in the past when what I look like has made me a target. So my ego told my body that protection was needed and my body faithfully responded by gaining weight.
Based on how I feel energetically, I have always fluctuated in weight and have learned how to be comfortable in my skin at any size. But in 2019, I closed my healing center in Soho, NYC, and then came the pandemic, and on came more weight that for the first time had me feeling unhealthy and uncomfortable in my skin. And the hits kept coming…
In 2021, challenging lessons continued surfacing personally and professionally. I felt raw. In this tender time, I began people pleasing and relying on well-intentioned voices over my own intuition. Consistent issues that never bothered me before, like my work being mimicked to the point of cliche or cruelty on social media, started gnawing at me. The way I saw lies, loneliness, and heartbreak in the world, in my enchanted city, started breaking my heart. My ego quickly reacted to it all, trying to keep me safe by keeping my voice small and body still.
My body faithfully responded again and I started feeling physically numb. I knew this was a psychosomatic response to wanting to be numb, to wishing I could just forget, wishing I could care less about everyone and everything. But compassion is my compass. If I squander compassion, I am lost.
At the same time, my work felt clearer and deeper. When I was facilitating Medicine Readings or offering a course for my community, everything I was processing personally was set aside. I felt positive, contributing to the healing that I saw was desperately needed in the world. And I had much work to do. So I began working too much.
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A spirit healer showed up in a dream and showed me that my energy was rainbow resplendent except for this one murky spot in my lower left lung. That spot was called “abandonment.” In trying to dodge everything that was coming at me, in bending myself to fit what others expected of me, I abandoned myself.
We had known we wanted to move out of the city for a long time, but because my husband, daughter, and I are world wanderers, we had a tricky time figuring out where we belong. Home has always been within each other. I kept seeing White Birch trees in visions (interestingly Birch is the talisman of new beginnings in the ancient Irish alphabet and divinatory tool, the Ogham). After searching for a while, we moved to a place in northeastern forests where I now look out at a White Birch grove from my office window.
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The move to the wilderness made it easier for me to spend quality time with people who want the best for me and because of this, a lot of relationships in my life became crystal clear. I only want to be surrounded by people who I can have inspiring conversations with, who can see who I really am, who love me but don’t want to control me. The green mountains hugged me, encouraging me to let go and grow. My body wreaked like hot city sidewalks as I lost the first ten pounds, detoxing the insatiable energy of the metropolis. The circumstances that were influencing my recoiling weren’t affecting me as much. With these subtle changes, my spirit felt safe, more myself. I was uncovering my Original Essence.
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In early 2023, I facilitated a retreat that was equal parts dire and delightful. It helped me to see a glimpse of the origins of my wounding in this lifetime. I remembered being very young and manipulated into believing I am evil. I saw the self-nullifying ways I make things more difficult on myself than needed, because somewhere, I still believe this lie. This lie has been subconsciously thwarting me from my Original Essence.
But I am not evil.
My intentions are and have always been pure for every sentient being. I worship Life. Love is Divinity to me.
There it is… My Original Essence… She is wild, wise, innocent and needs to be nourished…
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Upon returning from the retreat, the self abandonment officially stopped. I started asking myself what nourishes me and what doesn’t. This sustenance barometer helped me continue to see my Original Essence.
Healthy soups and sweating everyday nourishes me. I started moving intentionally. I felt satiated. Social media felt distracting so I disengaged. I hiked in the beautiful nature surrounding me and it made me feel alive. I read good books and listened to soulful music. I watched films that meant something. I enjoyed gelato nearly every day I was in Italy; it felt like soul food. I began understanding, in a new way, who and what deserves my attention, and who and what does not. I started welcoming things that challenged me, like driving on the opposite side of the road in the UK, horseback riding, surfing, and finding my core muscles.
Every step toward what nourished me brought me closer and closer to my Original Essence. I began purging the weight of having an overwhelming sense of responsibility for that which I can do nothing about. My work in the world evolved as my intuition spoke up, wanting to close the online membership to encourage the members to leave the nest and fly. It became very clear to me that a spiritual community should not surround one person. In my work, it was time to return to the Original Essence of what has always been there for me: seeing folks' auras and the ways in which they can be their own healers’ by connecting to the nature they are, writing about what is felt in the collective aura, and creating healing retreats and remote experiences in honor of life.
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My spirit responded with beneficent radiance. Like how Dragonfly begins as a wingless water nymph, but then beckoned by warmth and light finds her way to land, nestling within herself, before breaking the shell of who she once was with her cool wet wings.
It feels early to be writing about this. I am at the emergence phase of letting dewed wings dry before the maiden flight. But this is the right time. I am the creative chaos of a work in progress, traversing the healing spiral without any fixed destination in sight. There is no difference between healing and being healed. One day, I will fly because I will simply feel the east wind beckoning my untamed wings and unfurl into the unknown that awaits. Flying, finding deep, pure, midnight water to rebirth me into a newness I’ve known before.
I remember who I am.
May your Original Essence guide you on this unmapped voyage of blessing the gossamer petals of this wild flowering web of life.
