Читать книгу The Gift of Crisis - Bridgitte Jackon Buckley - Страница 9

Introduction

It is 10:30 p.m. on a clear, cool Saturday night in spring 2003. I sit on the sofa in the family room at my parents’ house, folding warm clothes fresh out of the dryer. With the television blaring and the aroma of “Spring Delight” laundry freshener hovering in the air, I look at Dennis, who has fallen asleep in the recliner. He has been on alert since early this morning. Today is the day.

One by one I carefully fold pink blankets, yellow bibs, and light green burp cloths and place them into neatly arranged rows beside me on the sofa cushion. I look toward the laundry basket to make sure I have folded everything, and notice one light pink onesie laying on the rug beside my feet. These days leaning, walking, bending, getting up, and simply moving my belly around in the world is an effort. Long gone are the days of the cute basketball belly; my midsection has morphed into “globe” status. Before gravity gets the best of me, I lean to the side and quickly grab the onesie. I sit back on the sofa and, with arms outstretched, I hold the onesie in front of me. It can’t be more than 10 inches long. With my head slightly tilted, I quietly look at the onesie and imagine the delicate life that will soon fill in all the empty spaces. For months, I’ve felt her move around inside the darkness of me slowly making her way into my world. “Who is she?” I wonder. I fold this last piece of clothing and place it in the bag for the hospital. Although I smile to myself, the wonder and excitement I feel is once again eclipsed by a slight trepidation. I’m not new to this. I have traveled this path once before. I know her arrival will be painful in more ways than one.

I know the unfathomable pain of bearing down to push a baby out of my body. I know the blanketed feelings of exhilaration and relief that come as soon as I release the baby and the pain entrenched in every muscle in my uterus. I know that, with the arrival of my new love, I will once again be thrust into the wanting of mothering; wanting full participation that will inevitably be interrupted due to financial responsibilities and work commitments. I also know that, as I relish the magic in the fleeting moments spent caring for her, it won’t last, or at least not in the way I want it to.

Six years prior and with a completely different mindset, I had returned to California from my volunteer assignment in Honduras with the Peace Corps. I needed to do something, as in attend graduate school or get a full-time job. Upon my return, a good friend told me about the teacher shortage in California and that, because I am bilingual, I would be a good candidate for a teaching position. At that time, if you held a bachelor’s degree, you could apply for work as an elementary teacher while attending school to obtain a teaching certification. I took my friend’s suggestion and submitted my resume to the Santa Ana Unified School District on a Wednesday morning. Two days later, on Friday afternoon, I was employed as a first-grade bilingual teacher.

The quickness with which I was hired by the district led me to falsely believe this would always be the case; that as a job seeker I would be received well whenever I applied for work. I could not have been more wrong. This would turn out to be the first and last time that my resume and I would be accepted with such eager enthusiasm.

Throughout my first years as a teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed the engaged curiosity of my students, the creative aspects of instruction and the professional encouragement I received from the principal and my coworkers. At the close of the first semester of my second year of teaching, the students were reading, writing, and speaking English better than when they began the school year. I beamed with joy over the progress the students made throughout the year. The students could feel the pride I felt for them, not solely because of their improved test scores, but because of their continual effort. They worked hard, and they could see the results of their efforts as it reflected in their reading, writing, and speaking abilities.

However, despite moments such as this, I knew teaching wasn’t something I would do for the rest of my life. Although I made notable progress in my first years of teaching, and was a well-regarded employee in previous professional positions, a restlessness lingered. Something was missing. Normally, I accept work positions that are a good fit as far as typical qualifications are concerned. However, no matter how well I carried out my work responsibilities, there continued to be an unnamable element missing; an internal longing that failed to subside, even in the best of professional situations. I knew I wasn’t meant to stay here, nor would this be the last time I would feel this way.

It was near the end of my second year of teaching when I decided I had had enough of living and working in Orange County. As a black woman in Orange County, I felt invisible. Considering I’d lived in the OC off and on for almost ten years and had not been asked out on one date, enough was enough. It didn’t take much for me to decide to relocate to the City of Angels—Los Angeles.

With so much diversity roaming about in LA, there is something, someplace, and someone for everybody. The only catch is, for all the good scenery, museums, weather, dating choices, and dance clubs, you pay dearly in the cost of living. I finished up my second year of teaching in Santa Ana and welcomed summer with a newly rented apartment in Los Angeles. Within a few weeks, I was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District to continue as a first-grade bilingual teacher in the fall.

Living in LA afforded lots of opportunities for me to spend time with friends and meet new people. In keeping with my “someone for everybody in LA” perspective, that summer I was introduced to the man who would become the father of my three children, the man I would later marry, and the man with whom I would be compelled, through a series of unprecedented dire financial circumstances, to develop and usher in a new foundation for personal growth.

With his hands tucked away in his jeans pockets, he stood tall and quietly on the sidewalk and watched patiently as his childhood friend led my girlfriend and me over to meet him. The party was over and the outside late-night scene had just begun. This was the part of the night when final attempts were made and the excitement of the last romantic possibility was heightened. The three of us made our way through the crowd and stopped in front of him.

From the moment I was introduced to him, I felt an immediate return to love. I was drawn to him in a way that remained unknown. I felt as if I had known him all of my life. In his presence, I was intrigued, interested, and filled with the lightness of swirling butterflies. In the days and weeks that followed our introduction, I wanted to know everything about him. My head was trying to catch up to what was already known by my heart. Whenever we sat a dinner table together, walked through a park, watched the waves at the beach, laughed at silly personal stories, danced to our favorite Reggae music or simply lingered within the tenderness of each other, he attended to my every need with such endearing immediacy that I knew I was already loved.

At the time, the deeper aspects of our connection eluded me. I wasn’t able to fully articulate what it was that so intensely drew me to him and him to me. What I have come to understand is we draw unto ourselves the very people, situations, and circumstances in which we share similar energetic vibrations and subconscious patterns. Of the millions of inhabitants of the LA dating scene, I managed to meet the one man with whom I would not only share an intense enduring love, but who would also mirror my deepest unexamined emotional wounds.

Unbeknownst to me, these unexamined emotional wounds that were buried so deeply within each of us would eventually rise to the surface. They would encompass our marriage, our home, our finances, and our way of perceiving and being in the world. They would also amplify the turmoil in which my most significant catalysts for personal growth would emerge. By the following summer, one year after I met Dennis, I was pregnant with our first child.

The news of “Bridgitte is pregnant” was met with hesitant excitement and spread like a thrilling rumor. First, with my decision to join the Peace Corps, and now, getting pregnant while unmarried, this was the second time I had done something that was unexpected and inconsistent with the normal trajectory of things. My parents were surprised, nervous, concerned, and happy all at once, as was I. However, they quickly became our most fervent supporters. We all agreed, married or not, a baby was indeed worthy of a celebration.

My mother, six of her closest girlfriends, and I planned our baby shower. We wanted to have a celebration that included all of our closest family and friends. By the time the event rolled around, we had more than 150 guests in attendance. For one of the game festivities, my stepfather, Matt, a football fanatic, agreed to create a Super Bowl Squares game that he would adapt for the baby shower. He used a poster board to create a ten-by-ten grid that would offer 100 squares for people to choose from. The rows indicated how many pounds I had gained during the pregnancy. The columns indicated the number of inches it would take to encircle my belly with a tape measure. When the guests were seated, Matt went around to each table, explained the game to everyone, and sold each square for five dollars. After everyone had purchased a square, all 100 squares were filled with names and we had five hundred dollars in the pot! Later that afternoon, during the game, I stood in front of the crowd as my mother pulled the tape measure around my midsection. We revealed the number of pounds I had gained and the circumference of my midsection. We then called the name located on the winning square and yelled, “Layla! You just won two hundred fifty dollars!” Dennis and I split the winnings with Layla, a friend of my mother. She was ecstatic and so were we.

Up until this point I still did not know the sex of the baby. When I had my six-months ultrasound, I requested that the technician write the sex of the baby on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope. A few days after the ultrasound, I gave the envelope to my best friend, Nikki, to hold until the baby shower. We thought it would be a great idea to reveal the sex of the baby at the shower, and share the exciting news with everyone who had shown us so much love and support. During the baby shower and after the Super Bowl Squares game, we explained to our guests what we had done with the result of the ultrasound. When it was time to find out the sex of the baby, Dennis and I stood at the front of the room with everyone gathered in silent anticipation. Nikki reached into her purse, took out the small white envelope, walked to the front of the room, and handed it to Dennis. I stood to the side while my heart pounded with nervous anticipation. Dennis quickly ripped open the envelope, pulled out the tiny piece of white paper, and read the three words out loud that brought tears to my eyes. “It’s a boy!” Laughter, cheers, and applause roared through the clubhouse as Dennis and I, along with our 150 guests, found out we would have a baby boy. The DJ turned up the music and those who were seated got out of their chairs and quickly moved onto the dance floor. Dennis held my hand as family and friends embraced us with an outpouring of love, joy, and well-wishes. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. By the end of the evening, we had received so many gifts that it took three separate trips, with the bed of my cousin’s Ram pickup truck filled to capacity, to move all the gifts we received from the clubhouse up the hill to my parents’ house. Neither Dennis nor I had ever experienced such tremendous generosity. We were overwhelmed with gratitude.

During the pregnancy, amidst all the excitement, I was filled with unanswered questions. I wondered about motherhood in general, how we would make the transition from “they’re dating” to “they’re parents,” how we would afford quality childcare, who I would be comfortable with to provide childcare, and my life direction. How would I find my place in a world so vast that the act of making a choice had come to resemble a nightmarish paradox? I was scared to confront so much uncertainty. At that time, the two things I was certain of was that I was ready to become a mother and that Dennis and I equally wanted a child. I knew that, as an adult and self-sufficient woman, I was capable of taking on such an expansive responsibility. I was completely responsible for myself financially, and didn’t ask for or need assistance. I was in a position to pay my living expenses in full and on time every month. Due to my ongoing love affair with Nordstrom’s shoe department I wasn’t, however, saving very much. Dennis worked in construction. He worked as an assistant to a general contractor and had plans to run his own contracting home improvement service. He wasn’t making very much money, but I didn’t feel much concern about his income because of what I earned. Surely I could handle diaper purchases, baby clothes, and round-the-clock breastfeeding. Surely I could forego my bi-weekly shoe purchase. Simply put, I knew I would be able to feed, house, and clothe the baby, and keep him alive.

After several information-filled question-and-answer discussions with my obstetrician and numerous late nights lying awake sifting through the pros and cons of the epidural, I decide to forego it. I want our child to begin life outside of my body with undiluted awareness. In hindsight, it was I who yearned for an undiluted sense of clarity and awareness. What will happen when this child enters my world? What unanticipated changes will he bring to my life? Who will he inspire me to become? Who will he become?

A month and a half after the baby shower, and on the exact date he is due, during what feels like the longest five minutes of my life, I push through excruciating pain without the aid of an epidural and give birth to our first child, Greyson.

Prior to the birth of Greyson, if anyone had tried to explain the profound ways in which becoming a mother can alter your perspective and change the course of your life, I don’t think I would have fully understood. I don’t think I would have been able to truly hear what was conveyed. I don’t know that anyone can truly know the depth of change that can occur when you become a mother, until you actually live it. There was absolutely no question I wanted a child and this experience with Dennis. However, as far as the prior contemplation of the mental and emotional impact I would experience as result of bonding with my child, well, I didn’t have many late nights lying awake in bed thinking about this one. I completely failed to give this crucial aspect of mothering the attention it deserves. It is within this breadth of failure that I would later find myself emotionally unprepared for separation from Greyson when it was time for my return to work.

I grew up in a household where the only option after high school that was ever discussed was to go to college. My parents encouraged my education and intellectual development with the utmost tenacity. I vividly remember my stepfather reiterating, “When you graduate from college and get a job, you should make no less than $1,500 per week.” I had no perspective to grasp what making that type of income would entail. I remember the statement because it seared into my memory as my stepfather, with the best of intentions, vehemently defined what is to be my priority. Despite having spent much of my time as a child reading and writing in journals, and as a teenager writing articles for the high school newspaper, there was never any mention of the option or validity of doing creative work for a living; nor was there any mention of the possibility that, after giving birth, I might want to stay at home with my child. The notion of temporarily opting out of the professional workforce was never brought up, mentioned, discussed, or considered. The one piece of advice I do remember receiving from my mother was never to be dependent on a man.

The emotional transition I underwent to become a mother was intimately personal, and at times utterly unfamiliar. Although he was no longer inside my body, remnants of him remained untouched inside me. Through what felt like emotional osmosis, I immediately embraced my new role as the caregiver of this child that now engulfed my heart. With the presence of Greyson, maternal love awakened an unfamiliar primal devotion.

The months leading up to my return to work were nothing less than nerve-racking. Prior to my maternity leave, the principal at the school where I worked asked me four times if I would return to work after having the baby. The fact that she asked me so many times should have given me some clue as to what might happen. I was so sure I would return. In fact, I assured the principal I would return to work in the fall and dismissed her concern. However, four months after Greyson’s birth, the new school year began, and I was not in my classroom. I couldn’t leave him. For lack of a more explicit reason to justify going back on my word, it didn’t feel right. It felt wrong. I couldn’t bear the thought of the vulnerability I would subject Greyson to by placing him in the care of a stranger. I delayed going back to work for as long as I could, which essentially meant for as long as I could pay rent without having a monthly income. I was able to stay home with Greyson until he was eight months old. Since I didn’t return to LAUSD, I had to find another teaching position. Thanks to the ongoing teacher shortage, I was able to sign on with the Hawthorne School District as a kindergarten teacher and began teaching in the spring. The new school was located literally five minutes from our apartment. The plan was for Dennis to stay home with Greyson during the day, bring him to the school during my lunch break so I could breastfeed, and go to work when I got home at 3:00 p.m. We maintained this rotation until Greyson was ten months old. When I found out my biological father’s wife had a childcare service, we decided to make a change. Dennis was beginning to complain about how little he was able to accomplish with work on the current schedule. With hesitation, I agreed to let her watch Greyson.

For the most part, things seemed to be going okay with our new childcare arrangement. By now Greyson was almost eighteen months old. Then one afternoon, I arrived at my stepmother’s house to pick up Greyson. I walked into the house as usual, and looked for Greyson. He was not there. My heart began to race. I quickly went to find my stepmother. She was in her room, talking on the phone. I politely interrupted, “Um, where is Greyson?” She said, “Oh, I sent him over to my sister-in-law’s house because I had a headache.” She spoke with the most casual tone, as if she had told me he was playing outside in the backyard. I looked at that woman like she had completely lost her mind and said, “What?” She said, “Oh, don’t worry, she’s really good with kids.” Just try for a second to imagine how hard it was for me to stay calm at this point. I did not know her sister-in-law, nor have we ever discussed the option for Greyson to be sent to someone else’s house without my consent. How did she come to the conclusion that this was a good choice? How many times has she done this without telling me? What else is going on that I’m not aware of? I was beside myself.

When I walked into her sister-in-law’s dark apartment, Greyson was sitting on the couch with a busted lip and dried blood on his mouth. According to the sister-in-law, who did not speak English, which meant we had to do this entire exchange of information in Spanish, another child had thrown a bottle which hit Greyson on his lip. My Spanish was still intact, but imagine me standing in her living room/bedroom, holding Greyson, trying to stay calm, mentally translating what she was saying to me while trying to find the right words in Spanish to relay how angry I was. I took the rest of the week off from work and found a preschool that would accept Greyson immediately.

Preschool was an adjustment. Greyson had to get used to being around many different types of children and to the rules in a new setting, and I had to get used to the $775 monthly tuition payment for a child who could feed himself. After the experience with the sister-in-law, what choice did I have? Now, three years after the birth of Greyson, his sister was due the next day.

“Dennis,” I call out. He has dozed off on the Lazy Boy with a pencil and the Contraction Count Card in his hands. “How many minutes ago was the last contraction?” I ask him. He has been timing the space between the contractions since this morning. The contractions haven’t gotten any closer than an hour apart. Other than the sharp pain in my lower back earlier this evening, while we were out having dinner, and my protruding belly, there is no sign of her arrival. Then, all of a sudden, and I mean out of nowhere, I have to go to the restroom immediately! I quickly scoot to the edge of the sofa, brace my arms for support and push myself up. I make it into the bathroom just fine. However, as I finish using the bathroom and stand to straighten my clothes, a stabbing pain simultaneously shoots through the front of my uterus and lower back. The pain is so intense my knees buckle, and I fall down onto the floor! It feels like a sharp object has been lodged in my lower back. I try to catch my breath, but with continuous pain it is difficult to breathe. I reach up to grab the doorknob. Thank goodness I didn’t lock it. I pull down on the doorknob. The door opens just enough to bump the top of my head. “Dennis!” A few feet away in the family room, he quickly comes around the corner and carefully squeezes through the bathroom door opening. “Is the baby coming? Can you stand? Did the water break?” he asks without pause. I can’t answer. I grab onto his arm to try to get up when another jolt of pain stabs at my uterus. It is unbelievable. It’s almost 11:00 p.m., the contractions are rapidly intensifying, and it is clear she is coming. Dennis pulls me up off the floor, and I take three steps before another jolt of pain hits again. Each time I have a contraction, I do the one thing you are advised not to do. I tighten e—v—e—r—y single muscle in my body. The Lamaze breathing techniques I practiced during my first pregnancy are difficult to remember, due to the shock of how quickly this is happening. Dennis calls out to my mother while holding me up to keep me from falling back to the floor. It takes fifteen minutes for Dennis and my mother to get me less than fifty feet, from the bathroom to Dennis’ truck parked outside in the driveway. Once I am seated in the truck, Dennis runs around to the driver’s side, jumps in, and quickly starts the engine. My mother gets into her car with Greyson and my brother, Christopher. The hospital is a ten-minute drive from my parents’ house. My mother and Dennis carefully bypass red and green lights. I hold onto the door handle and squeeze so tightly my hand is numb. As soon as I catch my breath, another contraction. The contractions that were practically non-existent less than forty-five minutes ago are now less than five minutes apart and relentless. Finally, both cars come to a screeching halt at the Emergency Department entrance. Dennis jumps out of the car and runs inside to get a wheelchair. It’s 11:35 p.m. I am immediately wheeled into a private room to get into a hospital gown. I can’t tell what is going on with the nursing staff, but they are moving incredibly slowly. After several minutes, I am wheeled into a delivery room for the doctor’s exam to determine the cervical dilation. At 11:50 p.m., the doctor lifts the sheet that covers me from the waist down. This time all thoughts of clarity and “clear beginnings” are out the door. I beg for the epidural. The pain is unbearable! The doctor quickly covers me back up with the sheet and responds, “You’re way beyond medicine now!” The next thing I know, the nurses are scurrying around the room in preparation for an immediate delivery. The reason the pain is more intense this time is because she is already coming out! I’m not merely having contractions, my body is holding her inside! At 12:01 a.m. on March 30th, the exact day she is due, the doctor says, “Alright, Bridgitte! I need you to push as hard as you can and don’t stop!” For the second time, I bear down with my remaining strength and push! At 12:10 a.m., Mckenna, our second child, is born.

After not wanting to leave Greyson, trying to find quality childcare that wasn’t equivalent to the cost of a mortgage, and dealing with the discomfort of leaving a baby with someone in whom I did not have implicit trust, I decided to remain at home with my daughter instead of returning to work.

When I made this decision, the teacher shortage in California was beginning to wind down. Teachers who were employed on Emergency Teaching Credentials were being laid off. I was one of those teachers. After six years of teaching at the elementary level, I received my layoff notice two months after Mckenna was born. This meant I was eligible for unemployment benefits. With the little money I had saved while teaching, the unemployment benefits that would hopefully stretch out for six months or more, and Dennis securing more home improvement work projects, I felt optimistic. It appeared the stay-at-home situation with Mckenna might actually work. We didn’t have a strong financial safety net in place, but, as I was able to identify potential income streams, I was determined to make it happen.

In a disturbing turn of events, two years later, Dennis was hospitalized due to the onset of symptoms for a stroke. He was thirty-three years old. When Dennis was admitted to the hospital, this completely changed the course of our lives. Every wheel that was turning forward stopped. In every way imaginable, we were unprepared to deal with the long-term effects of the mental, emotional, and financial challenges that lay ahead. The combination of financial distress, parental responsibilities, health crises, unexamined emotional wounds, blame, resentment, fear, and anger unearthed elements of our psyches that nearly destroyed us and our marriage. The loss of his ability to work propelled us into the beginning stage of what became the most prolonged and difficult period of our lives. For the next several years, we experienced the devastating loss of our home through foreclosure, ruptured familial relationships, job loss, and the steady decline of our marriage.

Throughout this period, there were repeated times when I thought I would not be able to go on; when I simply could not endure another minute of the mental and emotional despair in which I lived. For so long I believed myself to be the victim of these unwanted circumstances; that I was somehow being punished for past behaviors. It never occurred to me that the abysmal circumstances provided an invitation to move toward growth that can be garnered through challenge. It wasn’t until I began sincere self-examination and contemplation, meditation, and prayer, all of which were encouraged in the self-help books I read, that I was ready to understand my role in creating crisis. You might be thinking, “It doesn’t take a genius to realize the role one plays in creating problems in life.” And you’re right, it doesn’t take a genius to identify where some problems stem from. However, there is a deeper side to perpetual problems, chaos, and crisis. There is a deeper, unconscious part of ourselves that heavily influences our choices, behaviors, beliefs, and feelings. The unexamined and unresolved aspects of the subconscious influence who we are and what we do. Meditation helped to clear the mental pathway for the issues to come into my awareness, into my conscious mind. As I sank deeper into prayer, meditation, surrender, and seeking clarity through asking for guidance, the light within the darkness slowly began to emerge.

“When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning, unforeseen things can emerge. And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does. It is an opening for surprises. Surrounding the intention and the act of beginning, there are always exciting possibilities. Such beginnings have their own mind, and they invite and unveil new gifts and arrivals in one’s life. Beginnings are new horizons that want to be seen; they are not regressions or repetitions. Somehow they win clearance and become fiercely free of the grip of the past. What is the new horizon in you that wants to be seen?”

—John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

When I was a child, my mother and I attended a Baptist church. I spent many Sunday afternoons sitting on an uncomfortable wooden pew, listening to sermons about the strong possibility of my going to hell. At twelve years old, I even had a traditional water baptism. However, despite a religious background, at some point during the trying times of my adult life, I moved away from faith into fear and scarcity. I recall having made some major decisions rooted in fear, poverty mentality, and heavily disguised self-doubt, and, because of this, I did not always honor what was in my heart. The more I let fear take the lead in how to direct my life, the closer I moved toward crisis.

After years of prolonged financial problems, I had to accept that I could no longer ignore the repetition of these problems in my life. The crises in my life eventually served as catalysts to understand that I needed to make different choices to engage higher perspectives. In reading self-help and personal growth books, I began to understand that, when there is a recurring problem, such as the financial hardship we experienced, the underlying messages want to be revealed. They will make a continuous, unyielding effort to get our attention. The opportunity that lies within crisis is for you to be willing to look closely and identify the underlying patterns and messages in what is happening around you.

In the prolonged crisis, reading the books I read and listening to inspirational talks encouraged me to be still and quiet in order to allow the deeper messages to make themselves known. It was from this humble beginning that I actively began to participate in what would become my saving grace: going within to seek clarity through meditation and prayer.

Throughout the turmoil, it wasn’t easy. With continual highs and lows, I began to tire of listening to myself whine and complain. Although I was scared and I wanted answers, I didn’t want to continue to discuss our situation with family and friends. With no money to pay for therapy or counseling, it seemed the only place left for me to go was within. So I did.

During my meditations, in addition to periods of silence after prayer, I began to ask questions to solicit clarity and guidance into my awareness. As I posed questions during a meditative state, I began to notice answers would indeed come into my awareness. However, as soon as the meditation session was over, I forgot the guidance which came into my awareness. The only way to remember would be to write it down. It was at that time that I decided to bring a large pad and pen to my meditation and prayer sessions. At the start of the meditation, I would first pray, then move into a period of sustained silence. After getting comfortable for several minutes of complete silence, I was more relaxed, and thoughts that continued to hover would begin to fade. With my eyes closed, I would then say the following:

“I call upon my Higher Self to join me in my meditation. During this meditation, I ask that you protect me from any and all vibrations, energies, frequencies and communications in all directions of time past, present, and future, that are not of love, light, and the highest good. Please let this communication be clear. Let the answers be communicated to me in a way that is easy for me to understand. Please let me feel your loving energy when you are ready to begin. I thank you in advance for your presence.”

For more than a year, I sat down in a meditative state to ask questions to help me mentally and emotionally navigate the difficult and uncertain times I faced. The guidance I recorded helped me to move through difficult and unsettling times with comforting reassurance that I am deeply loved, there is no need to be afraid, and I am not alone. The guidance I received, however, did not provide the answers I wanted. My posed questions and concerns were continual attempts to address the immediate unfavorable conditions which surrounded me. The guidance, however, provided the larger context of what was happening in my life and the higher messages that sought to make themselves known.

In the beginning, when I felt anxiety surrounding the outcome of a situation, I utilized my spiritual practice for a “save me please” answer. I wanted someone, something, anything to tell me what to do, to whom I should speak and what I should say. For a long period of time, I wanted to be rescued. I didn’t want to do the “heavy lifting” of looking at what was underneath. In the beginning, when I began to ask for guidance, those times were no different. I didn’t want anything vague. I wanted the final answer in the form of a deeply fulfilling (and immediate) job. However, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

What is important to understand is that, for years, fear dominated my responses, choices, reactions, conversation, and movement throughout my life. I was consistently afraid that some event would occur that we would not be able to financially handle. Eventually it did. For a prolonged period of time, we could to not afford to live anywhere. We could not pay our bills. It was an unyielding struggle which took a toll on every aspect of our life. Before establishing a consistent meditation practice, I constantly felt threatened by a looming financial disaster. My nerves “lived” in fight-or-flight mode from the endless anxiety I created.

In the midst of this silent struggle, I turned within to be able to make it through each day. I knew I could either continue to do things as I always have, or take a chance of trusting my intuition and absorbing what the moment was trying to teach me. Life is not always linear, pretty, and clear. Sometimes you have to step outside of the box, especially when you’re being pulled out of the box. With this in mind, I continued to meditate. Meditation grew to become the most practical, accessible, and effective way I found to calm myself of the anxiety-ridden thoughts that propelled me.

Let’s be clear, meditation did not immediately remove any situation from my life. That’s not what it does. Although mediation can be a powerful tool for personal growth, it is not a quick fix. What it did was help me establish, and strengthen, my practice as a way to move through the conundrum of situational difficulties with greater ease and trust, and a sense of growing empowerment. There were deeply held unconscious beliefs that were unknowingly contributing to the problems in my life; meditation helped to bring these unconscious beliefs to the surface to be consciously addressed and released.

Here are the three levels of the mind that influence our lives:

1.The conscious mind is everything you are aware of and thinking about.

2.The subconscious mind consists of accessible information you can become aware of once you direct your attention to it; memory recall.

3.The unconscious mind includes unconscious beliefs, patterns, feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness where information is hidden and stored. Most of these contents are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict, which trigger automatic reactions according to stored memories.

Within each of us there is also a higher part that goes beyond our conscious awareness. This Higher Self always has access to and communicates with a higher, more expansive and intelligent Divine Consciousness that some refer to as God, the I AM Presence or something else. The Higher Self is the highest expression of your individual connection with the Divine Consciousness. It is greater than our conscious everyday self. It is part of you, yet more than you. It is in and of itself a part of the Divine Consciousness. Within the practice of quieting the mind and connecting with your Higher Self, you can access unconscious information from the highest part of yourself that is out of your conscious awareness.

Meditation is the “doorway” through which I was able to quiet my mind and access unconscious information from my Higher Self. Through meditation, higher information can be brought into our conscious awareness to identify the best course of action towards the highest outcome.

Consciousness is the state or quality of awareness, or of being aware of something within oneself; it is your experience of awareness. By establishing a sincere and inquisitive connection with my Higher Self, I made myself available to receive help, to have a glimpse of what is possible through states of higher consciousness and essentially grow through challenges.

During this time of ongoing meditation, I still had moments of feeling afraid of what could go wrong. However, little by little, fear played a less significant role in my life. It took several years, in fact, of deeply sincere and active participation in meditation, prayer, introspection, and study to no longer be ruled by fear and self-sabotaging patterns. Simply put, I had a lot of “unlearning” to do. I had to make an effort to uncover the hidden parts of myself which kept me attached to financial disarray and problematic situations. Every time I sat down in silence to meditate and connect with my Higher Self, I knew I was not alone, my efforts to become a better expression of myself were not in vain, and my intentions were held in grace.

I began to notice the ways in which meditation helped me to become aware of the ways in which I blocked the clear flow of inner guidance with constant thinking and worry, and my resistance to let go of that which I said I no longer wanted. I also began to notice how grace appeared in my life in simple and small, yet miraculous, outcomes. For example, the willingness of the property owner to work with us when we were behind on rent payments, the manner in which I was led to the exact work situation and professional environment that served as “fertile soil” to enhance my personal growth, and the like-minded individuals I met along the way were but a few examples of how grace unfolded. These experiences, in the manner and time in which they occurred, pushed me to thoroughly examine my self-sabotaging habits, beliefs, emotional patterns, and ways of perceiving and being in the world. It was not pretty to look at the mess I had orchestrated, but, when you sincerely want change, you can no longer hide. You won’t be allowed to hide because, in order to grow, you will have to take responsibility for everything in your life. Everything.

Now, years later, as I read the guidance, it makes perfect sense. I share this with you because I have come to see that although the guidance was pivotal for me and came through me, it is not solely meant for me. It is also meant for those who find themselves in similar situations of distress, and are open and willing to cultivate a connection with a higher consciousness to better discern where life is trying to lead them.

With repetition and simplicity, the guidance addressed the following themes of the human condition:

In addition to the loving energy I felt as the guidance came through, I began to feel a bit calmer each day. Over time, my mind began to interpret fewer situations as stressful. I was able to remain more centered and be less agitated by external events. I wasn’t as susceptible to being emotionally triggered into a state of fear, anxiety, anger, impatience, sadness, or depression. I did still experience these emotions. However, I became less and less pulled around by them. There was less agony and, instead, more openness to new possibilities.

Knowing that we can see ourselves in the stories of others, it is my sincerest wish that the guidance from these meditations is as helpful to you as it has been for me. It is my wish that you will grow to trust yourself; that you will trust the inner guidance that is available and within you. It is my hope that you will seek out the opportunities for personal growth that lie in mundane and long-term struggles, and come to know that nothing we experience in this life is futile. With hindsight, it becomes clear that struggle and triumph both serve a higher purpose for personal growth. And finally, it is my greatest hope that you too will have the courage to let your crisis become the catalyst that ultimately leads you onto your highest life path. So often it is said that “meditation helps” until it almost seems like a redundant Hallmark-ish cliché. I can honestly say this is absolutely true. Meditation does help. Meditation can help.