Hello Steemit Community!
I’ve been here for a week and I’m grateful to be able to introduce myself. My name is April and I’m a 37 year old mother of two young girls who are nearly 2 and 9. I decided several years ago, after too long battling feelings of emptiness and depression, that I was going to change my world view. At the time, I happened to trust nothing except the fact that we all eventually die. I noticed that a beer or glass of wine in the evening was a nice relief from the anxiety of the day (which included being a single mother) but this was the only real relief I had. I doubt that anyone knew the extent of my unhappiness, which, I daresay, could better be described as despair. I can be fairly stoic and I also had an active role in the community as a musician and an anti-human trafficking advocate, which lent me a certain amount of passion and drive. Nevertheless, that empty feeling lived inside of me.
One summer day, against the will of my then-boyfriend, I invited an out of town high-school friend over to my house for wine and catching up. He was male and it was perhaps my smartest act of relationship rebellion to date. Something deep inside of me wasn’t willing to not spend time with this old friend while he was visiting his home town again, and I stayed true to that feeling of desire (yay me!).
That night we sat on my porch under the full moon and talked about music, life and death and all of the things in between. He shared the pain of his mother’s death from a car accident and hinted that it may not have been accidental. When I expressed my sorrow and sympathy he introduced a spin on my perspective. You see, up until that point I believed that we fold laundry until we die and then our bones go in the ground. After our kids die, our existence is forgotten completely. My friend begged to differ. He had done enough psychedelic drugs during his occupancy in San Francisco that he believed everything was conscious and aware of our thoughts and conversations and that no one really dies. In fact, he said that “the other side” is most definitely real and feels far better than this side. He went on and on about the magical insights that he had and that along with wine and a full moon left me with a full heart and some things to think about.
Now, mind you, I wasn’t really on board with the idea of aliens and crickets downloading our thoughts into the collective, but I did notice something. He was happy --- and I wasn’t. The next morning I looked at my 3 year old daughter. Again I noticed: she was happy --- and I wasn’t. The common denominator? Both parties were open minded. They both believed in crazy, otherworldly possibilities (think santa, unicorns and mermaids) and until then I KNEW it all to be nonsense. But kids don’t need to drink or do drugs to be happy, because they just ARE. Maybe “knowing” my reality to be the cold hard truth wasn’t really serving me so well after all. Maybe I needed to drop my pride and stubbornness and the idea that I had it all figured out at the age of 32 and change something. So I did. I made a baby step and said “You know what, screw it! Bring on the mermaids and unicorns.”.
That week I was signing into an email account and, as is typical of the universe, I was given my first opportunity to test this new open mindedness. An article’s headline caught my eye which was written by neuroscientist, Eben Alexander, M.D., who swore he’d experienced life after death while being technically brain dead and in a coma for a week due to bacterial meningitis. Of course a staunch scientist would be the first person that I needed to come across to convince me that there is more beauty in existence than we can even imagine. I spent the next 3 years obsessed with near death experience stories. I’m not saying that anyone else has to be, as it was simply my path, but one may find an ‘nde’ seach on youtube or a visit to www.nderf.org to be pretty interesting.
So, what about me now?
Well, in the years of studying myself, spiritual possibilities and humanity I’ve come across one truth: our existence is magical, divine, and amazing. We are being given guidance every day in every way. I study and analyze my dreams now. I am studying scientific hand analysis and both indicate that in one way or another our life purpose always boils down to “love”. Our dreams will point out all of the ways that we are not being true to this purpose. The number one thing standing in the way of love is: judgement. Of ourselves and of others. We are being invited and reminded on a nightly basis to love our bodies, to be true to our emotions and to not think negatively of others, as our thoughts influence our energy (well-being) and the energy around us. We are asked to heal from the place that our judgement originated. Of course, dreams offer much more detail and perspective, but that’s the nutshell.
The second way that we are not being true to our purpose of love is by putting others ahead of ourselves at the expense of ourselves. In doing so we are saying “you are more important than me or, very broadly, I’m unimportant”. We are ALL important and we are ALL equal and you are the only one who knows of the deep desires and dreams that live inside of you. We must serve ourselves. No one else will serve your purpose for you. To make excuses of why we can’t do x, y or z is only evidence of the untrue beliefs that we hold about ourselves; untrue beliefs which need to be healed.
My dreams say that I have much to heal and I am thankful for those insights. I have come a pretty long way since starting my journey. When we hear people talk about “raising consciousness” it really seems to mean “raising our awareness of ourselves”. We all endure difficulties, in childhood especially, and develop so many coping mechanisms that we don’t realize that it’s not who we “really are”. Who we really are gets locked behind criticalness, perfectionism, self-righteousness, judgement, codependency, vengefulness and greed etc. and we genuinely believe that it’s the only way we can or should be. Our dreams remind us that this is NOT our true nature but that the inner peace and happiness that are inherent in young children is. Our hearts have been hurt and we let young children teach us how to protect ourselves and how to hide our “bad” feelings. While the coping mechanisms may be necessary and of high service during childhood, once we reach adult age, we have the maturity and independence of power to shed them.
Since the Universe is always working in service to us and our quest for higher awareness, we will be persistently presented with difficulties which expose our blocks until due time that we decide to remove them. The ultimate goal for all of us is love, joy and appreciation of this life.
I can only heal my own judgements and doing so is my daily practice. My life purpose, I’ve discovered, is to help others shine light into the awareness of themselves, their lessons, and their life's purpose for the benefit of us all. So, I am building a business with dream interpretation and scientific hand analysis services that I may eventually dedicate myself, fulltime, to living my purpose. My dreams and my hands both reveal that I’m here to be a spiritual teacher/leader - but, as they say, “healer, heal thyself”. I look forward to using steemit as a useful platform for writing about my lessons!
In parting, I’d like to propose the idea that the Earth is designed for learning through opposites. If ones soul has the desire to learn about what warmth feels like, it will not be born in Hawaii, it will be born in Siberia. It will then suffer until it learns how to build a fire. The knowledge of warmth will literally have to come from within and then be tested in reality. What a challenge, when it could have been born in Hawaii! However, for the rest of time this soul will have a much deeper understanding of warmth due to the contrast of having been cold. It will also deeply understand the value of being able to call this warmth from within; and be grateful for the cold, as it was the birthplace of warmth. All of us here are learning about unconditional love - towards ourselves and then toward others. We were born here, at this time, so that we could test and coax unconditional love from within. Siberia is a gift to the advancing soul. Therefore, whatever challenges we face today, from this perspective, are a gift too.
Please send me your dreams on DreamAnalyze.me with your 
if you would like me to interpret them on steemit!
Joy to all,
April