Eight years, I have lived an empowering and adventurous journey, navigating the depths of my soul, to find create the absolute favorite version of my authentic self. The path has not been an easy one by any means, but it has been the most rewarding experience beyond anything I had ever imagined it to be, guiding me to a life I am proud to call mine.
The foundation of the fulfilling life I live today was built through my family long ago. Growing up we went on adventures out west, snow skiing and RV trips exploring National Parks across the country, spending quality time together, and choosing connection. I was raised a witness to two people who choose each other day after day, as life partners, carrying the most beautiful love ever known. Deep down I wanted all of those same elements in my own life, but somewhere along the way I got lost without knowing I was. Looking back I could blame it on a number things—social conditioning, a broken religion, past life trauma, bad choices— but ultimately, fear was the root of all.
One of the most frightening obstacles I had to overcome was the fear of rejection causing me to be unwilling to speak from the heart. Truth be told, I let the fear control my thoughts so much that I never even took the time to get to know who I wanted to be without the opinion of others. I would shape myself to form the person I thought someone wanted me to be in order to gain acceptance, even if that sacrifice hindered true fulfillment.
For years, I remained disconnected from myself, repeating the same lessons with different people, failing to learn that I was keeping myself stuck in a wounded pattern. When I started becoming conscious of the fact that I had been living a life not of my own, I did not want to be seen as a failure in another’s eyes. I kept my burdens tucked away, until they could no longer be contained. Call it a knowing through the blood bond we share, in a serendipitous moment, my brother sent me a song titled “Break In The Clouds” and my walls began to crack. Always family but never friends, music broke the barrier and opened the doors to a friendship I never dreamed possible, one built on the foundation of unconditional love. Through songs, feeling truly seen, I began gaining a sense of who I wanted to be and the versions that needed to be left behind.
In February of 2014, a singer-songwriter performed an acoustic set in my living room. This was the first time we met. Whatever resonating energy transferred from his body and into mine when we hugged goodbye that night fueled my inner flame, setting ablaze my passionate search for everything. Just weeks after this undeniably fated interaction with a kindred spirit, I found myself amidst an experience that would forever change the course of my life. On a mountaintop in Alaska with my dad, not another person in sight, he tells me that he feels closer to God standing in the presence of those majestic mountains than sitting on any pew. His words struck a chord within, and I felt exalted. I knew, then and there, the type of love and connection I was seeking in everyone else had to start from within. Getting reconnected with adventure would be the key to self-discovery. With the northern lights as witness, I made a promise to myself that I would be brave enough to step into my divine power and seek my truth no matter the distance I would have to travel to find the way to myself. And so, the journey began.
Fall that year, in October, I met a tender and loving man who would become a muse. Through his eyes, I was shown visions of the woman I wanted to be, and he held space for this self to grow. Although our transformational connection would dissipate within one year, the strive to become all he reflected never faded. I began traveling alone, including taking the almost month-long road trip that he and I talked about going on together. I unlocked a foreign love for solitude, something I never gave myself a change to experience. I poured out my emotions in diaries knowing that my most vulnerable thoughts could remain safely hidden in the pages, and I stumbled upon a love for poetry.
As self-love and my acceptance of my own were evolving and false layers shedding, I began sharing small facets of the prismatic woman awakening from within with people who held space for a piece or two of the divine puzzle. I call each of these kindred spirits a Soulmate. These amazing human beings colliding into mine along the way inspired a whole new expansion within my inner and outer world; some knowingly and others barely remembering our crossing of paths. There are even a handful of people who have no clue that I exist, and the energy they put out into the world, through their creative arts, has fabricated homes in my heart. Indeed, I believe strangers can be soulmates too. By my definition, they are people who reflect pieces of our soul’s truth that only they have the power mirror, or at least the ability to show it in a way that we can recognize. Regardless of the fated outcome, I carry the people and memories with me, and I always will. They are a part of me, each a chapter in the story of becoming my very favorite version of self.
In this book, I share fragments of time that have weaved themselves into the celestial fibers of my existence. As a reader, you will find letters of past and present connections—people, places, and memories that I turned into poetry. Pages are filled with self-reflection discovered in lyrical verses and Mother Nature’s churches. There are photographs from solo adventures where I pushed beyond my comfort zone in order to expand and learn who I was when no one else was around. Most profoundly, there are moments where I found the strength to let myself be seen by the people I love the most.
