Who saves us?

It was a beautiful spring morning, my favorite kind of morning. The sun was out and unobstructed by fluffy clouds, the temperature was just perfect for me...not too hot for a summer day. There was a refreshing breeze when the sun reminded me of its powerful rays. The air smelled like summer flowers and fresh dew grass…again, just perfect.

I decided to go food shopping since it was still early, and no one was out. It was a Saturday. I would be there as soon as the grocery store opened and be done with it within an hour or so then have the rest of my day to enjoy the weather. Days like these always made me feel amazing. 

I got in my car and started driving towards the grocery store. As I was driving, I looked at my dashboard and realized the time. A bit disappointed, I saw that I still had about 45 min before the stores opened up. I am an early riser. I am up before the birds are up. So, I decided to do some walking until the grocery store opened. I drove to the closest trail; it was a short trail, but it had some gorgeous trees…this would be the perfect start to my day. 

I parked my car and took a light sweater I had in the back seat because I knew the trail is always cooler because of the trees. I absolutely love trees. I am a tree hugger to the core and have a strong connection to trees. I admire their strength so much. However, I am not the biggest fan of going on the trail by myself. I have watched too many “60 minutes” episodes growing up, so I feel a bit weary walking by myself in the woods. However, I really wanted to go for this walk so I asked my angels and guides to protect me, and I asked the trees to watch over me during my walk then I put on my big girl pants and took off.

It was just beautiful, the trees and the way the sun’s rays just shined through the cracks of the canopy of the trees leaving beautiful sunspots and reminding me of how wonderful nature is. 

I have been on this trail before but every time I feel like the trees are new and radiant. 

I must have walked for about 15 minutes until I got to the highest point of the trail where there were less trees and a big rock where people usually sat to admire the view so that is exactly what I did. 

I sat on the rock under the sun feeling its warmth activate my DNA for healing. I took moments like this to connect with my higher self and vibrate a bit higher. 

As I was sitting there, it must have been maybe 5 minutes, I noticed something move to my right.

I was a bit weary but relaxed, I felt safe, so it didn’t scare me, I was curious about what was moving around by this rock, so I got up and went to investigate. This is something out of character for me when I am by myself. If my husband or my friend Melissa was with me, I would have had no problem investigating but by myself, I usually would have just walked away and back to my car, but this time was different. I felt supported and safe.

As I walked closer, to my shock, I saw a little girl sitting on the rock behind a bush facing the sun. I looked around in disbelief wondering if she was alone. I looked around me to see if I saw her parents or someone else she was with, but everything was quiet, so I approached her.

As I came closer, I saw her sitting there, in pigtails and a dressy outfit. She didn’t look homeless or like she was there for long. She had a white shirt on, and it was sparkling white.

I said hi and she looked at me with a smile.

I stepped a little closer and gently asked her if she had a name, she didn’t reply but smiled back at me as she looked away.

I was concerned and in disbelief, what would a child be doing on a trail by herself so early on a Saturday morning. I asked more questions, like, “Are you here by yourself”? “How did you get here”? She didn’t respond to any of my questions but gave me a long and sweet smile. I was puzzled.

She looked rather familiar to me. I have seen this little girl before and I felt sudden warmth towards her. I was still perplexed about the situation and now was considering calling the police. Almost as if she read my thoughts, she quickly looked at me and said, “Hi, my name is Anna”.

I was taken back and deeply confused. How strange is this entire situation and now this girl had the same name as me, however I smiled at her and said, “Hi Anna, nice to meet you. My name is Anna too”. She smiled back and said, “I know who you are ''.

Feeling completely out of sorts, I looked around trying to understand what was happening. Again, I didn’t feel scared or in danger, so I asked another question. “How do you know me?” She didn’t answer me, she stared at the sun for a bit longer then looked at me. As she looked at me, I had a flash of a memory. The memory was of me as a little girl. I had sneaked away from a family party and found a makeshift playground in the backyard. I was all dressed up swinging from homemade swing and loving life. The flash of the memory came quickly and quickly went away, and I looked back at this little girl standing in front of me. Then, as the dots connected, I realized that the little girl standing in front of me was a 7-year-old version of me. I was looking at myself when I was 7 years old. I sat next to her in disbelief, and we were in silence for a few minutes. 

She looked at me and asked, "how does it all end? Are we happy? Who ends up saving us?"

My heart sank and I asked her if it would be alright if I hugged her and she nodded. I hugged her with all my might. I hugged her as my tears fell like rain drops in a heavy storm, steady and forceful. She hugged me back tightly as she cried too. 

We hugged for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Finally, we let go and sat down again, this time on the ground facing the beautiful sun, next to each other. 

I responded to her question from before, “We save ourselves as we find happiness”! 

She looked at me concerned, not trusting my words and worried about the future.

I took her little hands in mine and said, “Let me tell you a story”.

As we grew up, life became challenging, so many changes happened so early for us to understand. However, as we navigated these changes, we realized that we had a spark in our heart that repeatedly told us that there’s more to life than what we saw with our eyes. We searched and searched to find out what was the spark in our hearts until we came to a conclusion that the meaning of life is to be happy. After bumping our heads trying to change others, we learned it starts with changing ourselves by loving ourselves first. It starts with accepting ourselves and all of ourselves, even the parts that we find unacceptable. We figured out how to trust. Trust ourselves. We learned to value our being, the value of ourselves. This becomes our key our happiness and a work in progress. When we changed ourselves, the world molded to us. We found our agency and removed the victim from our story.

You see, our parents love us very much, and we know it and feel it right? She nodded. As great as they are, they were always emotionally unavailable to us. It confused us because we felt loved but yet we felt alone. We learned that there were conditions in our love. It made us believe that we were not worthy of love unless we were proving ourselves. We never felt the safety net of unconditional love. We grew up alone in an environment full of people that loved us. It confused us to the meaning of love. Furthermore, in the in-between moments of experiences, it was when life got quiet that we felt the disconnect and in turn, made misguided and misplaced interpretations of emotions. Most of those interpretations were based on false believes that we made into laws in our bodies and minds. How do I know they were false? We grew up feeling not good enough and that love didn't always feel good. We were loved and told we were loved but felt alone and disoriented, so we learned to think that was what love was. 

We learned that love is confusion. We learned that feeling bad and sad is a way of life. We were taught to be motivated by guilt. Our parents were so busy surviving their own traumas, they didn’t realize they were sharing their traumas with us.  They did their best with that they had. There is no blame.

Then, one day the spark in our heart lit up and we followed the curiosity of what that spark was and how it got there. In our search we learned that the love we learned growing up was so very far from the truth.

We stumbled and stumbled until we realized that true love is unconditional. What that means is that when you truly love someone, you don’t stop loving them because of the conditions of life. Unconditional love makes you bold. Makes you feel safe like you always have a cozy, clean home to return to when you feel shaken. It relaxes your body and allows for physical healing.

By learning the importance of loving ourselves, we learned to make space of the unlovable parts of us, the parts we wished didn't exist. By allowing those parts to live side-by-side with the parts that we do love, we stop resisting and flow naturally takes over and those unlovable parts automatically disappear. They disappear because they were seen and loved and that is all unlovable wants, to be seen and loved. We learn that loving ourselves first is not only unselfish but necessary and the guilt slowly disappeared as self-love took over pushing guilt out of the way. We start to feel worthy of a calm and safe life where respect and boundaries are not trespassed. We learn to feel strong enough to safely say no when needed. We learned that emotional baggage is to be dealt with and cleared not stored and ignored. 

We saved ourselves. We rewrote our destiny as we broke generational cycles and patterns. 

We saved ourselves.

Unapologetically. With no remorse or a shadow of guilt.

We became strong enough to love ourselves.

She looked at me with a smile on her face and rushed at me with a careful but affectionate hug.

She was relieved. I could feel it in the way she relaxed as I hugged her back. 

This little girl was so proud of her older self. She was proud of her for not giving up and prioritizing self-healing. She was proud because she learned that happiness is not negotiable. Peace in your soul is not negotiable. Self-love is not negotiable. 

That little girl felt it and finally exhaled. A grateful and loving exhale as we release from each other's embrace.

I stood up and looked up into the skyline feeling grateful for my life and the immense trees around me allowing a chance for appreciation. Then, I looked back to the little girl standing next to me and surprisingly there was no one there. I sat back on the ground and found a tree to lean on. A little confused I wondered if I had imagined this whole experience. I wondered. It felt so real. I can still feel her pigtails on my arm when she hugged me. Then, I realized that it didn't matter if it was real or not. I knew what I had just experienced. It was the release of old karma. I was grateful for my courage and the realization that I saved myself. 

I saved myself.

Unapologetically.

With the courage of a lion, shaking with every step.

Trusting that life is meant for happiness, to be lived and enjoyed.

I saved myself.

I got up from the ground and looked over to the rock one last time. I felt lighter and stronger.

I slowly walked back to my car and looked at the time on my phone, an hour had passed since I first I got here. I took a deep breath before getting in my car, a deep breath of inspiration and hope. It all made sense to me, the beginning, the end, the connection to God, my life and the meaning of it all. I slowly exhaled.

I got in my car and pulled out of the parking space and drove out of the parking lot. I was finally headed to the grocery store to continue my day.

To this day, I can still remember everything about that experience in the trail.

The love I felt and the release of charge by the realization that the spark I have always felt in my heart was God calmly whispering to me to "REMEMBER", to remember that I come from the starts and that I am... worthy of nothing less.

The End.