I was born into a nightmare.

A nightmare that was filled with a tremendous amount of abusive craziness, a repressive and abusive religion (thanks, Jehovah’s Witnesses, or JWs, as I call them), poverty, addiction, and a complete lack of emotional fitness and intelligence by any of my caregivers or people around me.

When I could consciously begin to make my own decisions, around age seven or eight (as is the case for all humans when we shift out of theta state and into our conscious mind), I carried the nightmare forward—it was all I knew.

While my parents and the people around me continued to make horrendous choices, I did too.

I developed an intense lying habit, creating elaborate stories to my parents in the hopes that one of them might notice me.

I cheated on a test, which as an A student and complete lover of books and education was deeply painful to me. I hadn’t anticipated that, as I had never cheated before. And so, wracked with intense guilt, I confessed and took an F on the paper as my penance.

Sure, I was making small messes, but messes nonetheless.

I didn’t know that life could be a dream. I only knew of the nightmare, because that’s all I saw around me.

Not one person said to me in the first 25 years of my life that it could be different. That I could choose better, that I could craft and create—consciously and intentionally and through doing my deep inner inquiry and emotional and spiritual healing—my own heaven, that I could live my dreams.

But.

Slowly but surely, through my own inner work, I began to see that another path was possible.

That while I was born into a nightmare, the nightmare did not have to remain.

I walked away from the repressive and abusive JWs at age 24, which resulted in my family and community disowning me

I was all alone, and I was terrified. But the whisper within me began to grow louder…

I began to ask deeper questions. I studied Joseph Campbell. I read voraciously. I paid attention to my dream state. When my friend from high school was murdered, I didn’t wipe it under the rug as a terrible atrocity and leave it at that—I asked why. Why. I wanted to know.

She then showed up in my dream state and explained to me about death and the “why.” I began to see death and life much differently after that experience.

When I got sick with an ovarian tumor and couldn’t get better through traditional means, I didn’t stop there; I tried everything that was on the edge of alternative medicine and that led me to a relationship with God that was aligned for me and to the spirit world and to energy medicine. Which opened up latent healing gifts within me, birthed a new career, and completely transformed my world.

Slowly but surely, I created a dream life for myself.

And I share this with you because I had no idea this was possible because no one f*cking told me.

I didn’t see this kind of truth in the movies or on television or in the magazines around me. There weren’t bucktoothed, curly haired, ugly, poor-as-f*ck, and uneducated women represented anywhere other than in the nightmare I had been living in.

So now I’m telling you:

You can be born into a hell.

Your life can be a nightmare.

You can be surrounded by total idiots (trust me, I know this one well).

But you can make new choices, you can choose to go deeper into yourself.

As you do, new opportunities will naturally come in. No matter how disadvantaged you feel—you can create a heaven on Earth.

And I invite you to do this for yourself now.

This does not mean covering over everything that is painful, however. It means going into the pain, loving on it, setting it free, working with skilled, aligned-for-you practitioners to support you in this if need be.

In fact, the freedom, the living your dream life, is a direct result of healing your pain, loving yourself, and creating nourishing relationships from there.

Who knew, eh?

I certainly didn’t. I had no freaking clue. But I went to therapy consistently—and when I was broke as a joke, I went to free support groups.

I meditated daily (and still do). I received monthly energy medicine healings. I kept asking the questions, I kept following my heart (to write and to heal and to share truths like this—things I wish someone would have told me all along!).

And so, I give you full and complete permission right here, right now, to create your personal heaven, your dream come true.

Go deep within you, for there you will find the inspiration and the beauty of your true self.

And there you will activate within you your own personal magic to set yourself free from what previously oppressed you, and to then open you to who you truly are.

No longer does the nightmare have to define us.

And that is crazy good news.