He reached out his hand to stroke my cheek, as my tears now caressed his fingertips. He smiled at me with those big beautiful eyes and said,

“You are perfect.” I gulped.

“Especially right now.

You are a little piece of God, that has forgotten you are God, constantly reminding yourself you are God.”

His smile got bigger as he said, “And what a miracle that is?”

Oh. What a miracle it was.

Somehow with these words he was able to help remove one of the most dangerous stories in my mind, one that has haunted me for the last twenty-eight years. He was able to show me, with his cheeky and soft energy, that this ‘story’ I was suffering from in that moment was exactly that –a story– that had been created within my psyche due to the conditions of my environment in my lifetime. It wasn’t… me.

I finally understood it.

I had been pointing fingers at the trauma, abuse, neglect, and my own destructive patterns for so many years. I had been working to escape these aspects of my mind by getting deep into my body, deep into my heart; through movement, devotional song, and prayer. It worked for a long time. It still does. I figured out a while ago that my body was a vehicle to awakening and transforming energy, but it wasn’t until this moment that I realized that my mind was one, too.

There had been many breadcrumbs leading up to this moment. The many spiritual texts I read, the conversations I had in AA, the crazy life-altering experiences I had in my body, and the incredible people I met along the way. It was as if I logically understood, but the experience hadn’t hit me until this moment. I always went to the heart. I always sang. I always moved, for the mind was something too dark to face.

My mind was the most dangerous neighborhood I have ever lived in. I was constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure I was safe, fearful of what could be on the other side of every corner I turned. Shame. Guilt. Self-sabotage. Self-judgment. The whole lot. I didn’t get hit with the darkness very often, but when I did, it felt like I was being held hostage. Trapped. And my freedom, the one thing that saved me every time, seemed to disintrigrate into existence.

There I was, trapped, again– and it was in the eyes of this soft and beautiful human, who in this moment was acting as my mirror, that I could finally see clearly. I could finally take a breath. As he reminded me of the ultimate truth I somehow have forgotten the last twenty-eight years of my life:

these thoughts and stories are the result of conditions I have been surrounded by. They are not me. I, inherently love myself. I am the cosmic intelligence in my own unique and beautiful form. And any thought other than this, no matter how deeply engrained it may be, does not belong here– and can be transformed.

I have to laugh at myself sometimes, because I have been working with this same concept within my own body for almost a decade. I have shifted so much within my life, my body, my energy, my mind, and my entire reality by embodying yogic teachings. I have felt the Cosmic Intelligience, the Universal energy, running through my veins for years.

However there was still this subtle voice in the back of my mind that was constantly telling me that I am not good enough. That I am empty without the external stuff, that I am unloveable, too ugly, too fat, not smart enough, and not loving enough… and even though the singing voice in my heart was much louder– that subtle voice always made me cringe.

That voice isn’t my consciousness. It is the projection of the World, of my past experiences, of my up-bringing, all manifested into conditions I have convinced myself to be true about specific circumstances. Mainly about myself.

Now, when these stories pop up, there is a moment in-between where I have the space and time to understand that this story isn’t actually me in this present moment. In the present moment, these thoughts don’t exist.

I now associate them with a little Jess, a baby version of myself, who is crying out for help and support. So instead of pushing her away and re-traumatizing her all over again, I work to hold her, love her, and support her in her times of need, just as I would if a child in the present moment was asking for my help. I am now the adult in her life that she is looking to when she feels stuck.

So whenever I observe her beginning to cry out because she is fearful, unsure, or genuinely lost, I give her a helping hand. When she starts saying ridiculous things like “I CAN’T DO THIS, I’M NOT GOOD ENOUGH.” I look at her, smile, and softly say…

“Sweetness, ofcourse you can. You are everything you need to be and more, and there is no need to be afraid.”