God and The Bluebird

My story of Awakening and Self transformation

My first moment with God that I can remember—or at least, the first moment I can attribute to God—was in 2009 at White Sands, New Mexico.

Although I didn’t call it God then, I referred to God as the Universe. I had grown up Catholic, but I wasn’t a believer in God. In my mind, God was a judgmental patriarch who didn’t save or help anyone—least of all children who were being abused by family members.

But to understand how I arrived at that moment in 2009, we need to go back to 2007.

2007: The Beginning of Change

2007 was an extremely low point in my life. I don’t remember much about that year other than knowing it was a turning point—a time when my life began to change.

At the time, I didn’t realize how I must have appeared to the outside world. I had lost my joy. I had lost my smile. I was close to taking my own life and wondered if maybe everyone would be better off if I simply wasn’t here.

My sister Carrie was so worried about me that she practically dragged me to a Reiki 1 class. She told me it was already paid for and that I should just come.

I remember sitting in class and, at one point, another student asked me if I was okay. Tears simply streamed down my face.

It’s difficult for me to remember that feeling now because it seems so foreign to me. I remember feeling utterly hopeless and completely empty.

And yet, the class itself was beautiful. I remember feeling something for the first time in a very long time.

I just didn’t know yet what I had been given.

It would take almost two years before I truly began using it.

2009: A Healing Begins

Fast-forward to 2009.

I had my annual women’s health visit—the fun Pap test we all go through. A few days later, I received a call from my doctor telling me that my Pap had come back abnormal and that they wanted me to return to the office for a LEEP procedure.

I went back and had the procedure done. The results showed even more abnormalities, so they wanted to perform a cone biopsy. This required minor surgery, a hospital stay, and general anesthesia.

I had never been put under anesthesia in my life. I had delivered all three of my sons naturally, without epidurals, so this was a completely new experience for me.

When I told my sister what was happening and that I might have cervical cancer, she encouraged me to begin practicing Reiki on myself. She reminded me that I already had the tools I needed to support my own healing.

The biopsy was scheduled for three weeks later.

So, I started practicing Reiki on myself every day.

And something began to change.

I started sleeping better. I was able to meditate. Laughter came easily to me again.

By the time I walked into that hospital three weeks later, I already knew—whatever was wrong had been healed.

I felt healed.

As a side note, my sister’s friend Patty was the person who assembled my surgical instruments for the procedure, and she was also a Reiki practitioner. She performed Reiki on the instruments before my surgery.

The surgery went perfectly, with no complications.

Then came the results.

When I sat down across from my doctor, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing at the perplexed look on his face.

He said, “I was 100% sure I was going to be relaying bad news to you when I received your biopsy results, but you are completely clear. There are no abnormal cells at all.”

He told me he didn’t have an explanation for it.

I simply smiled at him like the Cheshire Cat and thanked him.

I was so grateful.

White Sands: The Moment Everything Shifted

This was the beginning of a transformation for me.

A few weeks later, my family and I drove to New Mexico for my husband’s family reunion. His dad was turning 77 and wanted everyone to come out to a hostel owned by a friend of theirs.

It was incredible.

I instantly fell in love with New Mexico.

Over the course of those two weeks, we traveled almost everywhere—from Taos all the way south to Las Cruces. We visited pueblos, national monuments, and parks.

New Mexico had a magical energy that I could feel immediately.

Then, near the end of our vacation, we went to White Sands.

The kids were sledding down the pristine dunes. Then we adults took our turns, and my kids were impressed and cheered when I became the only adult who didn’t wipe out at the end.

A short while later, I was sitting cross-legged in the sand. My oldest son was sitting to my left in a sled, and his female cousin was sitting to my right. The rest of the adults were standing a short distance away, talking.

I was simply sitting there, picking up the crystal-white sand in each hand and letting it slowly sift back to the ground.

And then it happened.

All of a sudden, I experienced an incredible sense of clarity.

Something inside me said:

“You don’t have to be around these people.”

I knew it meant the adults.

And with that realization, an enormous weight lifted from me.

I felt an overwhelming sense of elation and joy.

Something had shifted.

Diving Into Spirituality

Over the next two years, I divorced and then remarried someone I believed at the time was my “soul mate.”

I dove deeply into Reiki and all things spiritual. I read every book I felt drawn to. I became a Reiki 2 practitioner and eventually a Reiki Master.

Gratitude became my attitude.

I went to meetups and met new people. I held my own meetups to connect with others. I held Reiki circles and classes.

Life was good for the most part.

But something still felt missing.

I was nowhere near the hopeless person I had been in 2007. Knowing what I know now, I could never go back to that place.

Still, there was an emptiness I couldn’t quite explain.

I know now what was missing.

I didn’t love myself.

In 2015, my husband and I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was finally back in New Mexico, and I was so excited to explore this gorgeous state.

We hiked all the time and took camping trips whenever we could.

But I didn’t make much effort to meet new people, and I stopped sharing Reiki with others.

And after a while, that feeling returned.

Something was still missing.

Transforming My Health

To move this story along a bit, I began focusing seriously on my health in June 2016 after experiencing a health scare earlier that year.

I became vegan and started practicing yoga.

Over the next six months, I saw steady improvements in my overall health, but I had only lost about 10 pounds. I was still around 260 pounds.

I knew I needed to do something drastic. I had already completely changed my diet and was eating very cleanly.

So, in July 2017, I went on the potato diet for 30 days.

I lost 17 pounds!

I was ecstatic.

Even more exciting was that I continued to steadily lose weight after returning to my normal plant-based eating.

I was starting to feel amazingly good.

I walked every day. I practiced yoga. I became more and more immersed in health and wellness.

By December 2017, I had lost 30 pounds, and the weight continued coming off week after week.

I felt like I was finally becoming the person I was meant to be.

Then everything changed.

March 25, 2018

On March 25, 2018, my husband came home and told me he didn’t love me anymore.

My world dropped out from underneath me.

I was devastated.

I had nothing and no one in New Mexico. I wasn’t working. I had no money. We had one car, and it was in his name.

I didn’t know what I was going to do.

The obvious choice was to move back to Florida, where I had family.

But I loved Albuquerque.

I didn’t want to leave.

I had come so far in improving my health, and I wasn’t ready to walk away from the life I had been building.

Luckily, we were living in a two-bedroom apartment, so I moved into the other bedroom while I figured things out.

I decided to stay in New Mexico.

We shared the car so that I could work and save enough money to buy my own car and eventually move out.

That was the practical solution.

But emotionally, I was a complete mess.

Letting Go

Those first two weeks were incredibly difficult.

I stopped listening to music. I stopped watching my beloved VanLife and nomad YouTube videos.

My sisters came to the rescue again.

Thank God for my sisters. They are my constants—my rocks.

My sister Carrie told me about Mooji.

I started watching Mooji on YouTube, and slowly, life began to improve.

Mooji speaks about Oneness and living in the present moment. I advanced tremendously in meditation and in learning not to let mindless thoughts control me.

After about a month, I was so centered that I was even dropping my husband off at his new girlfriend’s house so I could use the car to Uber and earn the money I needed to leave.

I had also started going to meetups and meeting new people.

At a vegan meetup, I met an amazing woman and her husband. That same group organized incredible hikes.

Little by little, I created a life that existed separately from my living situation.

And I was full of hope and optimism about the future.

May 25, 2018: Awakening

Two months later, however, I was struggling again.

May 25th was an especially difficult day. I was having a particularly hard time dealing with my situation with my husband.

That morning, I took my usual walk through the beautiful Bosque along the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, listening to Mooji through my earbuds.

He was talking about the “monkey mind” and the story of “Let go of the banana.”

I was hurting badly—mentally and emotionally. My mind had a grip on me.

The walk itself was beautiful, though. Even in the middle of my struggle, I remained aware of my surroundings.

Then I noticed a flash of blue.

I stopped and tried to identify what kind of bird it was, but it was hidden in the shadows of the early morning sun.

I continued walking.

About 30 minutes later, on my return trip, I came back to that exact area.

And then I did something I had never done before in my life.

I started praying.

I prayed:

“God, help me. Help me!”

Then I saw the flash of blue again.

I looked closely, trying to identify the bird.

It was an incredibly deep indigo color—not the usual bluebird I had seen with white on its belly.

It was a deep, almost otherworldly indigo blue.

I decided to look up what bluebirds symbolized in my Steven Farmer Spirit Animal book.

And by the time I reached the last line, it happened.

All of a sudden, I felt an immense, all-encompassing feeling of Love.

It was so powerful that it was almost physically crushing. I staggered and nearly fell to my knees.

And then I heard:

“No matter what happens in this life, you will always be okay.”

I cannot fully describe what that felt like.

I felt elevated.

Elated.

I felt reborn.

I finally understood what Christians meant when they talked about being “reborn.”

It truly felt like being born again.

I was seeing the world through completely new eyes.

I couldn’t stop laughing and crying at the same time.

All of the struggle I had been carrying disappeared in that moment.

I knew what unconditional love truly felt like.

The closest I had ever come to experiencing that feeling before was the love I had for my children.

Now I understood that I could love them unconditionally—and everyone else, too.

Everyone.

The Truth That Set Me Free

I remember hearing Mooji say that awakening can happen when you transcend the mind, but sometimes you awaken first and then have to transcend the mind.

The latter is what happened to me.

I was awake.

I knew the truth of what I was.

The outside world no longer had the same grip on me.

I could see it for the illusion that it was.

I AM THAT I AM.

This was the “truth that set me free.”

I was no longer a prisoner of the ego and the mind.

I understood that who we think we are is not who we truly are.

We are God, and God is us. There is no separation.

The Next Chapter

Two months later, I still didn’t have enough money for a car.

But it didn’t matter.

I knew God was in charge.

I didn’t need to know exactly how everything was going to work out. I simply needed to trust and have faith.

I was fearless.

I had sold much of what I owned just to be able to move forward, including my good camera and some jewelry.

Then, through my beautiful friend Roberta, whom I had met through the vegan group, I found a room to rent.

On July 27th, I packed up my belongings and left.

All I had for transportation was a bicycle.

I used my meager savings to pay for the divorce because I wanted to close that chapter of my life.

Within a few weeks, the divorce was finalized.

And just like that, a new chapter began.

I didn’t know exactly where the road would lead.

But I knew I was no longer the woman who had once felt hopeless and empty.

I had found something far more powerful:

Trust.Faith.Love.And the knowing that I would always be okay.

And this was only the beginning. 🙏🏼💜