SHEDDING

Every since I was a little girl I wanted to be someone different. I would spend the first 33 years of my life building an ego that could overcome anything this world threw my way. Labels...I collected them like candy. Good and bad. I continued on adding new labels to my identity without giving it a second thought. Who was I? Foster kid..check. Mormon...check. All- american athlete...check. Smarty pants...check. Virgin...check. Those got me into college. What a story! The foster girl turned BYU full ride scholar. I believed everyone was walking around as if they were an actor in a play. Manipulating and faking their way through life and love. It WORKED...until it didn’t. I got the husband, the money, the kids, the house...the “dream.” Why did it feel like a nightmare? Maybe it was because I got it all based on lies. What came next? The self- sabotage. Oh the sabotage. That’s a story in itself. I’ll make it short: a fit mormon housewife has an affair with another married mormon man. I’ll never forget the day I told my husband and the other wife. I was on a ride and I desperately wanted off. My mind was not my mind. It was as if a demon possessed me. Come to find out...that’s exactly what happened. I was POSSESSED. Possessed by an ego that tried it’s best to destroy a soul. The spiral after divorce was indescribable. I slept with any man I could get my hands on. In my culture this IS NOT OKAY. I was walking around town with a scarlet letter on my back and I was going to live up to that LABEL. I was miserable. I went to countless therapists and doctors and could not figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted a label. Tell me I’m a sex addict. Tell me I’m borderline. Tell me I’m bipolar. I just wanted a label to understand why I was so messed up. No one would label me.

I went on to date another man who I thought I would marry and after another self sabotage I hit another rock bottom. I felt dark. Then one night my life changed. I had never smoked a cigarette, took a sip of alcohol, and definitely never touched a drug. Let me take that back...I took whatever prescription drug any doctor would give me that would “fix”me. I digress.

The life changing night was a night filled with magic mushrooms. The shame and guilt I felt before doing them was immeasurable;however, the darkness of my mind was consuming every part of me and I was desperate to find healing in unconventional ways.

I could see myself. I could see my ego. I could see my mind. I could see my body. NONE of those things were me. They were illusions. There was a consciousness so profound and divine that I somehow knew but had long forgotten.

I was NoThing. All the labels I had been collecting were so silly to me now. I could see God....in EVERYTHING. I saw all my shadows and loved them all. Because way greater than any shadow is a divine creature that is completely limitless.

Since that night my life is forever changed. As we shed the labels and the ego and heal our trauma something profound happens...we get to BE. In that being lies a creative creature that is limitless. I watch my ego now as a silly little girl. I honor her but KNOW I am not her.

I urge each of us to begin noticing any labels we are trying to cling to. Behind each label is truly just a scared little child that isn’t trusting the divinity within themselves. Once you truly see who you are there will be no need to attach yourself to ANY label. Let’s start shedding. Let get limitless!