Morning sunshine is streaming through the kitchen windows as I sit quietly with my coffee and listen to the ticking of the cuckoo clock while I think through the last few months.

It has been deeply unsettling for me, in a painful, exhausting, yet wondrously beautiful way. There’s been a massive shift in how I occupy my place in the world, in how I feel about myself, speak to myself, view myself, and how I engage with others.

My foundations not only moved, they shattered into dust then reformed, stronger, so much stronger, than before.

I learned anew that there is a huge difference between believing things and knowing them.

Believing, to me, is mind stuff, head stuff, a conscious choice to force myself into alignment with something. But knowing a thing is so much deeper, an intrinsic gut feeling that “this” is true, good, right…for me…regardless of how things look from the outside.

They’re the inner, deep-seated assurances, the ones that provide the base from which we step out into the world each day. The feeling of being grounded, secure, safe, loved, worthy of being treated with kindness, respect, and compassion.

This shifting began when I walked my anxious self out into our bush and said aloud to Whoever Was Listening: please help me.

I’d reached a layer in my soul/spirit/whateveryouwantocallit that I couldn’t get past. It felt like our soil in this drought: dried out, hard as a rock, with crevasses that plunge down rather terrifyingly into utter darkness.

I didn’t know how to break through.

So I asked for help.

Some people think that you have to ask for help from certain sources, A Deity, an Institution, a Book. But honestly, I’m weary of those sorts of things.

I wince when I hear people say, “You can only heal if…you can only thrive if…” It’s so staggeringly arrogant. I cringe at the notion that there is One Answer, One Source, One Way, and if you happen to find help, healing, and support from anything else, you’re doomed.

To me that is Evil. It removes hope. It squeezes healing into the tiniest of boxes. It slams doors shut on options that may be just what we need.

It’s so easy to judge each other. To look in from the outside and say, “If only they would do/believe/feel this, THEN they’d be OK.” And, honestly, if we got down to the heart of it, what we’re really saying is, “If only they would do what I do/believe what I believe/feel the way I feel, THEN they’d be OK.”

And that’s simply not true.

Sometimes what works for me is just what someone else needs, and that’s lovely. But you know what’s also lovely? When they find something totally different that is just what they need.

It’s easy to celebrate with someone who believes and lives and feels the same way we do, but somehow it’s a whole lot harder when they’ve battled their demons, fought their fights, and healed their hurts in a totally different way.

For a long time it was hard for me when my friends found healing in religion. It was like they were saying to me, “Your abusive ex-husband is the best therapist EVER!” It took all the strength I had to celebrate with them as they found healing through prayer and Bible reading and going to church.

It was equally hard for them to celebrate with me when I found healing through non-religious things. They felt fear and anxiety and distress as I healed my deep wounds through Inner Child and Journey Therapy, Reiki, EFT, art, and other modalities.

But we learned together. We learned to value each other’s well-being above all things, more than religion, more than politics, more than lifestyle choices.

Basically, we learned to love.

That day I asked for help seems so long ago now. I had no idea the beautiful helpers who would come into my life and restore my faith, my hope, my purpose in this world.

I’m sitting here quite teary now, teary and smiley, because help looked so different than I anticipated. It did not undo the past or fix the present. Instead, help was love. Real love. Love that believed in me, trusted me, forgave me, valued me, and protected me, until I was able to do those things for myself.

It is an amazing thing to wake up in the morning and know that I’ve got my own back. That even if I feel anxious, afraid, or cranky, I still love, trust, believe in, accept, and forgive myself. Always. No matter what. And it makes me smile to see those things naturally spill over onto my people, to know that even if they’re out of sorts, sad, or feeling lost and unlovable, I still love them, I’m still on their side, I’m still here for them. We’ve got each other’s backs.

Today I met with one of the helpers who came into my life and she said, with so much love and compassion, “You can stop trying to heal from the past now. It’s time to live.”

Time to live. Yes. It is. xo