The still, small voice within…

For me, it came quite unexpectedly at first. My life felt like it was unraveling before me.  My husband of fourteen years was suddenly asking for a divorce for reasons I didn’t understand.  I was feeling alone, abandoned, and heartbroken. The weekends without my two young boys at home were especially painful. I found myself doing a lot of walking just to get off the couch and out of my head. That particular day I had spent the majority of my walk crying and unloading all of my pain to that presence, which I  have come to affectionately refer to as Love Itself.  

I arrived home feeling somewhat cleansed but worn out and decided to pull out my lawn chair and rest under the maple tree in my front yard. I sat in the silence, resting in a break between the waterfall of tears and the rushing of fearful thoughts. 

And then I heard it.

It was a voice that came from within me and yet somewhere beyond me at the same time.

It was soft, compassionate, gentle, and it spoke with a sense of certainty. It said, “Remember who you are.”  It didn’t just say it once. It repeated it three times as if it knew it would take more than once to get through to me. 

It got my attention. I caught my breath a moment and paused in the silence, feeling time come to a halt for an instant. It was indeed accurate, I thought. I certainly had lost myself. But then, honestly, I didn’t know what to do with it after that. I absorbed its truth for a few moments and then tucked it away as if it were a note from my mother I didn’t quite understand but thought I should hold onto just in case I figured it out. I pulled the note out from time to time, but still, its message and sender remained a bit elusive.

The voice came to me a couple more times over the next 15 years, and both of those times, there was a vivid vision appearing in unison. It was as if the voice was trying to help me grasp more profoundly the reality of its presence. I didn’t just hear the voice clearly from within; I witnessed vividly a scene unfolding before me.

 It was as real as if I were right there myself. 

And yet I knew I was not. I felt I was being granted access to a profound message unfolding like my own private movie showing. With each experience, I allowed myself to absorb that reality just a little more fully. Yet, somehow, it felt like a distant experience. Some days I felt numb to it and others I was in awe.  

I attempted to share pieces of the experiences with a few, hoping it would somehow give hope and peace to those struggling on their own journey. I found it difficult, however, to portray something so profoundly real and yet hard to grasp at the same time. I gradually learned that many are not able to accept the possibility of such an encounter and was somewhat perplexed by the walls that seemed to rise before me.

It was as if there was a hidden button that triggered an instantaneous defense mechanism, like an automatic gate closing out the wild unknown. 
They didn’t seem offended or put off….just shut down.  It was just too hard to grasp.   

Others were able to welcome these few experiences with open hearts and even pure joy as if I’d validated their own inner knowing. As I’m seeing more clearly the reality of my own defense mechanism of denial, I’ve learned not to frustrate myself when I see the walls on others begin to rise. Denial seems to be the only explanation for my own response to such compelling mystical experiences. Why should I expect others to grasp what I too struggle to accept, and I’m the one with the experience! 

To this day, I believe that if I could fully accept the full reality of just one of these three experiences, I would never have another moment of fear, self-doubt, or worry. I wonder, how much more quickly would my peace have come if I could go back in time to that first moment under my maple tree? If I had a redo, I would let it all soak in so much more. I would give myself more time to grasp the reality of this voice and its source. I would sit in the silence just a little longer, and I would say, “What else would you have me hear?” 

You see, I finally did just that. However, I pondered that last mystical experience for at least 15 years first. It was so profound, so vivid, so most certainly not me, that I couldn’t tuck it away too deeply. I wondered for years what I was meant to do with such a message. And then it finally dawned on me, “maybe has more to say.”

So I committed to sitting again in the silence and asked Love Itself what else it would have me hear. I was astounded to discover there was so much more. Once my thinking mind let go and the body unlocked, the voice returned. It was every bit as compassionate, gentle, and wise.

It spoke with certainty far beyond my own mental fortitude. 

I’ve discovered it will always answer every question, and it doesn’t hesitate to call me out when I attempt to censor it. I’ve spent the last year and a half moving in and out of my own denial of the entire experience. I savor the moments when I’m fully accepting the reality of it all. 

Those are indeed the moments when I have no fear, no self-doubt, and no worry. Those are the moments when I realize the keys to the universe have been revealed to me.  

And in those moments, I remember who I Am.