Listening to my Instincts: Happily Ever After

*this essay contains an affiliate link to the book Judgment Detox by Gabrielle Bernstein. I am a big fan of hers, so I would highly recommend it, especially if you’re into meditation. If you click the link and buy the book, or anything else, I will make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. So thank you if you do, because that means you are supporting my writing!

Countless times in my life I have been in a position where my instincts are driving me like an undeniable force. Many of those times begin with some message from outside. I have received messages from a variety of sources, children, cartoons, friends, magazines, books, music, even church.

And over time I have realized that these messages are always out there, all day every day messages are desperately trying to call to us. What I have learned is that I have to be in a place to listen to my instincts in order to hear the messages. Because that is where opportunity lies.

Opportunity

Opportunity can be anything – a new job, a new friendship that you really need at that moment in your life, the love of your life, or opportunity for growth.

My life has been filled with these opportunities. And they have always come in the strangest forms. But whenever they have come, that driving force inside me has given me a push: “this is it,” the force says. “This is what you want. This is for you. Take it.”

And I always do. 

I was miserable at home as a teenager. Miserable. My mother and I were being abused by my stepfather, my little sisters and brother were being traumatized. And I was a teenage girl! That right there is enough to make anyone miserable.

And one day, it happened.

I had done something wild and rebellious. I was in trouble with my parents. And my stepdad walked out into the backyard.

“You want to fight me, Shanna?” He roared at me, his arms out wide, welcoming my rage to match his own, my anger meet his anger, my violence to clash with his violence. The message was clear.

There I stood. At the door. Him on the patio, just ten feet from me.

It took me one second. Maybe two.

And the force inside me pushed me: run.

Run.

Run.

Listening to My Instincts

And I did.

I flew, barefoot, bare legged, out the front doorway, screen door banging against the far wall as I bolted.

My feet slapped pavement, my fifteen year old body in short shorts and a tank top filled with wind and freedom.

And I was free.

I hid in the bushes, called my aunt who came to pick me up, and I moved in with her for a few months before bouncing around from roommate to roommate for a couple of years.

That was the day I ran away from home.

It was the first time I felt that force. The first time I knew that there was a force inside me that would never lead me wrong.

I would never again belong to anyone. No one, ever, would tell me what to do, would hit me, would own me, would control me.

Out of Control

I spent the next ten years in chaos. Taking any opportunity that set itself before me. I moved in with whoever would take me. I moved out when the shit hit the fan.

The shit always hit the fan. I was a troubled teenage girl with a rebel yell who refused to be tamed or civilized by anyone. Of course the shit hit the fan.

I waitressed and bartended. I stole money from the cash register to keep myself afloat. I survived.

My inner guide, that force, kept me alive, it helped me survive.

I was in pure survival mode for years and years.

I got married at 19 because I figured two incomes were better than one and the guy was nice. I could control my husband. He would bow down to me and do whatever I wanted.

The last thing I wanted was a man who would try to control me, who would use me, abuse me.

And I had no concept of what an equal partnership looked like. I had never seen one.

So I chose men I could control.

And then I got bored, irritated, frustrated. I didn’t really want to control anyone anymore than I wanted to be controlled.

Sleeping Beauty?

So there I was. Twenty five years old. Married to a man I didn’t love. Managing a nationwide corporate banking center in a job I hated. Overweight, unhappy, alone.

Alone? But I was married.

Yes. But I was alone. The Shanna that had I wanted to be, the girl who fled in a flurry ten years earlier, full of life and freedom, had been buried deep deep down inside this heavy, pale, wasted body, and after those ten years of mere survival, she was itching to live. She wanted a voice.

There’s a song by Evanescence called Bring Me To Life:

“Wake me up inside.

Wake me up inside.

Call my name and save me from the dark.

Bid my blood to run.

Before I come undone.

Save me from the nothing I’ve become.”

There I was one day, listening to this song, knowing that it had been written expressly for me at that point of my life.

That song was my song. My message.

I sat in the bathtub, naked, wet, deeply unhappy, and the song came on the radio, and I felt it to my core.

And shortly after that, into my banking center walked my new employee. A tall, dark, handsome man who would be my catalyst out of mere survival.

The force inside me pushed me toward him. “Go,” it said. “Go.”

And I did.

This man shook me and shocked my system and woke me up from a long, long slumber.

It was a relationship that was doomed from the start. But looking back now, fifteen years later, I know that it was an essential key.

He was another messenger, another opportunity.

Waking Waking Waking

I filed for a divorce. I went to college a year later. I built my life around being a good person, around living a life of service, around helping people like me.

A few years later I met my husband, we had children, and here I am today.

I have a master’s degree. I speak three languages. I help people everyday, from all backgrounds, of all ages, on a variety of issues.

The end.

Right?

That’s it.

What more could I possibly ask for?

Awake

I was happy.

And then the force came again.

Opportunity knocked.

I was home last year on maternity leave and my mom was visiting.

“Listen to this,” she said. “I found this person online, Esther Hicks. Apparently, she channels ‘source energy,’ which she calls Abraham, and they teach the Law of Attraction.”

I am an incredibly open minded person. I always have been. Sure, I was super self righteous when I was younger, and then very soap boxy in my thirties, but my mind has always been open to all possibilities.

So I listened.

I listened as this woman stood on stage and discussed the basic principles of the Law of Attraction.

She explained that you get what you attract.

Okay. I watched The Secret. My mom has studied the Science of the Mind since I was 5 years old.

I knew the basic principles.

But then she went further.

“Your most important job is to be happy. You attract happiness when you are happy,” she was telling someone in this YouTube video.

She went on to explain that when we wallow in misery, we attract misery. When we focus on lack, we attract lack. When we focus on abuse and misuse, we attract abuse and misuse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsrLbg6-MgY

Ah.

“Here it is,” I thought.

Here were the ideas I had always held, but here they were being articulated, expressed, taught.

“Yea, Mom. That’s cool.” I said, listening with one ear while I played with my new baby and my busy five year old.

And I forgot about it as the time went by, weeks turned into months. I would catch my mom watching when she was visiting, and I watched along with her, but never really focused my attention on any of it.

I knew all of this.

Sure, I could put it into practice better. But I was already living a life that proved all the principles of these laws.

Wait, What?

And then it hit me. The message.

I was already living a life that proved all the principles of these laws.

I had used the law of attraction to run away from home, to find shelter, to get every single job I ever applied for, to make money, to find stability, to break out of the wrong kind of stability, to graduate with highest honors, to meet my husband, to find my current job.

Every single thing I had done I had done with the Law of Attraction.

I wanted it. I imagined it. I pursued it. I got it.

For more than thirty years.

Implications

The implications were huge, overwhelming almost.

The clouds parted behind me, and the sun shone through. The message.

I can take this energy, these laws that I have learned to use over the years, and do anything I want. I can do anything I want!

You see, up to that point, I had been living safely. I had told myself a story of how lucky I was just to have what I had. That I didn’t dare ask for more.

Who am I to proclaim myself a writer?

Who am I to step on a stage and teach people in a public speaking forum, hold women’s circles in my living room?

Who am I to dare?

As if there was some unspoken rule about how much we can achieve in one lifetime and I had used up my fair share of achievement.

As if dreams come true were scarce, and I had already had all mine come true.

Sorry. No more dreams for you, lady.

This moment in my life was huge.

It was another bolting out the door moment.

I ran toward this new life, a new existence where I would be happy. Only happy. I would find peace. I would let go of anger and resentment, of the need to be right and righteous in any moment, of the need to control every outcome of every possible scenario. I would dream big and walk toward my dreams as they walked toward me.

Happily Ever After

And that is, in the end, the happily ever after.

I now expect to live happily ever after, to genuinely fulfill all of my dreams.

Since I made that decision, I have asked for forgiveness and given it to the people I feel hurt me. I have let go of all the anger and hate. All of it.

With one exception.

My stepfather.

There has been this one stone in my gut over my stepdad even since all of this opened up to me.

“I still feel anger and hate and resentment. And I know I need to let go. I just don’t know how.” I said to my mom as we headed home from an Abraham Hicks conference last weekend.

Two days later I got the message. I was driving home from work, listening to Gabrielle Bernstein read from her book Judgement Detox, and she said, clear as day, into my ready ears:

“You don’t have to forgive all at once, you don’t have to figure it all out, and you don’t have to have the person in your life. You just have to be willing to forgive. You just have to want to let it go.”

A wave of relief washed over me, and I accepted it. I could do that. I was definitely willing to start the process. I was done carrying that last heavy stone around with me.

I want to let go.

And that is how life has been for the last seven months since I started intentionally living a life of joy.

“I bought some crystals for the first time while we were in Sausalito this weekend.” I told my friend Dennie today.

“Wow. You’re becoming a full on hippie.” She laughed.

“You know. I really always have been. I have always believe in love and light. In freedom and joy. In community and sharing. Everything I am doing now, every single thing, is something I have always wanted to do, right down to buying crystals and meditating. I just had all this anger and hate that I was carrying around with me like armor that wouldn’t let me be that lighter, free woman. I was afraid. I’m not afraid anymore.”

And that’s it.

I’m not afraid anymore.