How I Found Control
Suggested song pairing for this blog post: It's Alright by Fractures
I could say I found a magical burst of conviction and declared, “I’m ready to get off the meds!” But that’s not how it happened. It happened much more gradually, much more quietly. Some days, I questioned if it was happening at all. Some days, the self-help gurus on YouTube made total sense to me. “Just focus on what you want,” they say, “it’s that simple!” “Surrender, ask the Universe for instructions, meditate, pray, listen.”
“I can do this!” I’d say to myself, “I’m strong! I’m capable.”
But then doubt, guilt and shame would inevitably find their way in.
“Who do you think you are Jessie? You can’t just live in the clouds and think your way out of this! You have a chemical imbalance in your body, only chemicals can fix that!”
Still, I was fixated on getting better, on standing on my own two feet again. I felt weak on those meds, I wanted to feel strong. I wanted to feel healthy. My mother wanted me to lose the weight they caused me to gain…oh mother!
Somehow, a part of me remained hopeful, and that was the part that followed the breadcrumb, the catalyst, that changed everything….
I was on the phone with my younger brother one day. He was telling me how he kept seeing repeating numbers everywhere, like 3:33, 5:55 and 11:11. Just for fun, I asked Google about this phenomenon. A link to a podcast named 11:11 Talk Radio caught my attention, so I started to listen. The episode was an interview of an author, Nicolas David Ngan. who wrote the book, Your Soul Contract Decoded, Discovering the Spiritual Map of your Life with Numerology. In this episode, Nicolas was explaining how parents could decipher the Soul Contracts of their children to gain a better understanding of their behavior. This concept was extremely intriguing to me, so I purchased the book and started to read.
The body of the work begins with the pronouncement that up in the cosmos, there is a long line of Souls, waiting for the sought-after opportunity to come down and play on the earth in a physical body. It explains that when our Souls get to the front of the line, we go before a sort of council to discuss what we’d like to focus on in this lifetime. We choose our challenges, our talents and our inner drives, and those choices create the basis for our lives.
I eagerly deciphered my Soul Contract Chart, and in reading the interpretations, I was pretty much baffled by the accuracy of the system. My numbers said that in this lifetime my ability to speak would be challenged in some way. That this was part of my Karma, and would be a catalyst for growth in the future. This interpretation resonated deeply with me, as I remembered my elementary school days, being pulled out of class to visit a speech therapist. I had a very hoarse voice, and while my big sister teased me that it was from crying so much, the doctors told me it was treatable, and sent me to a therapist who told me to whisper. This Karma has shown up in my life again and again, in many different forms, and at many different ages. It was there when I didn’t stand up to a bully, when I was a pleaser for my boss instead of asking for what I needed, and when I stayed silent about my depression for way too long. The other aspects of my chart resonated deeply as well, they told me about my talents that I had buried, and the driving forces behind many of my desires.
For the first time in several years, I became excited, rather than fearful and anxious, about the mystery, the unknowns that lie ahead. I wanted to understand how this spiritual system of numerology was able to read me like a book!
And I wanted so deeply to find an acceptable explanation for this total 180 in my life, this complete opposite turnaround from the person I once believed myself to be.
So back to Google I went, typing “Soul Purpose” into the search box. This came back with hundreds of videos, and the first one I saw with a mainstream, familiar face was an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday. Oprah was interviewing an author named Caroline Myss, who was sharing her beliefs about pre-destiny, and sacred contracts. Since Oprah was talking about this stuff, a strong, successful, extremely wealthy woman, I knew I wasn’t going off the deep end in my quest for more. This was exactly the kind of confirmation I needed to give myself permission, to set aside my practical, productive thoughts, and continue on to explore this mystical topic.
I listened to Oprah interview Elizabeth Gilbert, Wayne Dyer, and many others. I followed them to TedTalks, Podcasts, and to any books I could listen to on my precious headphones. Washing the dishes, doing laundry, cleaning the house, driving, whenever my work or family did not require my attention, I was listening. From there I discovered even more inspirational teachers.
Each one had a special style in delivering their messages, and over and over, in different ways, what I kept hearing the loudest were their teachings about the laws of the universe, the sacredness of our existence, and the fact that our ticket to a life of ease and flow is waiting for us at the point where our actions, and Soul’s intentions, meet.
Teacher after teacher, reconfirmed for me, the theories presented in the Soul Contract work, and in time, my explorations put me on even deeper journey of healing and self-discovery. The flame inside of me was rekindled, and I was able to slowly wean myself off the medications. My focus shifted from my circumstances in my outside environment to my inner world. I had found a new mystery I wanted to solve, and that was just enough to shift my perspective away from feelings of defeat and sadness, and toward curiosity and hopefulness.
READY FOR SOME SOUL PURPOSE? TAKE MY KARMIC THEME QUIZ!
