My childhood was spent playing with angels. Seeing these glowing beings in spirit form was a magical way to learn about he world. We shared many exciting adventures together as they taught me about spirit: understanding its aliveness, its energy and its character. In our shared silence they explained that I was also spirit and my purpose in life was to help others. At four years old, I did not question. My mother knew about my imaginary angel friends, and I told her point blank what they said. She nodded and with a big grin, a twinkle in her eye, and replied, "That must be a wonderful thing for you to know."
This information was not a surprise to my mother. By this time she has already spent years researching the mysteries of metaphysics and learning how to see energy and angels. She taught me a form of hands-on-healing, and together we would play with energy and test our knowledge of the unseen. My entire childhood was spent living in the world of spirit. It became my language of being, framing a reference for all things.
This unique perspective of life endowed me with the magical spirit of a young child right into my adolescent years. However, as each year passed, I drew deeper into a place of high school, friends and work that came to be known as the "real world." Fully of jealousy and greed and squashing down others to get ahead, this world was completely opposite to the kind and gentle place of spirit that I grew up in. In an effort to survive I began to create a new Carrieanne, one that would mould and shape into what everyone in the real world considered 'normal.' I forgot about the angels and their lessons in spirit and its aliveness within all things, especially within myself. I forgot about who I was and what I was here to do. From time to time my mother would ask if I could still see the angels and remind me of my childhood with them, but it was lost on the deaf ears of an adolescent trying to make my way in the world.
It was a very sad time for me, trying to make the best of the chaotic mess I had created for myself as someone else. Then something unexpected happened: my mother was diagnosed with cancer and within eight months died from the disease. The moment my mom died it hit me how I'd thrown away an important part of me by trying all those years to be normal and fit in. My whole world turned upside down in a flash and pulled me right apart, forcing me to ask questions about myself: Who am I? What is important to me? Why am I here?
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