Discovering Your Own Personal Energy Garden - Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A New Beginning

It’s not that I’ve just recently begun my journey; it began when I was born.  I say that because most challenges we have as adults stem from our inner child.  The difference is that now I’m walking my path consciously, recognizing challenges when they arrive as experiences to learn from, for my spiritual growth.

I carried with me feelings of abandonment most of my life.  My biological mother put me up for adoption when I was born.  I was so young when I was told by my adoptive mother that I don’t even remember being told.  I’ve just always known.  I was a very sensitive child and I faced a number of challenges growing up.

When I was 13 years old I met the young man I was going to marry.  I knew it right away.  The moment he walked into the classroom and smiled, I said to myself “I’m going to marry him.”  I’d never even had a boyfriend, but the connection was instant.  Looking back, I believe it was a past life connection.  My soul had recognized his the moment I laid eyes on him.  We were married a few short years later.  I didn’t give myself much time to grow up, to establish a sense of self.  I wasn’t secure, comfortable and mature enough as an individual to contribute anything that a partnership could be built on and after a decade, found myself going through a divorce.

It was heartbreaking for me.  I felt that I was being abandoned again and that having stayed in the relationship as long as I did created in me a lack of self-worth and depression because I wasn’t happy.  I felt like I was in a deep, deep hole and honestly, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to climb out.  I felt that I was unfairly blamed for many things that were causing the divorce.  I got so upset about it one day that I decided to just take it, take all the blame.  What that meant to me was not that I truly felt totally responsible for everything (it’s a two way street), but that by accepting responsibility for it, I owned it.  Here’s the way I spun that around in my brain.  If I stated that my husband had no fault in anything, than he didn’t own the situation, it became mine to fix if and how I chose and there would be nothing he could say about it…  because he had no responsibility in it.  Everything was all my fault, so he said.  So since I took full responsibility, that meant the ball was in my court and I could do with it what I wished.

So, I chose to forgive myself.  Just like that.  I forgave myself for all the “everythings” I’d done wrong.  I knew it’d be a long, hard climb out of that hole I’d dug for myself and if I was going to make that effort, I was going to have to promise myself when I got out that I was going to love myself.  I had to promise myself that I’d never turn my power over to anyone else ever again.  There would be no more giving my heart to anyone.  I’d share it, but it would stay with me.  I don’t think a person can unconditionally love another until they accept and unconditionally love themselves.  My heart now resides where it was meant to be.

The marriage ended but our love survives to this day.  In fairness to my ex-husband, he does recall things differently.  I realize now that’s nothing to argue over.  The scientific and medical communities have shown that individuals really can experience events differently.  And we each have our own perspective based in part on the life experiences we’ve had up to that point and whatever learning experience we’re going through at the time.

I realized that it’s not a matter of a troubled relationship being anyone’s fault, it simply the experience each person creates with the other.  We had the opportunity to learn from the challenges we created together, or not.  Obviously we learned too late for the marriage.  For my part, probably because I was always so caught up in the emotions it presented.  But I don’t have any regrets.  I believe that learning and growing from our challenges is, in large part, what life’s about.

About 4 years later, my adoptive father passed away.  I didn’t have a great relationship with him, but I knew he loved me.  I don’t think I was ever as confident of that with anyone else as much as I was with him.  I hadn’t told him that I loved him before he passed, so when he did, I wanted to “find” him to make sure he knew.  When I began “looking” for him a couple months after his death, I found myself in a world of metaphysics, energy healing, meditation and much more.  The direction of my life took a sharp turn.  I’d found what I didn’t even know I was looking for all my life.  I found myself walking my path consciously.  I began looking on the inside for answers instead of on the outside.  I began looking to my higher self for guidance instead of to others.  I was starting to experience inner peace.  My father’s illness had come upon him suddenly and death followed shortly thereafter.  It was ultimately his leaving that caused me to end up on the path I was now on.  It seemed to me that on a soul level, he left knowing I’d look for him, and in turn, end up on the path my soul came here to walk.  Everything is a matter of Divine timing.

Looking back on my life, I know that I am who I am and I am where I am because of all my experiences, and I wouldn’t change any of it, “the good, the bad and the ugly”, for anything.

- - (C)Dani Lynn

My Chi Garden, Discovering Your Own Personal Energy Garden is a journey of self-discovery.

Coming soon:  Chapter Three “Forgiving Our Entire Self”

** See also:  Discovering Your Own Personal Energy Garden – Live Book:

Chapter One: My Own Personal Energy Garden, Posted 4-02-2012

Preface:  Discovering Your Own Personal Energy Garden, Posted 4-1-2012

Excerpt: “I started on an outline and notes for this book a few years ago but it ended up being put aside because I got busy with a lot of other things.  I came across it again tonight and the idea came to me to share it on my new blog.  Most of my notes are in place so I’m going to review everything, update anything that needs updating and then complete and post one chapter every week or two.”

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