Paige Vidrine

The alarm sounded at 5am. I don’t know what I was thinking trying to wake up that early being that I need all the rest I can get these days. Is it just me or does everyone else feel tired since the time changed? It’s as though we are operating at warp speed. Are we getting closer to the speed of light? I wonder.

My hand fumbled around on my night stand before finding the phone. I checked social media out of habit and then drifted off back to sleep. Then I had a dream that I was climbing a mountain.

There was someone below me who wanted to get to the mountain top too. They asked for my help and when I reach down, they clung to me desperately. “This is attachment.”, I heard from God as I kept climbing. I was trying so hard to get to the top, but I just felt so heavy. The person attached to me loved me. They were so thankful for me. They never wanted to let go. I felt the need to help them and protect them. I wanted so badly to get them to the top, but eventually I couldn’t do it. I told them I was falling. They clung to the side of the mountain as my hands began to slip. Then they hopped off my back and I fell. Quickly they found another person to attach to along the way. They considered this God’s plan.

Then I was back on the mountain where the dream began. I heard someone next to me saying, “Let’s go! You got this!”. I looked and it was someone who loved me. “This is connection.”, God said. Together we climbed to the top and when we arrived, I saw a friend who was manning the camp. They were making sure that we were safe.

This dream is fitting because I have been thinking of someone I loved lately. I thought I healed, but apparently my inner self is still teaching me. I see this person’s smile strewn across social media and I smile. I see their eyes and remember how they used to stare into mine. Then I pray it away, but God wanted me to truly feel it and heal it once and for all. Memories were arising in my heart lately and I asked God “What’s it all for?”. I haven’t been thinking about this person, so why all of the sudden are they in my presence and my mind?

Then I had the dream and I realized that all of this, the years of learning to love myself, have been years of learning what true connection vs. attachment is. In true connection, we are both rising. In attachment, it feels like love and connection, but I am always falling in the end. It’s my fault too. We all have good intentions in the beginning, but I am giver. I serve. I love to let people taste the depths of my love, even if it’s not equal. That was the path I had taken for too long.

I see now that God gave me opportunity after opportunity to face my co-dependent ways. Each “No!”, that I spoke clearly to a lover was a “Yes!” for my heart. It was a healing even in pain. I ripped myself from things I wanted because I knew that I wasn’t whole in the decisions that I was making. I could blame this person or that one, but every person was just sent as a mirror for me to see myself more clearly. I knew in the energy of codependence, I always fall to the bottom of the mountain to have to rebuild myself over and over again. Then I am left wondering, “Why? When I am such a good person.”

I promised myself years ago that I would never abandon Paige again! No matter what it takes, I was climbing my way to the top of self fulfillment and a life of true abundance of spirit.

Choosing yourself isnt easy. I was so dedicated to the promise that I made myself all those years ago, that I pulled myself (kicking and screaming I might add) from what I knew in order to stay true to Paige. There is inherent risk in loving yourself. There is pain. It feels like you are killing off a part of you, but what is the alternative? The same old merry-go-round of self abandonment?

I have learned that our souls have a message and we get lost in our wounds. In that we lose our true essence chasing things that will briefly ease the anxiety. But as I have sat with myself and every limiting belief that arises, I find a deeper sense of purpose. I find a deeper sense of self.

Let me tell you something. Neither the path of the wounded or the healed is easy. There are twists and turns at every crossroads. However, the peace that comes with knowing yourself completely, is something I wouldn’t trade for any attachment.

I see so many who believe they are on the path of healing and still have not learned to connect, heart to heart in eternal protection for the other. This path of healing isnt about being alone either. It’s about finding love in all the hidden places, not just the familiar.

You know, I used to write letters to my lover. Now I write love letters to myself by every action I choose in calling myself to a higher way of being. Every time I choose compassion over judgement for my myself, I drop even deeper in love with who I am. Because even in my imperfections there is wisdom, buried and waiting for me to uncover it. I am a seeker of the divine within me.

I have chosen my path. There’s no going back now.