What Letting Go Taught Me About True Healing & Spiritual Awakening

What happens when your dreams evaporate and you’re left questioning every choice you made?

I found myself in that place—married to my high school sweetheart, adoring him, only to realize I’d sidelined my own dreams for years. I gave up a graduate degree, let a film opportunity slip away, tolerated behaviors that left me lonely, and ultimately chose to tear apart everything and start over.

My personal crisis surprised me, but it triggered a spiritual awakening I never expected.

If you’re ready to transform your challenges into your own path toward inner wisdom and healing, read on for the steps that helped me reconnect with my inner compass and awaken to what I call the Divine Within.

When Life Didn't Go as Planned

I married my high school sweetheart thinking he was amazing. For many years, we shared moments of happiness, but I began to notice a pattern: I was prioritizing his needs over my own.

I abandoned my dream of graduate school because he wasn’t willing to help finance it. I passed up a film opportunity in Hollywood to stay focused on our relationship. Even when his drinking problem and risky behavior made me unhappy, I convinced myself it was okay.

I became someone I didn’t recognize, and affairs followed. I asked for therapy, but he didn’t engage.

Eventually, I realized I needed to reclaim my own life.

From Personal Crisis to Spiritual Awakening

In 2008, I left him and dismantled everything I knew.Depression and anxiety moved in, and I recognized that I couldn’t keep going the way I was.

Yet, a small voice inside insisted, “You can heal from this.” That voice led me to a psychic school where I learned energy healing.

During meditation, I experienced what I now call my inner compass—a peaceful, wise presence that guides me toward my highest good.

And that led me to uncovering the Divine Within.

Understanding the Divine Within

The divine within has three aspects: your inner compass, your roadblocks, and the collective divine. Each part plays a role in how you heal and grow.

Your Inner Compass

This is the aspect of you that is compassionate, courageous, non-judgmental, and clear. It can never be harmed and always guides you toward decisions aligned with your well-being.

Your Roadblocks

I call any part of yourself that hides your true nature from view a roadblock. At the height of my crisis, I identified with depression, anxiety, and feelings of unworthiness.

Roadblocks aren’t bad—they signal areas where you need deeper understanding of your needs and boundaries. Befriending your roadblocks is how you begin to heal.

The Collective Divine

Across spiritual traditions, people believe in guiding energies—angels, ancestors, ascended masters. I call this network of support the collective divine.

You can call on these energies for healing and guidance as you reconnect with your inner compass.

How to Embody Your Inner Compass

Your body feels calm, open, and expansive when you’re in tune with your inner compass.

A powerful way to cultivate that state is through loving kindness meditation. During this practice, you silently offer yourself compassionate phrases such as:

• May I be well.
• May I remember I am loving kindness.
• May I be happy.
• May I be at peace.
• May I learn to accept all aspects of myself.

Practicing regularly creates a neural pathway to your frontal lobe, the area responsible for compassion, empathy, reasoning, and emotion regulation.

When you’re regulated in your body, you access clarity and collaborate from your inner compass.

When life didn’t follow my plan, I had to reclaim my dreams and rediscover my true self.

My crisis became the catalyst for a spiritual awakening as I uncovered my inner compass, identified my roadblocks, and tapped into the collective divine. By practicing loving kindness meditation, mindfulness, and self-compassion, I learned to operate from a place of calm clarity and authentic purpose.

You can follow these steps to heal your own roadblocks, strengthen your inner compass, and connect with the divine within.

If you’re ready to continue this journey, I invite you to explore my upcoming book, The Divine Within: Healing Ourselves to Heal the World, releasing later this year from Atmosphere Press. Dive deeper into these practices, reclaim your power, and please don’t hesitate to share your growth with me!