(originally from agirlandherdreams.ca – edited and reposted here)

I started lucid dreaming as a very young child. One would think that it was all roses having this gift, but it was actually rough coming into this world “through my dreams”. My self-realization happened early in my childhood, and literally while having my first dreams. Finding out I was in a human body – that hit me hard. It was sort of like an awakening from the unconscious after being on life support for a long time without knowing you ever went into a coma. And then coming out of a hospital in a new body and experiencing the same shock as one would if they were to return to normal life – but without remembering the normal life you apparently had. Does that make sense?

My entire life has become a long road of recovery after that, and at times I am at peace with the fact that my “past life” was clearly traumatic. Other days I am still a little torn up from being jolted into this body – and not at peace at all. At the end of the day, like my favorite auntie says, “we’re all just walking each other home”. Ya hopefully – I have my doubts sometimes. She was actually in one of my first dreams, and I’m okay with her walking me home. She’s one of the few people I feel safe around.

I actually tried to stay in my dreams when I dreamt for the first time, just to try it out and see if I could bypass being in this world. It didn’t feel right though to skip this “part”, and it didn’t feel fair to the world, it felt like I had to do my part here.

If I am sincerely honest, I am actually honored to have “found myself” in this human experience. While it definitely has some rattling emotions, it also has stunning sunsets, wild adventures and amazing moments. I just think it’s important to acknowledge (for myself) that “coming here” meant saying goodbye to my tribe, my life partner and my dream world. I feel sad. I feel lost. I feel far from home. A lot of the time.

This is how I am showing up and where I am coming from. I need help and support, I am homesick and that has caused some mental health issues. My mom always supported that I was a big dreamer, and it wasn’t easy for her, hands down she did a great job while she was on this planet. Now I don’t have her. Thankfully there are some absolutely profound therapists, healers, writers, experts, etc. that I have had the privilege of knowing over the course of my life. They have helped me to ground myself down even through crisis and remember who I am when I have nearly forgotten.

I have been able to hold on to hope that I will find my way home. I have trusted my heart to be my compass when I have seriously lost my way. I have restored the love for myself and learned to forgive and move past major mistakes and failures. I have accepted this life and I protect my family, my blessings, my dreams – my future.

I had the blessing of having a mentor at 12 years old, a gift from my mom, she supported my mystic vision. I write more about my mentor in my intro here where I share how having that guidance prevented a lot of complete disasters. She helped me heal from past lives (or “the past” that resonates better) and it helped me with my personal development, that mentorship.

I think we all have a self-fulfilling prophecy and mine has been carefully crafted through yoga philosophy, diet and nervous system repair. I have a background of training through past life regression therapy and transformational healing, especially around childhood trauma – and not just my own. I have chosen to remain focused on healing, which has been difficult as a single parent with very little time after having to provide financially. On the other hand, my emotional wealth has only continued to increase as I work things out through these mediums as well as my dreamwork.

The path of a healer comes with thorns of course; it isn’t all roses and meditation. I have learned to be gentle with myself, remove ties with anyone or anything that doesn’t serve me, and prioritize the slow life. I was often in flight or fight mode, but in the last decade I have slowed down, set boundaries and stayed grounded. And now when I feel pushed, coerced, bullied, triggered or preyed upon, I recognize red flags and warnings – I can shift direction calmly and hold my own.

I am writing more on dreams in a book that I have been finally able to work on after 45 years of working my way through survival mode. Surviving is beautiful, I am not resentful about my own struggle because I know that “this body” is a human version of myself. There is more to me, in fact I liken this lifetime to a butterfly going through metamorphosis – it is just one stage of existence. This thing we call “life” is somewhere in the middle of the two most important moments: birth and death (which are both so beautiful). It is worth celebrating, survival is an achievement.

It comes down to this: Some parts of this life have been mystical and ethereal for me. Some have been traumatic and extremely depressing, I can’t lie. Of course, sometimes I wish I had a life that was easy, that I was ridiculously successful, relatively perfect would actually be nice. But those are pipe dreams that happened because I lost my autonomy as a teen for several reasons (another blog though) and it’s a lot harder to build it back up than it is to lose it. When we struggle it’s natural to want things to be easy.

The definition of success has changed for me multiple times and over the course of many failures. It has been nothing short of amazing when I feel successful and in turn, I am happy with myself. But then it’s also been crippling, even paralyzing at times when I have failed, and then I am not so in love with myself. Nevertheless, I am constantly recognizing that I am blessed with dreams and for them I am perpetually grateful, and at the end of the day that’s why I am here: to share “my gift”. Money is a tool. Dreams are a blessing.

Dreams have helped me to understand why I landed in the family that I did, they have been a medium of communication between me and my higher powers, my ancestors, my tribe and otherworldly places where others like me exist in other realms. Dreams have helped me to keep an open heart and open mind, while also empowering me and strengthening me in areas I have been weakened. There have been times where I have worked really hard to improve my understanding of this physical world – and my efforts have led to experiences in the dream world that have shifted my reality – and that has been super rewarding.

Part of being a dreamer and a mentor of metaphysical healing, has been the not so simple challenges of anxiety in relationships as well as experiences that come with being an anti-social creature. As a child my dreams were already carrying messages to me that made me conscious of the fact that even though I had this phenomenal gift of dreaming, I was not exempt from mental health issues, stressful family dynamics. I again, I attribute these uphill battles to a carnal cycle of rising from suppression. My curiosity about society led me through many places and cycles that were often unsafe and even dangerous; however, my innate wonder brought me through passages where I could explore these unmet needs, involuntary responses, and difficult behaviors in my own protected dreams.

There have been times, such as my adolescence, where I had to retrain my brain, my mind and my heart as well because of factors such as intergenerational trauma. Every single one of us is completely different and unique, some of us are neurodivergent, like me. While we are all essentially built relatively the same in terms of anatomy, trauma can cause someone to become more sensitive and fragile than in ways only they will ever understand. And not all of us are wired the same which means there are higher risks for someone who has experienced trauma. I knew this was true about myself as just a very young child “moving in” to this world. Not only did I carry my ability to dream and produce an inner sensorium, but I also brought strong, intense intuition. A highly sensitive soul already, I could see the burnout ahead before I had even experienced cognition. My first dreams were like premeditations of what this life would hand me, and every facet of this life has been a part of the architecture of my inner childhood dreamer…and my dreams.

Naomi, cute little crow