by Kayla Myers, Family Peer Supporter
December 19, 2023
Spirituality has been my compass while I learned how to get back into the driver’s seat of my own life. I have always recognized in myself that I am a deep thinker and feeler, but it felt like a curse for a long time. I learned to dim my light within, not listen to my sense of self, and this caused me to sway away from my core values and beliefs. Through hardships, I found myself extremely distanced from my mind body, and soul.
Unfortunately, drugs took control of my dad’s life when I was a young girl, leaving my mom to raise two kids on her own. As a kid and into my early adolescents, I knew my dad not being involved in my life hurt me, but I was still hopeful for his recovery and had deep love for him even though he didn’t have that for himself. I know now, I stuffed that pain so far inside of me because I couldn’t feel or deal quite yet. I was only focused on what my mom, brother, and dad must been feeling or going through. All things must come to the light though and it eventually caught up with me when I became a mom myself. It hit me like a wrecking ball and then I was angry with him, for me. How could he let drugs become more important than the two beings he created and brought into this world? It was hurt, confused, angry, and at a loss.
My dad’s mom and dad have now passed on. They did the best job they knew how. with staying connected to my brother and I while we were growing up. Now that I am a mom myself, I now have insight on how painful that must have been to watch their son who was so full of life and love, just to watch drugs take all of that from him. Now I have grace in my heart for them and what that must have felt like. I have also reconnected with my dad in the past year, which I never thought would have happened. Now here is where divine timing and spirituality have become so loud in my life and now, I can’t stop trusting in it and myself.
When I found myself in a massive life change over three years ago, my mom said to me, “Your grandma Donna would be so proud of you and wouldn’t want you to take crap from anyone.” Those words stuck with me and almost became a force field surrounding me while I honestly felt like my strength was going to crumble out from under me at any point. A couple days later I saw a video and it was a tarot card reading that said, “A grandmother/mom/aunt is coming through and she has been watching over you. She is so proud of you and wants to remind you to keep standing in your strength. She wants to remind you to not take crap from anyone. She will always be watching over you but your strength with get you through this. You’ll know it’s her because she will come to you in the form of a butterfly.” My jaw about hit the ground and I got chills all over my body. I was at a kid’s birthday party a week later and it was about 102 degrees out. I was keeping an eye on my son, and I felt really disconnected from the world around me. Suddenly something hit my nose and caught my attention. It was a butterfly. It was almost like it got my attention on purpose and kept flying around me. Once again, I got chills and knew it was for me because one too many coincidences had now happened. After that, on my hardest days, I always see butterflies especially when I am disconnected from my present self. Whether it’s in real life or a picture, she always comes to remind me to keep going.
Fast forward, reconnecting with my dad has been very healing and came at a time where I was truly able to let him back in because I knew I trusted in myself again and that I would know how to navigate the journey. We have had very meaningful and deep conversations about life, and it has felt like I got a piece of myself back, that was lost for a very long time. This summer when we were floating on the river, I kept seeing an eagle. Not when I was looking for it, but it would just randomly be sitting in different places on the river and somehow catch my attention. After a couple times of seeing him/her, I was like “Ok spirit guides, what are you trying to tell me.” My dad has a beautiful soul, he’s hilarious, and full of life. Through my early conversations with him, he would say little positive lines to me, make me belly laugh, or he would tell me what his parents would tell him or say. One day he said, “Well your grandpa would always tell me, I am already insecure enough, so I’m not going to surround myself with people who make me feel more insecure about myself. I am an eagle; I am not going to let the seagulls bring me down.” This past summer, I told my dad about how I kept seeing the eagle on the river. He said your grandpa loved eagles and he told me the eagle not a seagull line again. That weekend we were floating on the river and for the first time all summer, I didn’t see the eagle. I got a call from my dad later that next week and he said, “Kayla, you are never going to believe what happened. I still have chills thinking about it.” I must preface this part that my dad is currently serving a long prison sentence due to his drug use. The prison is in the middle of nowhere, in the Nevada desert. He continues, “We finally got to go out in the yard, and I was walking the track. We never see animals out here. If anything, we see desert critters or seagulls. We were turning the corner and up on the light post was an eagle just sitting there staring at me. I have never seen anything like it out here and I stopped dead in my tracks, and I got so emotional. Thank you for sending him here to see me Kayla, I think he was reminding me that I have been acting like a seagull for far to long and its time to be an eagle.” The very next weekend not only was the eagle back, but he also had a companion with him. They were sitting in the same spot I spotted the first one.
Spirituality has given me the gift to trust in myself, the strength to be fully present, and subtle reminders that everything will work out just the way it is supposed too. I don’t need to have all the answers, all the time. It’s a practice of connecting within, to find the answers to guide me on the path that was designed for me. I can’t keep diming my own light, my diving time was calling, and now its time to trust in the process, and soar to new heights.