After Patrick moved out, I went into mourning and shame.
I was embarrassed to be in this situation, knowing that if my clients and readers knew the painful circumstances of my life, they would no doubt accusingly ask, “If you are so intuitive and spiritual, why didn’t you see this coming? Why didn’t you stop it?”
I did see it coming. I just didn’t want to believe it. I felt like a failure in so many ways.
Looking back over the past 30 years of my marriage, I had honestly tried to get along with Patrick. When on adventures together, we had a lot of fun and our relationship worked. But at home, we mostly just fought. It often felt as though we weren’t an adult married couple at all, but rather were two combative, angry siblings battling each other for control. While that didn’t surprise me, as we were both from big, dysfunctional families and had to battle to get our needs met while growing up, to continue as we had for all these years was ridiculous and exhausting.
I felt demoralized, disappointed in myself, and ashamed that I had ended up in this place. I, who espoused unconditional love, forgiveness, and understanding, working with spirit guides for help and trusting intuition for guidance, had found none of these tools and beliefs helped me one bit in healing my broken relationship and finding some peace with Patrick. We had some kind of intense karma between us, and we had failed to work it out.
I vacillated between feeling indignation, rage, sorrow, and fear as I considered what had happened between us and to our family and what lay ahead. I was alternately furious and devastated. And deeply sick at heart.
I was done with my frustrating, unhappy marriage. What I didn’t realize was that I was also done with my life as I knew it.
I began to pray in earnest. I needed a divine intervention to help release me from the old, miserable patterns of relationship I had long held on to and which had had such a debilitating stranglehold on my life.
I also wanted the noble crusader in me to die, the one who fearlessly rushed in to defend a cause no matter the personal cost. I was depleted as a result of all these battles, and the only aspect of my feminine nature left over had been funneled into endless caretaking and rescuing at the expense of all other more refined and receptive—and genuinely joyful aspects—of my femininity.
It was time to put the inner fighter in me—this dominant male energy that was constantly guarding, watching, saving, and working—to rest, and allow my quiet feminine self—the side that could receive, allow, and relax—to emerge. I knew this self to be my authentic spirit, and I wanted God to help me bring her home.
I knew in my heart that this was the reason why my soul was facing this crisis. It was time to reach deep inside and allow myself to surrender to what was happening in my life.
One day I just fell to my knees and prayed. I asked the Holy Mother God and all my invisible divine helpers to release me from these negative patterns that I had carried, and remained so attached to, and was now so ready to surrender. I could feel an intense energy burrowing into the back of my head and into the very center of my heart as I voiced my request, as if she were questioning my sincerity and resolve. Did I know what I was asking? Was I certain that this was what I wanted?
I took a breath and knew it was.
“Please, Holy Mother God,” I whispered in prayer, “help me cut the invisible cords that bind me, and set me free. Give me the inner strength to let go of all that I have created up until now, on every level, and which no longer reflects the highest path for me, and for those I love and serve. Help calm my more masculine energies so I can settle into my own divine feminine nature and cool the angry fires of hurt and fear that have burned in my heart for so long.”
After making my prayerful request, I got up and lit a candle to the Divine Mother, to say “thank you” for hearing me. I was ready to surrender. I knew it was time to release control over my life and let God take over.
I spoke my intention aloud: “This life of mine is now finished. My present way is no longer serving me or allowing my greater Spirit to express through me. I ask for the cocoon to break open and free my true divine light. I surrender all attachments on all levels to the past and am now ready for what the Universe has in store for me. And so it is.”
At that moment time stood still. I knew my intention was heard and registered by the heavens, and that my request would be honored and met with divine support. I sensed an inner shift take place in me. I didn’t feel euphoric. I didn’t even feel happy. Rather, I felt somber and quiet in spite of the thousand sounds swirling around me, the Universe saying, Okay, get ready.
The next morning, I suddenly had a powerful intuitive hit from my Higher Self that said, “Sonia, it is time to heal your life, and the only way to do that is to walk the Camino de Santiago. And go alone.”