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“I don’t know the answers either.” Chloe whispered to the puppy as he lifted his head. His floppy ears hung low to the table and he tilted his left one closer to her as though he was truly listening.
“Everything’s confusing me.” she whispered, as she reflected on her life.
She felt tormented from trying to make a decision, hopelessly lost about which life path to take. Her mind was overloaded with endless possible outcomes as each choice was presented to her. She had no idea which was the right one that served her best. Should she choose a boring career path that made good money, or something that she was truly passionate about? Each probability held a glimmer of hope that perhaps it could be the right direction to take, but how would she ever really know?
“How do I know if I’m making the right decision?” Chloe sighed in her mind, telepathically feeling as though the puppy could hear her. The dog’s blue eyes stared at her with anticipation. A feeling of hope and despair merged together into one emotion and she empathized with the small puppy, who she somehow knew was feeling the same way.
“I know, I know.” she cooed soothingly, as she patted his soft brown fur on the tip of his head just above his eyes and massaged the skin that rolled over his teeth and along his jawline prompting him to close his eyes with pleasure. In that moment of nurturing love and support the puppy’s entire energy changed; he forgot about the pain he was feeling and took a great big breath, sighing with comfort and relief for the connection that he felt with Chloe, one that he had sought after for so long.
“What’s wrong with this one Ashley? He just seems so sad?” Chloe asked, turning to her sister who was listening to the heartbeat of a white dog on the veterinarian’s table.
“He is sad.” Ashley frowned back. “His owners haven’t given him enough attention, so his medicine literally is just to be loved and cuddled.”
“To be loved and cuddled?” Chloe echoed back with disbelief and hurt, wondering how someone could neglect the responsibility to give the love that they had once chosen.
“It sounds so simple. How could someone not love you!” Chloe continued to talk to the puppy as she wrapped her arms tightly around his body and she stroked his fur with long fluid strokes from the tip of his neck down to his belly. The puppy nuzzled his face into Chloe’s arms, and a soft wheezing breath breezed through his nose.
“Isn’t it beautiful though?” Chloe said as she patted the fur of the puppy’s throat. “That no matter how neglected these animals feel, their faith is not broken. And they give themselves wholeheartedly to their next owner, even though they too could potentially break their heart.”
Ashley stopped what she was doing.
“Whoa Chloe, that was a bit deep. Are we talking about the dogs here, or your own love life right now?” she smirked.
“Ugh. I don’t even think that it’s my love life that’s bothering me! I think I’m just overwhelmed with all these decisions to make and I just can’t make them. Do I go on a date with Tom and risk getting hurt again? But even so, I don't even think that’s the real problem here.”
“You don’t?”
Chloe quickly shook her head.
“No, I think I’m just putting off the real issue. Like, what am I going to do after I finish school?” She looked to her sister with tears in her eyes, the confusion of being unable to make a decision had resulted in the emotion of sadness from a feeling of inadequacy at being unable to decide her true path’s calling. She felt as though her inability to make a choice presented herself as weak, as she was continuously asking others for answers to her questions that no one could answer but herself. She patted the puppy again.
“You’re coming to the party with me tonight?” her sister teased, knowing perfectly well that Chloe didn’t mean what was she going to do after school literally that day.
“Ashley! I’m serious. Everyone has got plans, like: study for 4 years, get a job, or go traveling. I have nothing. NOTHING. No passion, no direction, just NOTHING. Oh, this sucks.”
Ashley stopped feeding the puppy and came closer to her sister. She lifted Chloe’s chin and stared her squarely in the eyes, and she held her gaze here for several seconds, ensuring that their breath was relaxed and in sync.
“Please listen to me carefully, Chloe. You, my friend, are in THE most exciting time of your life! You are two years away from being an adult which means you get to play in the teenager realm just a little bit longer before all the responsibilities set in and on top of that -you get to choose what you want to do! - Not many people have that choice. Chloe, do you know how lucky you are?” her voice trailed off as she looked up to the ceiling, imagining the same feeling she’d had only a few years ago. “You can do absolutely anything you want to in this world. Absolutely anything you set your mind to. Now stop playing the victim and allow the decision to come to you when the time is right.”
Chloe glared at her sister. She hated being told that she was playing the victim and hated even more when Ashley pulled the older sister card and acted all high and righteous. But, sadly, she couldn’t really argue with her this time and respectfully agreed with her.
“Okay, you are right.” Chloe said slowly, rolling her eyes in resignation. “So what do I do now?”
“Of course I’m right.” Ashley winked as she took the puppy out from Chloe’s hands and replaced it with her school bag. “Now go home and meditate on it.” she continued, as she pushed Chloe toward the front door. “Clear your mind and just enjoy the feeling of not knowing. Don’t try and change it to be anything else but this. You are meant to be feeling this way.” she said as she tapped Chloe on the shoulder and opened the back door. Chloe stood there, not wanting to walk through.
“And then what?” Chloe asked like a little child who enjoyed being told what the game was and how to play it.
“Get a journal, write down your thoughts and feelings and just keep writing until you can’t write anymore, and somewhere in that mix of chaotic thoughts you will find your answer. I promise you.”
“And if not?” Chloe stood in the doorway pleading to be saved. She clung to her school bag in her hand with one foot out the door and drooped her eyes low, feeling a dark depression starting to swallow her thoughts whole. She could feel the pressure from her parents on her shoulders even though they weren’t next to her. And although they said they would support whatever career path she chose, it was difficult to compete with her beautiful, smart sister who had devoted her life to saving animals. She would never aspire to be something so courageous.
“Look, if you feel this lost, perhaps you need to ask your Spirit Guides?” Ashley said, casually shrugging her shoulders and delivering the question as though it were a normal suggestion.
“My Spirit Guides?” Chloe’s eyes sparkled with excitement, feeling a slight sense of salvation with a new ritual that would help her find answers to her future path.
Chloe had always been interested in the supernatural, and had wasted far too much money on psychics over the years. Every experience was basically the same. She walked in, was told a bunch of stuff that she already knew about herself, was given false hope about things that couldn’t possibly come true, and left, feeling like she had just been scammed. But still, every six months she heard a tip about a new psychic in town that took months to get to see, and who sounded like the real thing. But nope, it was just another time waster.
“Yeah, wait, you’ve never met your Spirit Guides?” Ashley replied in disbelief, for she was sure she had told her sister about them before.
“Umm . . . Ashley, what do you mean? You’ve never told me about the Spirit Guides!” Chloe retorted with her hands on her hips. She was irritated that her sister had been keeping this secret from her, a secret that sounded like it could potentially be the answer to all of her questions!
“Ohh, I went through a stage of talking to them a lot, when Brent and I broke up.”
It was the first time Ashley had mentioned his name without her lips quivering. And she wasn’t staring off into the distance like a wounded child as she was talking about their breakup. Chloe couldn't help but feel slightly guilty when Ashley mentioned his name. She had seen Brent and his new girlfriend at the movies only yesterday, but she didn’t want to tell her sister. What was the point? It was just information that would hurt her again now that she was finally getting better. It was eight months since their breakup and at last she was able to shrug it off as an experience that made her grow. She didn’t even define it as bad anymore. It was perhaps, “unfortunate”, or “misleading”, but no, not bad.
“How can it have been bad when I was fortunate enough to be able to feel such a deep love for someone?” Ashley would say. “It was beautiful to feel love like that. And now I understand why it ended. Because I needed to feel the hatred too. I needed to feel the full weight of its opposite, I needed it in order to know both sides, to be able to understand the emotion I was feeling.” she explained to Chloe one day after she had literally healed herself with time spent in nature and reading inspirational books. She was always learning, endlessly learning. “She was born with glasses ready for reading books” their father had joked. And as for Chloe . . . Well, she was the artistic sister. Her emotions and creativity overrode each other, like the chaotic madness of lightning and thunder in a stormy sky. Together, they created a powerful and destructive force. Her creative passions demanded her time, erupting as an emotional release. It was the same way that thunder needed lightning in order to be created, her artistic energy didn’t flow unless she felt the weight of a strong emotional inspiration to prompt a release. They swallowed each other whole and then spat each other out. First one and then the other in an ongoing violent dance of emotion and creativity. It was beautifully poetic, but of course the emotions could get the better of her, overtake her mind and lead her into an ultimate low of suffering.
When Chloe painted an empathetic picture of the sadness she had felt for her sister, the lines appeared to swirl into a never-ending hole of black and grey with tiny slithers of white, a white that was compressed and suffocated by the darkness around it. Chloe remembered trying to explain the painting without really knowing where the words had come from, and that Ashley was allowing the darkness to override her love. She believed that Ashley’s mind was turning from love to fear, fear that love would never come to her again. But that was the way that Chloe painted. She never understood what came over her, but her body on its own took on a new form. A magical trance-like state existed between Chloe and her brush while the delicious textured paint swept across the blank canvas.
One day Ashley said to Chloe. “I still remember just seeing black, and I asked you, ‘Why did you paint a black painting for me?’ And then as I slowly got better, I saw the white and it made me laugh because it was so clear that I was surprised I had never seen it before. It’s amazing how the mind only sees what it wants to see.”
Chloe thought back to the painting, and how strong her creative desire was to be expressed. She compared it to how stuck she now felt. The inability to make a decision held her down and confined her to a small box. She couldn't seem to break through it and as a result, her creativity was impossible to find.
“Talk to your Spirit Guides, they will help you.” Ashley soothed, patting her sisters back lovingly. “I’m telling you Chloe, it will be a positive influence on whatever the problem is you are feeling at the moment.”
Ashley nodded with encouragement, understanding her sister well. With only three years apart in age, the two were inseparable. They were deeply connected together; feeling the same emotion, or worse, they would rub the emotion of one onto the other, to the extent that when one sister felt depressed the other would also fall into a pit of depression.
But the feeling Chloe was now experiencing was different from depression. It was fear of the future, a form of anxiety. Such an awful feeling: an unsettling mixture of anticipation and worry which had now physically manifested into nervous energy that shifted through her body like a ping pong ball, moving quickly and unpredictably. It crept up into her mind when she least expected it and took charge of her emotions and her rational mind.
It was difficult for Chloe to define this feeling. Often it was just an empty space surrounding her thoughts. Endless questions, constant worry as to why the questions were unable to be answered, her fear of making the wrong decision taking over. This fear then triggered the emotion of sadness to overwhelm her, propelling tears to wash over her face. But little did she know that those tears were actually cleansing her essence so that a new and improved version of herself could be created. They were creating the opening for an empty, hallow shell at her core, one that could be filled with her own potion of beauty.
“I’m feeling like there’s a glass door in front of me, and behind that door is what I need to do, but for some reason, I just won’t open my eyes.” Chloe sighed to Ashley, irritated and frustrated with her own attitude.
“They will open that door for you.” Ashley replied.
“Who will?”
“Your Spirit Guides. They are here to guide you on your life’s path. If you feel lost, they will show you the way.” Ashley said, smiling with reassurance.
“Okay, tell me how to do it.” Chloe asked as she put her school bag down. It was always too heavy; she didn’t know why she brought home every text book every night when she had no intention of studying.
“Every time you meditate, you have the opportunity to meet your Spirit Guides, but most people don't know this.” Ashley began as she spoke softly, as though letting Chloe in on an ancient secret. “What you have to do is create a stable place between your conscious and unconscious mind to welcome them in. It’s a place that you create within yourself, a place that you have envisioned in your own imagination; a place that makes you happy. Once you’ve done this, you will be able to retreat into it whenever you want.” Ashley explained, using her right arm to emphasize her words while still hugging the formerly unloved puppy.
Chloe nodded as she listened, and she thought about where her place would be, but nothing came to mind.
“Where yours?” she asked.
“Mine’s a beach. It’s just a mile-long stretch of white sand next to an ocean with clear crystal blue waters. There are a few palm trees overhead, and giant shells on the ground.”
“Beautiful.” Chloe replied, imagining the calming blue waters her sister described.
“Okay, so once you create the place in your mind, you need to travel there in your meditation. Close your eyes, and go there.”
“But, how do I do that?” Chloe asked, remembering her meditations. They seemed to resemble just a swirl of black mass. True, at times she would see colors, and even sometimes images would flash through her mind, but she had never actually tried to influence her visions.
“It’s easy to do when you image the finer details of the place. Like, when I think of the beach, I see the grains of sand under my feet. I touch it, and feel pieces sprinkle through my fingers.” Ashley replied, and she closed her eyes lightly as though she was right there on that beach again. “Notice the way you feel when you are in this special place - you should feel calm and relaxed.”
The energy around Ashley seemed to calm down peacefully as she explained her secret place, and even the puppy dog in her arms had fallen asleep and was snoring ever so lightly. Ashley smiled at the puppy - it was confirmation that her cuddles and healing visions were working.
“As you get more comfortable in your sacred space, your Guides will come and visit you. They will be in different shapes and sizes and maybe not as you expected. Just be open to them and to what they have to say.”
“Okay.” Chloe nodded in agreement, taking the information in although she was still feeling slightly annoyed at her sister for not sharing this technique sooner. She had been suffering silently for months as the end of year twelve was creeping closer and closer and yet it was only now that her sister was sharing this insight with her!
“And so what did you do in this Spirit Guide world?”
“Hmm . . . I’d just ask them questions.” Ashley said, shrugging her shoulders. Chloe could sense that her sister wasn’t too eager to delve into her experiences, and understandably so, if it was to help deal with her heartbreak over the relationship with Brent. During those cold 8 months Ashley confided in no one, not even Chloe.
“And what did they tell you?”
“Well, at the time I was having difficulty accepting my reality, and they just reassured me that everything was as it should be.”
“That doesn’t really sound like much help though.” Chloe rebutted, acting slightly unimpressed. If she picked up any self-help book she was sure she could’ve read that same line. But she knew it wasn’t enough to just read something and be changed, you had to live it. Ashley needed to let time heal her heartbreak, and she was a living example of someone mending her own heart. But where was the guideline for Chloe to follow? She couldn’t find any book that gave her the advice that she needed.
“Well, maybe to you it doesn’t,” Ashley said. “But when you’re in that space you feel connected to your authentic self. It’s nice to be reassured with your own voice for once instead of someone else’s, you know what I mean?”
No, Chloe didn’t know. She felt as though she had only just gotten used to being a teenager and now everything was about to change all over again. Her adolescence was spent listening to her parents or her peers. She didn’t really think for herself other than schoolwork or deciding what to do on the weekend. And here was Ashley telling her that she needed to reconnect with herself more than just through her meditation. She had no idea this was even possible!
“So what has this taught you?”
“Well, for one, it gave me the space to heal and see that my life really is truly amazing. I love my job and my friends, and being single and not in a relationship has allowed me to understand myself so much more! It was dangerous going straight from high school into adulthood with the same boyfriend. I didn’t have time to understand myself well enough to transition from a teenage girl into a woman.” Ashley replied smiling. She felt like she had finally solved the problem of her loneliness. “And Chloe, these are the last years of your teenage life! Will you enjoy them please? Before you hit your 20’s and get old like me?”
“Yeah you’re right.” Chloe smiled, even though she felt that perhaps her life was too much fun and she needed to start being more serious about her future.
“Of course I’m right!” Ashley said as she winked. “Now speaking of fun, do you want to come to the party tonight?”
Chloe picked up her school bag and put it over her shoulder as she thought about the question. She wanted to go really badly, but her parents had organized a 9AM breakfast meeting with her to discuss her future. She had to come up with three options by that time.
“I have the breakfast with mum and dad, remember?” Chloe replied as she rolled her eyes. She didn’t think her parents ever had to schedule such a meeting with Ashley, ‘the angel child’.
“Ahh, how could I forget!” Ashley said as she laughed mockingly at Chloe. She had spoken to their parents about the talk and she knew it wasn’t going to be too stressful, but just something to help push Chloe along. Her indecision was starting to bother everyone in the house, and this intervention was a proposed solution by her mother. “Okay, just go home and find these answers so you can stop stressing, your skin is starting to flare up.”
Chloe peered over Ashley’s shoulder into the mirror behind her. She was right, her cheeks were flushed red as though she was overheating. It was strange the way her body would react to situations before Chloe even realized she was so stressed.
“Go home, have a nice long bath and meditate.” Ashley said as she closed the door.
Chloe agreed and left her sister to walk home. She paused in the front garden, hoping something would speak to her and give her the answers that she needed. Her eyes quivered as she looked up to the sky. The sun was setting, and the clouds hung low. They felt as gloomy as the emotion inside of her chest. She wanted to look at the sun to provide positive inspiration but something was stopping her, and she was unable to let the light in. The trees above her stood still. There was no breeze, no movement . . . just her, alone in the garden, looking up and begging to the skies for answers, talking to the universe, wanting to see clearly, wanting a hope, an idea, a thought to take ahold of her and become her possession.
A grasshopper jumped onto her leg, causing a shock of excitement throughout her body. Once she calmed again, she saw the creature was harmless. It was tiny and brown with long stick legs, and a body with a boxy-like frame as though it was made by origami.
“You’re far from home,” she said kindly, staring just long enough before it leapt away.
And she thought about the grasshopper’s life, how it jumped from place to place, unsure where it was going to land, but confident that a landing place would exist. How she wished she could look at life like that of the grasshopper! Taking leaps of faith, following the sun, and being so playful. She worried too much. She knew that was her problem, that and being incredibly overly analytical. It was stressful to be this way, and she could see that her friends and family were starting to get irritated with her indecisiveness. Her greatest problem used to be overanalyzing something as simple as a text message from a new crush. But now the thoughts of deciding on a career had overtaken all others, and the scales were swaying from side to side as the steps to adulthood moved closer and closer, day by day.