We ALL of have SUPERPOWERS
When I was little, I was WIDE open. If you haven’t seen the home page of my website I talk about standing on the front deck of my house in my mother’s nightgown and watching an approaching storm. I was drawn into the storm, the way the wind ripped through my nightgown and had its way with my hair, and the way the thunder could be felt as much as it was heard. I loved the suddenness of lighting and it’s pure, unleashed power, and somewhere deep in my belly, I KNEW that I could call these powers to me. That I could align with them in some way and wield them, a true SO(U)CERESS in the making.
Of course, I was also what we would typically call a HOT F*CKING MESS. Knowing what I know now, I was an undiagnosed ADD child with an incredibly creative mind, and dealing with sexual trauma that I would not discover for decades to come. I was overwhelmingly emotional, I laughed easily and cried at the thought of having to eat a squirrel (yes, we ate squirrel) when I had just spent the day naming and talking to all the squirrels in our yard. I wrote poetry ALL the time and I lived much of my time in a fantastical reality of the wide openness of my budding sorceress powers.
As you can imagine though, I learned pretty quickly that I needed to make myself smaller. My Dad wanted nothing to do with an emotional outburst, and by middle school I could see the effects of my never-ending need for approval and love could create a migraine for my Mom. And yet, I didn’t really have the tools to control it, so a shit show of a shame cycle ensued. My high school years were full of drama, a need to be seen, a need to hide, and a constant reminder that whoever I was, wasn’t the way people wanted me to be.
So in a shocking plot twist (insert sarcastic smile here...) by the age of 19 I found myself pregnant with the boy who I had been dating on and off since 7th grade. He was the first love of my life. And we had a truly passionate and volatile relationship. The true definition of love/hate. We could go from deep eye gazing and butterflies to rage with each other in a matter of moments. The summer I got pregnant, I was home from college, and he and I went for a walk in our neighborhood and insert a bunch of teenagers singing about Summer Lovin, the result of which was a pregnancy (how appropriately GREASE of me).
It was this moment that I began to truly reclaim those powers that I knew I had access to all those years ago. I didn’t consciously know it yet of course. But seeing the terrifying positive result of my pregnancy test sent me into deep contemplation (and anxiety I have thankfully never had to know the likes of again since). Now, I want to be clear, my freshman year of college was steeped in mind-altering experiences with mushrooms and pot and ANYTHING but spirituality. Well, that’s not exactly true, I spent a few months trying out the Christian organization on campus but we will talk about that later...
So when a deep conviction to give this baby up for adoption arose from that time in contemplation it was SCARY AF, and yet I knew it was that same connection I had felt with the rain, the wind, the water, and the energy I knew I had access to a child. And so I sat my Mom down on that very same deck told her I was pregnant, and that I wanted to give the baby up for adoption. I watched her rock her rocking chair into a complete tizzy as she just stared at me until she finally stopped and said, “Well, when I told you to take a year off of school, this isn’t exactly what I meant.” We laughed, we sobbed, and then we began to make a plan for the year to come.
The point is, this moment in my life, where I consciously listened to that deep inner knowing was to become the first of many that would completely alter the course of my life. This was my first experience actually channeling that knowing I had felt deep in my body as a child. I KNEW I had SUPERPOWERS and I just needed to keep trying to use them. Listening to an inner conviction at the age of 19 was the first time that I actually began to harness that power. This is the gift of our superpowers. They emerge at the time when we need them the most, when something rocks us to our core, strips us of control, and forces us to surrender. And once we have aligned with them, we are able to cultivate them, channel them, wield them, and create pure MAGIC.
Laura x