Part of me teaching you how to be joyful, how to become joyful from the inside out – is to speak all your truth, no matter what others may think.

Today, I am going to do that.
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I have been waiting for just the right moment to write this.

On Sunday April 30th, 2018 one of my greatest loves, Beau Jackson, my dog of 14 years, transitioned from this earth into another realm.

The night of his passing, I wrote this:

“This is just the beginning of me loving on you in your new form. Remember, I told you we’d be able to feel each other on the other side? Well here we are. This is the start of that. Mommy feels you, here, right now. The space you occupy in my heart will continue to get bigger and bigger. Beau Jackson, mommy loves you. I’m going to go to sleep now. Let’s meet in our dreams.”

A few years prior to that point, my perceptions, experiences and thoughts on death, souls and spirits had been getting wider and wider.

In 2014, a few months before Alexandra was born, I started to see a therapist who fused traditional counseling with resonance repatterning.

This type of therapy required me to open my mind and heart to possibility.

In the last 4 years there have been seismic shifts in my soul. I have learned so much and raised my vibration. I have cleared things from my body, mind and soul that I thought I’d carry forever.

Every time I have come up to a hurdle, my therapist and her healing practices have guided me up over the hurdle and into the next level of my life.

For a few years and in the middle of big transitions, I saw my therapist more frequently, once every few weeks or so.

I have admitted things to her that I have never admitted to any other human on the planet – because – what’s therapy for if not for honesty? That safe space has allowed my mind to open up to creativity and possibility.

Phrases that come up often during our sessions are: past lives, other realms, spirit, guide, source, releasing.

To heal we use flower essences, essential oils, colored lenses, tuning forks, music, humming, cranial therapy, tapping. We call in spirits, guides, open chakras, move energy, realign brain waves, open meridians – all sorts of amazing things.

When I began this type of therapy, I didn’t talk about it much, because I thought it was too far out there are I thought people would think I was weird, and I cared about that.

So I used to just say, “therapy,” and if I would talk about it, I would discount it by saying, “I know it’s weird,” or “ I know this is woo woo,” I’d basically tease myself before anyone else could tease me. (Thank you, Hannah Gadsby, for teaching me that, you’re incredible.)

But like I said before, I have raised my vibration and ascended spiritually (this is not a function of better or worse) is just means I’m more aligned with source/God/The Universe.

Another way to say it is that I am more in tune with who I am and my divinity that - people thinking I’m weird doesn’t faze me anymore – and so here I am – sharing the type of therapy and the tools that have helped me clear traumas, insecurities, fears and confusion.

The byproduct of all that clearing is that my mind is far less cluttered, my heart much more at peace and my ability to tune into and feel Spirit and spirits is strong.

With every layer of trauma healed, I have been able to drop deeper and into the center of my being – and I have become more peaceful, more powerful, and more joyful. I know who I am and I know I control my thoughts and reactions.

Hopefully this is a road I will continue to walk.

During the last week’s of Beau’s life I doubled down on sessions with my therapist and called in the help of therapist who specializes in working with animals.

Both ladies can communicate with spirits – and so each tuned into Beau and then they communicated with me. Each therapist told me what Beau was feeling and thinking. And that mode of communication brought me a deep sense of comforting.

And hopefully it brought Beau comfort as well.

In that way, Beau and I talked and made THE decision together.

He was tired and he was ready to go. His legs no longer worked, and it was depressing to him that he couldn’t run around and play. I understood and said, okay.

The last few weeks of his life, instead of sleeping in a bed, I camped out with him on the floor. Constantly petting his worn legs, diffusing essential oils that would make our space more peaceful, and applying essential oils to his body and my body so that we could remain fiercely present.

I used Present Time, Release, Harmony, Sacred Mountain and White Angelica.

The week after he passed was insane. I did my first TEDx talk, said goodbye to our home of 3 years and moved 300 miles south from Austin to McAllen in preparation for our move to Panama.

It was A LOT, overwhelming.

Beau Jackson's passing, donating ALL his things to a rescue shelter, prepping for and doing the biggest talk of my career, and then the logistics for moving my family from Austin to McAllen. So much.

Still, I kept Beau close.

I’d check in with the therapists, “How’s Beau doing? Is he okay?”

“He’s fine, keep praying for him to transition well.”

You may ask why I never question these things – spirits, guides, traditions an here’s my answer – I gave up the need to “know for sure” a long time ago.

I don’t need to know for sure, I just need to believe that it’s possible.

And the belief that it’s possible – and the belief that things are possible have been enough for me.

Do I believe in God? Yes.
Do I believe in Jesus? Yes.
Do I call God by other names? Yes.
Do I believe that spirits, realms, guides, natural healing collide with my definition of God? No.
I think God is more than I could ever think, feel or define.

I think we are all divine. Because I think we are all made OF God. God is the air and the trees and the space between.

I think the flow of the universe is cradled by and unknowing source, all loving, all kind, all for Sunday naps kind of God.

So I kept talking to Beau and praying and more and more I started to feel him, his presence, like a weighted blanket on me, comforting me through each day.

I started to wear part of his dog tag as a charm on a necklace and pour a drop of Present Time essential oil on it – and it would immediately take me back to his last weeks, feeling his body breathing alongside mine.

I dream about him. I call on him, I feel him guiding me and protecting me and loving me, still. From wherever he is.
I very much regard him as a steady presence in my life and I feel so grateful for that. Where I thought there would be a hole in my heart after his passing, there is no hole. His spirit grew deeper roots into my spirit.

Not even death can separate us from love.

I’m grateful for the power of love and the power of possibility.

May you know that forces of love and possibility are for you.
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That’s me, speaking me whole truth.

I hope that inspires you to speak your truth, and not hide parts of yourself because you think it’ll make people uncomfortable. It probably will, but you will survive. You will survive and get stronger and stand taller, because no one can take away your becoming.