“The year I lived almost in solitude was one of the best years of my life. I felt so free and lived so close to what truly matters.

I spent a lot of quality time with my son and received profound guidance from the universe.

That year, I spent most of my days alone walking in nature – and since I had quit my job, left my old friendships behind and erased all social media, I had a lot of time to myself.

When I was walking in nature, I asked the universe to show me the absolute truth of the human condition. Not the half-truths or layered truths, but the absolute truth.

And I got the answers I was asking for.

The universe listened and filtered out all the relative and layered truths and showed me exactly how the human ego works – layer by layer.

But the answers weren’t given to me only as information or insight. They were shown to me in my own inner world.

That year and in the years that followed, the foundation of my ego was coming up to the surface and showing itself. I got to see the hidden places inside that I had been closing off and even running from without knowing it. I came face to face with my core programming.

I had experienced trauma even before the trauma when my son and I were hit by a car, and that year, I had to go back and meet those places inside.

I also came face to face with my deepest cultural programming. A lot of that programming was so internalized that I would never have seen it as programming unless it had been shown to me the way it was that year.

Seeing the foundation of my ego and what had caused me to experience reality the way I had was difficult at times.

I had to hold those inner places so steadily and with such a relentless love and willingness to see the truth and listen to what my inner life had to tell me.

I promised my inner life that I would not leave or abandon it whatever it had to show to me. I promised to stay with whatever it had to tell me, no matter how awful or difficult it was.

And I kept that promise.

I stayed with the most difficult experiences, even when my body was shaking and even when every fiber of my being was screaming for me to leave.

I can’t tell you that what I experienced wasn’t difficult because there were experiences in my inner world that I wish I wouldn’t have had to experience.

But I have experienced them, and as long as they were in there, parts of me were closed off to life, and in pain.

I may not have been able to feel that pain or take care of my inner life when those experiences happened. But I was strong enough to hold them now. I got a second chance to take care of, feel, and be with what I had not been able to feel and be with before.

And when I did that, I got closure on the inside.

Behind what was coming up and revealing itself was also freedom, love, and the unconditioned reality. And it was such a relief to lay down the burden of the past. To not have to be stuck in those old experiences and the defenses they were creating in my life.

For each part I released, I felt happier and freer. The more I was also open to what the universe had to reveal to me.”