“Don’t die with your music still inside you.” – Wayne W. Dyer

I now believe this:

You’re okay, no matter what. You have work left to do. Part of that work is allowing the past to live in the past so that you can do what needs to be done today.

This is what happened that helped me bring this understanding into my heart.

I had a total hip replacement in January 2014, and my husband was waking me up every 4-6 hours to give me pain meds. Less than two days into my recovery I started feeling strange. I didn’t want to eat and was becoming less and less connected with my normal thought patterns. I did not want to get out of bed, or interact with my husband. I was having a hard time coming to when I would wake up from sleeping, never really becoming alert.

The third night I was semi-aware that I was wildly shaking. My mind felt as though it was firing 1,000 times faster than it normally did, and it was zooming with trails of colored light. I experienced leaving my body, floating just above my shell. I experienced a knowing; a conversation of sorts, and I was face to face with the creator. I couldn’t really see the face of my creator. The creator was simply a white light being that communicated sort of telepathically. The best way to describe it is that I was instilled with knowing. The creator had two lists. The lists were the positive and negative things I had done in my life. The creator indicated that my ‘good’ outweighed my ‘bad’. I was instilled with the knowing that “You’re okay, no matter that other list.” And, “I’m not done with you yet.” Meaning, I still have work to do in this life on earth.

I awoke with a huge startle and spoke very clearly to my husband, who by that time, calling my name in a panic, and said “I can’t take Tramadol anymore.” I felt oddly connected back to my life, and a feeling of comfort washed over me, like a warm blanket of light. My husband told me that he thought I had a seizure and then quit breathing. He said I’d been having several seizure-like episodes over the past couple of nights and days, but that this was by far the worst, and scariest.

Today I don’t have anything but positive and good feelings about that experience. When I take myself there mentally I feel that same warm blanket of comfort. At the time, after my husband told me he thought I had been having seizures I was terrified. Actually, I was torn, I felt so confident that I was okay and going to be okay, but I was terrified at the same time by the label of ‘seizure.’ I knew seizures mean you lose your driver’s license. And I carry a gun for my job, and if I couldn’t drive, surely I couldn’t carry my firearm. I also knew that there would be repeated doctor visits, tests, and obtaining clearances, and I was CLEARER than I had ever been in my life that I was OKAY! I sat with this for a few days.

A few days later I had a follow-up with the surgeon. By then I researched what had happened, I already knew that it was a drug interaction because of my knowing experience. Tramadol had counter indications with a drug I was already on to treat arthritis of the back and knee. At my follow-up, I spoke to three people, the medical assistant, the physician’s assistant and the doctor. The range of reactions to my stating I had a medication interaction, and had experienced serotonin syndrome was incredible. The medical assistant seemed genuinely concerned, the physician assistant concerned but less so, and he wanted to dismiss the topic quickly. The surgeon, on the other hand, did not want to talk about it at all. I brought it up three times before I took his message that he did not want to discuss this topic. Each time he either ignored it completely or changed the subject. Okay, this was strange, yet this was a relief at the same time. This ‘no discussion’ meant that I would not be referred to a neurologist, and I would not lose my driver’s license or firearm.

When my recovery was nearly complete, I contacted a Reiki master who previously treated me for pain subsequent to a previous surgery. I expressed to her my desire to process this experience though my body. I felt that I had processed the experience mentally, and I wanted to make sure I integrated the ‘knowing’ in my body as well. I have never doubted or questioned my experience, as it was very clear, yet at the same time, my prior career as a therapist led me to understand that experiencing post-traumatic stress after this kind of event could happen if I did not thoroughly process it. I have never felt anything but positive about my experience since. In fact, I don’t talk about it often. If I do mention my experience I refer to it offhandedly as “that time I met God.”

Since this experience, I have become more open to my gift of intuition. I have possessed this all of my life but have spent most of my trying to squash it. It still scares me when I know something before it happens, but I embrace the gift, despite this fear.

I suppose I sort of feel that I was getting close to what I was supposed to be doing, or what my mission is here in this life, but I was dragging my feet despite knowing it was time to share my gift and light with the world, and stop squandering it to my past traumas and tragedies. The universe stepped in and gave me that HUGE kick in the ass that I needed.

What I have actually learned through this experience is that I spent a lot of time caring about what people said and thought about me. Now I really could care less. I am me, and the universe said I was OKAY, so I am embracing being OKAY!

Now I choose to embrace the knowing every day. Some days I still get mired down in the everyday life garbage that muddies up the knowing, but I never forget that the universe told me that I still have work to do here, in this life. My intention behind this response it to keep remembering that I am okay, despite any wrongs I have done intentionally or unintentionally and that I need to keep moving forward and sharing my light.

I am far more positive these days. I rarely feel angry. If I do feel angry it is very fleeting. I am compelled to let things go that do not matter in the big scheme of things. I am finding out that what matters is living with intention.

Melissa, age 45. The United States.