This blog is titled, Fully Alive, because in the past twelve months, I have reclaimed my true identity, as well as my life.  I began this process several years ago, and since then I’ve gathered segments here and there, but now I am all the way home.   

For a good portion of my life before now, most of it really, I have been trying to be “someone.”  The details of that “someone” has changed shape over time, but the theme has always been the same.  I was looking for myself out there…somewhere in the future…in a new pursuit or passion, or achievement.  When my book first came out and I began teaching publicly, I’d dare say that in some ways, I was even creating an identity out of being a “spiritual teacher.” What a bunch of nonsense.

Each stage of this path, however, was essential. There was nothing in the physical dimension that could permanently assuage the desire for identity, no surrogate self that could last long enough to keep me content.  But in experiencing who I am not, who I am, emerged with clarity.  When I finally recovered my true spirit self, I found a home I knew I’d never leave. 

It was more like a self-revival process than anything else. When I was born, I was my authentic self, just in a smaller package.  I came free of a life story or any script that told me who I was or had to be. As I grew, I—along with the rest of humanity—began to accumulate “facts” about myself. I had experiences that turned into stories I could tell other people.  A life’s resume began to form.  It was as though there was a little box with a lid and a tag with my name on the front: “H-E-A-T-H-E-R  M-A-D-D-E-R.”  A small, limited version of me was stuffed inside of it.   

If I were born in a different place, the content would have been different, probably even the name tag, but the process the same.  It is this way for all of us.  We are born into the world as a free spirit.  As we live and grow, we accumulate past data. We have unique experiences, some of them trauma inducing, and we take on certain personality traits as we respond to those experiences.  We learn fear, guilt, shame, insecurity.  Our learned behaviors are not who we really are.  Nor is our story. 

We are spirit beings from a higher dimension.  We always have been.  We always will be.  We are visiting the physical dimension, an earth school so to speak, for the purpose of learning.  When we have finished this course, we will go on to another one.  We will lay down the body, our stories, our resume’s, climb out of our box, and return to the spirit dimension-our original home.

The best news is that awakening to who we really are can occur at any moment.  We do not have to wait until we step through the doorway of death to get home.  We can become conscious right now.  Living from your true identity only happens when you live from the spirit part of who you are.  This opened up to me when I looked inside myself, not outside.  When I stripped away life story, my life resume, my conditioning, and climbed out of that little box, I came to the most stunning conclusion of my lifetime: 

I am a spirit being of light. 

I am filled with love for people, and deep compassion for humanity. 

I am passionate and excited about what’s around me. 

I am forgiving, accepting, and joyful. 

I love to create.  

And I feel the deepest joy in connecting with others. 

Quite ironically, my history once painted me as a bit of a loner.  I remember when one of my friends told another, “Heather is so hard to get to know.”  My isolation and private nature were my chosen responses to past experiences–not the real me.  I was living in the shut down misery of a false persona and didn’t even know it.  The real me is open-hearted, filled with love, trusting of others, and radically committed at reaching people so they can also awaken to their own truth.  

This domain is about living from spirit–your true identity.  Your only identity. 

Another word for spirit is the word freedom. You can live in freedom in every area of your life.  When it comes to relationships, career, physical wellness, parenting, or any other place you find yourself.  We are lifting the veil of illusion on all the things we are not–  Insecure. Fearful. Guilt-ridden. Controlling. Judgmental. Unforgiving. Skeptical. Limited.  Time to lay it down and be free.  Time to live.  Take back what you’ve given away.  Get rid of what’s not really you.  Come home to yourself.  And BE.  Fully Alive.