I've been thinking a lot about the healing process lately. In large part because I am really starting to see the healing that is taking place within myself. For most of my life, I felt young. No matter what age I was, I always felt younger. As a kid and even through high school, I would see adults and picture what life at 21 or 25 or 30 would be like. But when I reached 21, I didn't feel like how I thought I would at that age. Especially after graduating college and getting a job. When I turned 25 and was teaching and living in San Francisco, I looked at my life and inside I felt like I was still such a child. I hadn't really grown up. I wondered if I would always feel this way. If throughout the rest of my life, I would find myself at an age and be disappointed that I hadn't grown into that age yet.

Well, here I am at 27 and I no longer feel like the late bloomer. In fact, within the span of about ten to twelve months, I feel like I've surpassed my age. And I feel comfortable in my body and with myself about who I am and where I'm at in my life at 27. The ways that I have been stretched to my limits and beyond in the past year have given me the ability to finally feel comfortable and content with who I am.

I should mention here that I received a fabulous job offer this week, which I accepted (with extreme gratitude). Earlier in my writing, I talked about feeling like I was suspended in midair-I had taken this leap into the unknown, had left the familiar, but could not yet see where I would be landing. Now, I have landed. And I am so grateful to be where I am at in my life right now. I know that the past seven months of uncertainty were given to me for a reason and that I needed that time to work on myself and make changes in my life. However, I am savoring this moment that I can release deeply into. "Ahhhhh," I exhale my sigh of relief. It is over. I have made it through. Thank you, Spirit, thank you.

My sister, Tiff, emailed me saying, "Isn't it crazy that this is what has been planned for you all along?" It reminded me of a book I love (read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, it is amazing). In it, she talks about a Sufi poem and says, "God long ago drew a circle in the sand exactly around the spot where you are standing right now. I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen." That is exactly how I feel right now.

Everyone needs sacred space, an area where you feel free to simply be. A place you can visit anytime to soothe your mind. A place where imperfections and hopes and sadness can all swim together. Creating this space can often be hard. When there isn’t a physical location, where then do you find the space? For me, I’ve created a healing place in my mind first, before I was lucky enough to find physical places of sacred space.

Back in college, I went on an amazing, life-changing adventure backpacking through Hawaii. On this trip, I challenged myself physically, mentally, and emotionally in ways that I had never done before. The end result was the transformation of myself, from a sad, depressed, confused girl to a young woman with some perspective and a more optimistic outlook on life. After I returned from this trip, I would find that in difficult times, in order to ground myself, I would take myself back to a specific hike and the accomplishment I felt taking each step up the mountain or often times, to a small pool of water with a grand waterfall that stretched beyond my view upward, cascading down over my head. Putting myself back in these moments somehow calmed me. Hawaii was my sacred space. If ever I couldn’t fall asleep at night, I would imagine one of the waterfalls that I swam under. I would transport myself back to that time, in that sacred space, and within minutes I would be asleep.

These sacred spaces, then, do not need to be physical, but can be memories of a time and place that we hold onto in our minds. They can be places we carve out within ourselves that we can go to when we have nowhere else to turn.

More recently in my life, I have been blessed with an extra bedroom in my apartment. I have turned this room into my own sacred space. This is the room I am in right now, as I type. I have two desks in here to hold all of the tools I need for my creative projects: my computer for writing, books, a drawing pad, lots of markers and pens, CDs, piles of colorful paper, journals. There is a bulletin board hanging next to me with bits of inspiration: a card from my sister, one from my mom. I have put up scraps of paper where I have written quotes or things I want to remind myself of each day. I also have up my rewards for meeting certain benchmarks with my weight (soon I’ll be going to an acupuncturist). I have a feng shui map that I created of my apartment with magazine clippings collaged around it. Then there is my “shrine” I created back when I was working through The Artist’s Way. A small table with candles, a butterfly box where I put the names of people I am thinking of and praying for, a little Buddha that one of my students once gave me, and a pendulum. I created a sign that I posted behind the shrine, which reads, “WHAT DO I WANT?” This is where I do yoga each day and what I sit before when I pray or meditate. I am constantly grateful that I have this physical room to come to whenever I need it.

And another physical space that has become sacred for me: Alice’s office. Alice is my holistic health counselor. Whenever I walk into her office, I am immediately transparent. I may have been holding back tears all day and as soon as I walk in and she asks how I am, they spill forth. There is no room to hide here. I can say or do anything and know that it is okay. It is a completely safe place for me. Often I do not allow myself to feel certain feelings or I try to push thoughts out of my mind because I don’t consider them “good” or “right”. But in this place, there is no judgment. I have found that lately, when I cannot fall asleep, Hawaii is no longer working to clear my mind and put me to sleep. Perhaps I have outgrown that space and no longer need it. I am finding that I need a new place to go to and that putting myself in Alice’s office has worked to create that feeling of calm and peace within me.

Finding sacred space is necessary for healing and creation and everything in between. Being able to have places of peace and calm that can be called your own makes such a difference. I am thankful for the sacred spaces that have put me to sleep, helped me to heal, and the ones that continue to hold me as I make my way through life.

I close my eyes, ready to meditate. My prayer begins, that is how I start out my meditation time. Today I am asking for calm to wash over me, to stay with me so that I don’t lose it again. (Two days ago, I spent most of the day crying-in my bed, in the shower, at the computer. Basically, wherever I went to try to get away from the tears, they followed). I ask for space to be opened up within me and around me, so I have room to breathe. I remind myself that I am not a job and I am not money. These things do not define who I am. And because I have neither right now, that does not mean that I need to freak out, beat myself up, or get lost in a downward spiral of sadness and fear. Then I ask my mind to get quiet and I repeat my mantra, “I am here, now, in the present.” For some reason, today my mind feels still. A few thoughts pop up now and then, but I ask them to quietly go and bring my mind back into focus. Twelve minutes pass, my timer beeps, and I am surprised to find myself turning off the timer and going back into my meditation.

When I started meditating, I found it very hard to sit still and try to quiet my thoughts. There were so many of them, fighting to be heard. I didn’t know how to silence them and I would end up getting mad at myself for having so many thoughts. So I decided, I would just use meditation as a time of prayer, thanking the Spirit for the gifts in my life, asking for love or sending love to others. But I knew prayer was not really meditation. Then I got some books on meditation and tried some of their ideas, like staring at a flame or at a particular spot in front of me. That was too hard for me. I would get bored or look around the room. I knew I needed to have my eyes closed, it helped me to go inward. At some point along the way, repeating a mantra came into my meditation time. Picking a string of words, a phrase, or a sentence and just repeating it.

As I began to take time each morning to meditate, I started out giving myself five minutes. Even with that small of an amount of time, I would find myself peeking at the clock, checking if the time had passed. So I decided to use a timer, that way I wouldn’t have to check if my time was up, it would beep and I would know. Originally, even the use of a timer was reason to pick on myself. “Real people who meditate, true meditators, wouldn’t use a timer.” But I am learning and if a timer works for me for now, then let it be. I have to give myself credit for even spending two minutes a day meditating. A year ago, I didn’t take that time for myself.

I am realizing that I have come a long way in this past year. I still have a long way to go, as well, but it’s nice to know that I have made progress. Just taking the time each day, even if my mind resists and the thoughts run wild (which they still do quite often), taking time out every day, I am building up strength and persistence. And the days when I am able to get a clear and quiet mind lead to such inner happiness. I can feel the difference on those days. And I feel that in time I will be led to more fully understand the Spirit and the workings of this world, as well as my place within it. So for now, I just show up because that is what I can do at this time: show up and try to get quiet, allowing myself the space to listen and connect within.

Because truly, what meditation means to me is connecting with the Spirit that lives within me. I believe we are each born with the Spirit inside of us and when we meditate, we connect with and are able to listen to that inner guide who is our perfect self.