My marriage ended in trauma, when my husband decided he would rather have a girlfriend than a wife and small children. He betrayed us, and then blamed me for his behavior. I’ve spent two decades forming the broken pieces of my family into a new mosaic, and trying to release that hurt. I have come a long way, but it still surfaces.

Today, I was riding home from one of our daughter’s events with my Ex, and I noticed my anger rising. To recenter my energy, I meditated. An ancient shaman appeared before me and crooked her finger to beckon me after her. I followed, and was shown a figure of myself standing next to a campfire. When I entered that fire circle and sat down, this is what I saw:

The shaman was holding my anger in her hands. The anger was a glittering pile of brilliant gold sand. She tilted her hands downward and gently poured the anger into the fire. It fueled the fire, sending it shooting up into the night sky. The sparks of the fire joined the stars. Then the shaman reached up and gathered the flames, starting at the top, collecting them and their power in her hands. She brought the fire down to its embers and tamped it down with her hands, forming a thick molten disc of glowing gold. She raised the molten circle in her hands, forming it into a heart shape, and placed it in my chest. She stroked the heart sweetly, saying Now you have your own heart, a heart that loves only you, unconditionally.

I realized that I had been giving away my heart, my whole life, and now this heart was just for me. With this heart, I can love myself first.