Covered in blood, I couldn’t lift my arms.

How did I get here?

Events of the previous night flooded my mind as I became more conscious of my surroundings.

I had been at a friend’s house. She was working the second shift, and our boyfriends were hanging out while I slept on the couch. I wasn’t interested in partying anymore.

When she returned home from work, she found me beaten to within an inch of my life. Our boyfriends had decided to get high, and mine thought I deserved to die that night.

Instead, I survived and had a decision to make.

My friend had called the police, and I apparently became combative once they arrived. I must have feared that I would somehow be in trouble.

I was a complete mess and didn’t know who to trust.

I needed to get out of there, and as much as I didn’t want to go home, I knew I had no other choice if I wanted to survive.

Not long after settling in with my aunt, I left and moved into the clutches of the controlling, abusive man who had beat me nearly to death.

Eight years my senior, he was very charming and gave few hints that he would turn into the monster that he was.

I wanted to leave but feared it would be too dangerous. Besides, I was committed to staying away from my family, and going back would mean defeat.

I couldn’t get a job. I was underage, didn’t have a Georgia driver’s license, and I wasn’t from around there. I was a ‘Yankee’ in their eyes. But after nearly two years of misery, I wanted out.

That day in the hospital, lying there in restraints, I realized I was in way over my head, and I needed to get out before it was too late.

Shame permeated my being. I had been defeated, after all.

This was not the life I wanted to live.

I’d had enough of the hunger and the emotional and physical abuse. And the fear.

I was tired of looking and feeling like a wretch.



Going home would be hard, but it would be safe.

With my grandmother's help, I escaped and made it home to my parents. On arrival, they greeted me with momentary relief.

And then anger.

Their icy glares were ever-present.

They treated me like a criminal, a loathsome, wretched excuse for a human being.

I was angry, too.

I was also broken and hurt inside, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

I needed them to love and forgive me and to have compassion for the trauma I had endured.

Only my anger was visible to them.

Working at the restaurant didn’t bring in much beyond gas and insurance, so my parents hired me as their housekeeper instead of paying rent.

One night, while eating dinner, my parents lectured me about not doing a good enough job cleaning the house. I was trying, but it didn’t matter.

Nothing I did to show my regret for my past decisions was good enough in their eyes.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I slammed my dinner plate across the room into the wall.

I ran upstairs, packed my belongings, and left in such a state of rage I almost couldn’t see straight to drive.

I stayed in a motel, sobbing over the state of my life and not knowing what to do or where to go.

The next day at work, my boss, Eddie, could see that I was distraught. He and his wife, my dad’s cousin, Nancy, invited me to stay with them and gave me peace of mind and support.

I had a lot of recovery work to do, but at nineteen, who even knew what that meant?

All I knew then was that I was hurting and felt I had no purpose in life.

How would I move forward?

Photo by Peter Robbins on Unsplash

I sat up outside of my body.

I could see in all directions without turning around and was aware of my sleeping body behind me.

How’d I do that?

I wasn’t alone.

Like the sun, a presence emanated a golden light that filled the room as its arms outstretched over me.

I didn’t give myself time to think about what was happening.

I did the only thing I could think of.

I turned around, fell back into my sleeping body, closed my eyes tight, and prayed for protection.

The next morning, I woke up feeling like I’d had a strange dream.

Then I remembered.



It was no dream.

I had no reference for this strange being that woke me out of my body in the middle of the night.

Nor did I know I could sit up out of my body while it stayed sleeping on the bed.

I didn’t know that there were actual spiritual beings in existence.

It was different from what I had imagined an angel to be. It was more than just air or light; it seemed to have an energy and density like I had never imagined.

I had no tools to help me work through this, so I tucked it deep inside my mind.

I never told anyone about it. Who would believe me, anyway?

It’s not every day that one wakes up sitting outside of one's body in the presence of a being emanating golden light.

And besides, do angels even visit wretches?

After that experience, my life started to change. I began to see hope for myself and to realize that maybe I wasn’t such a wretch after all.

I became an observer and kept to myself more. I tried to do the right things and take better care of myself. Things I hadn’t cared much about before that night.

My thoughts became fully present in my mind like never before. I remember noticing my words and inner talk and wondering why I was paying so much attention to them.

I couldn’t help it.



That was my baseline from that day on.

As the years passed, the experience floated in the back of my mind, quietly pushing me to question and seek answers.

As I sought answers, the healing path slowly emerged. In Brennan’s Hands of Light, her guide said,

“Enlightenment is the goal; healing is the by-product.”

Enlightenment cannot come if we are steeped in our wounds and unable to love.

We must clear ourselves of our pain and suffering and learn to love ourselves and others.

We must heal.

The spiritual path was a process that helped me to overcome depression, despair, and chronic low self-esteem.

My spiritual path showed me how to let go of the hatred I held in my heart toward my mother and myself.

Slowly, I learned about healing and connecting with higher beings.

On my journey of self-discovery and Spirit, if I ever doubted the reality of spiritual beings, guides, or ascended masters, I had my personal experience to remind me.

They are real.

I learned that night that my physical body is only part of who I am. The other part is made up of the Spirit Soul.

“We are all spiritual beings having a human experience.”

And yes, the angels, guides, and teachers exist in other realms, ready to work with us when we are ready.

"We are all guided by spiritual teachers who speak to us in our dreams, through intuition, and eventually, if we listen, perhaps through writing, sound, voice, or concepts.”

Or through middle-of-the-night wake-up calls.

It’s no easy endeavor to wake up to our spiritual dimension while steeped in 3D life.

But awaken, we must.

We are assigned to awakening our spiritual nature in each lifetime, but no one said it would be easy.



We must start from the beginning in each incarnation as if we have never been here before. As Newton says in Journey of Souls,

“It does seem a heavy burden that in every new life, a soul must search all over again to find its true self in a different body.”

Looking back on my encounter with an angelic being of light and my out-of-body experience, I realize there was no reason to fear.

I feared it because I did not understand. Our religious frameworks, on the whole, do not teach the possibility of angel visitation, except in ancient times, not meant for the here and now.

To know the reality of our spiritual existence, we must seek answers from alternative sources, such as spiritual science, metaphysics, meditation, nature, etc.

As we open to the possibilities of alternate dimensions, we may have our own direct experiences. No one can take that away from us.

The memory of being in the presence of an angelic being was like a shining beacon guiding me down a different path.

A path I would need the courage to walk.



Maybe this lifetime was meant for me to find ways to heal the deep wounds created by emotional abandonment, betrayal, and other traumas. And to learn to love and have compassion for myself and others. Perhaps it was the doorway I needed to discover my true nature as

“a spiritual being having a physical existence.”

Thanks for reading!

Have you had a wake-up call that put you on your own healing and awakening path? Please let me know in the comments!

Here is a great story about finding your own way: