It’s been about twenty-five years since my first marriage took its final breath and my life moved forward into a new and unexplored land. It was a place and space that was dark, yet bountiful. It was a world fraught with painfully hard-fought for wisdom, gut wrenching enlightened understanding, and eventual transformative acceptance.

The fight for custody of our three young children George, Brittany, and Alyssa was brutal, torturous, terrifying, and deeply sorrowful. As the last chapter of our lives as husband and wife together wrote itself on the pages of the mystical akashic records [1], I collapsed in a bundle of frayed nerves, a wounded heart, and feelings of hopelessness and despair. Yet, despite my lack of a clear path forward, I knew one thing for sure. I had a purpose here on the earth plane. It was a path being directed by a new-found soulful and self-directed plea, that I might be of service to our Creator and the people on this beautiful planet we all call home. How I was going to be able to accomplish that goal was still a mystery yet to be solved.

The following story is a testament to how, once we offer ourselves in the service to others, not only are the people we reach out to and help positively affected, but in teaching and serving others, we learn our lessons, remember our truth, and heal from our own pain as well.

Memory reconstructed from sometime in the late 90’s…Late summer

“It’s interesting how joyful I feel,” I mused. “Usually as the summer is about to bid, ‘Adieu,’ I feel a bit sad. I also feel a somewhat desperate desire to hold back the arrival of autumn so I can enjoy the season of vitality, warmth, and vibrant colorful foliage just a little longer. Of course, Mother Nature has her own plans,” I thought. “So, I guess I should not overthink this moment and simply enjoy it.”

Somewhere around midmorning, I noticed a significant shift in my mood. Out of nowhere, anxiety, uneasiness, and restlessness began to filter down into my solar plexus. It was puzzling as there was no clear reason for the abrupt transformation in my psyche. It wasn’t accompanied by any defining thoughts that might have shaped my sudden and darkening mood.

Nevertheless, work awaited along with several clients who had booked appointments with me for a massage. When I arrived at the spa my anxious feelings came right along with me. I decided to sit quietly and pray. I asked my team of light to help me set aside my own needs and troubles, whatever they were, so that I could be there fully for whoever God was sending to me. I wanted to serve God and by doing so, I would serve every soul that he entrusted to me.

“Dru, your client is here,” announced the receptionist.

I walked to the waiting room and greeted a young woman who was pacing back and forth as I approached.

“Hi Pam,” I said. “My name is Dru. How are you feeling today?

“Stressed, so much stress,” she uttered shaking her head from side to side as she followed me down the hallway.

As I brought her into the treatment room, I turned and said, “Ok, Pam, I can see you’re upset about something. Perhaps you’d like to talk about it.”

She nodded as tears pooled in her eyes. I instructed her on how to prepare for her treatment and told her I’d be back in a few moments. When I reentered the room, she was lying faceup on the table, wide eyed and eager to share what was troubling her.

“It’s been forty years, you know, forty years. All that stuff… I just don’t know how I can face it all. And him! I’m so angry at him for dying and leaving me alone with all these problems,” she rambled, and I tried confusedly to piece together what she was trying to tell me.

“Forty years of what,” I asked.

“Living in that house together, being married to him, raising our kids together, all the memories and all the piles of stuff that was our life! Now I have to sell the house. What do I do with all the memories? Do I just throw them away? Every time I try to clean out a space, I find pictures of our life together, things he gave me … just so many memories and I fall apart over and over and over again. I can’t get through this! I can’t.”

Her voice began to crack, and tears were now flowing like torrents down her cheeks as anguished sobs rose up from her pain. She reached up and grabbed her head with both hands as if to try to stop the endless stream of worries, visions of a past, fears of the future and her unrelenting grief. She told me she felt as if life had picked her up, swung her around, and hurled her into a place she no longer recognized and desperately wanted to escape from. I reached down and took her hands in mine. After a few moments, she calmed a bit, and I began to offer her my thoughts.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Pam. At times like these, words are of little comfort, but I do understand what it feels like to face a terrible loss, and a world where everything has changed. During a time, not so long ago, when I was in a very dark space and couldn’t even imagine being able to heal from all the deep sadness and sorrow I was experiencing, a human angel was there to help.

He told me that the best way to heal oneself, is to reach out and try to help another person in need. He told me that God doesn’t ask us to come to him and be of service when we have gotten it all together and fixed our lives. He asks us to come to him with all of our faults, failings, and troubles because we are exactly what he needs.

At the time, I thought, “How can I possibly help anyone when I feel so broken and in pain. Yet something in his words made sense to me and I somehow l believed I had found the answer as to how I could define my life going forward, and perhaps even emerge with joy from my tragic circumstances.”

“Hmmmm,” Pam reflected. “You know now that you say that the only time, I feel good lately is when I bring food to an elderly friend of mine who has cancer. She is so grateful just to have my company and I feel so blessed to be able to make her day just a little brighter for her. Just for a moment, I feel happy, and I forget my pain.”

“Yes,” I said. “Being of service to others in times of need has a way of making us feel stronger and can restore our hope. When we step away from our pain and begin to focus on healing others, love, light, and life return to our hearts. We begin to believe that we can handle whatever life gives us no matter how difficult.

What followed was a transcendent moment. Pam’s energy became almost childlike, and I could sense, even for a short moment, her despair transforming into abundant hope and renewed purpose. Her tears ceased to fall, and her once grief-filled eyes brightened and were suddenly filled with a perceptible radiant light. She looked serene, tranquil, and at peace. I was sure her journey through grief was far from over, but I hoped the bit of wisdom I shared would make her burden just a little lighter.

The treatment was over. She thanked me for the gift she believed I had given her. As she was walking out the door, I felt overwhelming gratitude as well. I realized that a blessed miracle had occurred, and she had given me a precious gift as well. She allowed me to do exactly what I was trying to teach her to do. I rose above my own anxiety and pain from that morning, reached out to another soul who needed me, and astonishingly my anxiety and angst were completely gone, transmuted by the empathy and love we both shared. My healing was my reward for “being of service”.

Over the years, the more I taught, the more I learned, and the more I served the more I healed.

[1] the Akashic records are a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms, not just human. Wikipedia