parents. Like us, they're shaped by their own challenges and triumphs. People fail other people for so many reasons and, when we feel let down, we have two routes to take — learn from our experiences and become better because of them or become carbon copies of those that raised us and continue the cycle.

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While writing this newsletter, I received an unexpected notification from Ancestry.com that I had a new “hint” (a new relative discovery). My updates made a connection to a “first cousin” who had been suggested for my family tree. I know all of my cousins, so I was surprised to see this hint. As I clicked on the information about my new cousin find, I realized he was the nephew of my birth father.

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Because I’d shown interest in this cousin, Ancestry began suggesting a few other connections, and then … there he was. A high school picture of my birth father, who had lived in the same city as I did for over a decade, yet had never reached out to connect with me in my 56 years. Ancestry then let me know that he passed away a year ago. Even if I had wanted to connect, that door had been officially closed.

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I couldn’t believe how hard this hit me, stirring an unexpected wave of grief. Though I grew up with my birth mother and adoptive father and had long ago accepted my birth father's absence, seeing his face for the first time brought a mix of emotions. When I was younger, I wondered what he looked like — and did I resemble him? My mother didn't save any of his photos, so seeing his high school picture was my first glimpse into the other half of where I came from. In his photo, I could see hints of my own sons in his features. To add to the complex emotions rolling around in my head, I discovered I have a half-brother and a half-sister from his later marriages — siblings living their lives likely unaware of my existence.

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Needless to say, it was a rough few days for me. Questions from my childhood began to resurface: "How would my life have been different?" and "Would my life have been better if I had a relationship with him?" … But ultimately, my childhood was exactly what it needed to be to shape me into who I am today.

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So where do the Divine Parents come in? Lacking my ideal parental connections, I have long been able to work in a higher consciousness state to retrieve the parental-type wisdom and guidance I needed to develop on my own journey, heal from past wounds, and gain a deeper sense of inner peace and direction. Using binaural beat audios and shamanic journeying for entering a theta state of consciousness has been a bridge to connect me to that divine wisdom, guiding and supporting me throughout the last decade.

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​If you, too, feel the need for nurturing parental energy, whether due to separation, loss, or strained family dynamics, I encourage you to explore this connection. I invite you to listen to the "Connecting to Your Divine Mother" guided meditation two sections below, which can bring you to a sacred space where the essence of motherly love is always available. If you need fatherly love and guidance, you can listen to the same meditation and just ask for the Divine Father energy to come forward for you.