Shanna’s Story

"Coming Home"

Meet one of the women who was apart of the Rediscover Campaign. She opened up and shared a piece of her personal journey of self-love. With her story, her truth, and her transformation she heals the world. Here is Shanna's story!

LONG STORY VERY SHORT

My story begins in childhood, knowing that I was different from the world around me. I always felt big, but my environment never allowed me to BE big. I grew up with domestic violence, and the family ideals were very much based around attachment. I would have grand visions of my life as an adult, and I would create things such as magazines where I would take photos of my barbies with my mom’s camera and create stories to go with them. I would draw designs of shoes and clothes, and be very proud of all of my creations, but there wasn’t really anyone around that would get excited with me, so I just stopped doing it.

At the age of 11 I had brain surgery and really just asked myself “why can’t I have a ‘normal’ life?” I stopped embracing my creativity and what excited me because nobody else embraced it with me. I just started trying to fit in with the things that excited everyone else, and tried to find the same excitement. I never really did, so most of my life was just me pretending. I was well liked effortlessly, so I just went with that, instead of liking myself, even if nobody else did.

I went on to accomplish everything we are taught is success in this life, on my own, a great paying career, home, cars, etc. By this point, I completely lost who I was, which meant I was on a constant search for someone to accept and love me, in relationships. I would then define myself by the person I was with. This led to very toxic co dependent relationships. I would take care of the men I was with financially, subconsciously hoping it would bring them to love and appreciate me for it. What I ended up with was cheaters, liars, manipulators, and just all around being taken advantage of. I was beaten and choked to death in one of my relationships, and it finally ended because he busted my mouth open in front of my son, and I couldn’t allow my son to see that any longer. It was this point that I began the journey to the bottom, the lowest points of my life, that I had to reach, in order to awaken to the truths of who I am and begin living that.

After that incident, I felt like a failure as a woman, as a mother, just as a human being all together. I was tired of providing a nice home for people that just hurt me, so I began doing the opposite. I began doing drugs, and partying as much as I could, getting involved with many ‘in-crowds’ again, just settling with fitting in, because I gave up on being big. Everything I was doing brought shame to myself so I left my son at his grandmother’s house with his father because I didn’t want him to also be ashamed of me. I raised my son by myself with no help from his father nor did I ever ask him for anything, from 2008-2016, so I was under the impression his father would have the same respect for me and watch over him until I got myself back together.

I got into the relationship that would bring me to my lowest. He was addicted to pills, unbeknownst to me, but when I found out, instead of leaving, I began doing them with him so that I could be on his level, again, still searching for acceptance, and settling tofit in, instead of being big. I got arrested and overdosed on fentanyl all in one month in 2017, and that is when I received a message, it was me talking to me as I lay lifeless on the couch, saying “this is your last chance, we cannot save you anymore because you keep choosing to destroy yourself.” I heeded that warning and in the early months of 2018 I looked up to the sky while in my office at work and said “I’m ready to see the reason why I was born.”

My life began to appear to fall apart, I was terminated from my job (illegally), my partner was so bad on drugs I had to ask him to leave or he was going to kill himself. I had already saved his life a couple of times from overdose. With my son still at his grandmothers, I was now left with myself to sink or swim. I began to look in the mirror and speak to myself and realized very quickly that this is where all the answers had always been, within me, I just didn’t want to believe that I was big enough to have them.

I stopped making myself small toaccommodate the need of others around me to feel big. I stepped into the bigness that I had always known I had within me; this bigness was love. I learned I was here to bring this amazing gift of love to the world, but I couldn’t until I gave it to myself. It was in searching how to love myself, I had to learn that I had to unlearn everything I was told about myself and who I was, because none of it was true. It was here I learned that we are love itself and that love is not an action, it is a state of being that can only be obtained when you live as if you are the only existent being on this earth and learnwhat it is that excites you. I got back to the excitement I had to create things like I did when I was a child.

I learned that we are all much more than we have been taught to be, and began to love and accept myself with the understanding that I am the one I have been searching for my whole life.

I now live my life as an example of fearlessly following the guidance from my higher self-thru my intuition, with no regards of the opinion of another, to show the world, that this is who we are, we are love, and this knowledge is our freedom.

This following of my intuition has taken me around the world where I heal people, I heal mother earth, and I rise within myself, all in the energy of love first for myself, it is there love for all comes naturally. I have published six books and have two more in the works currently. I have also created a line if unisex t-shirts with my quotes on them with the purpose of creating change in perception in all who read them. All of this is only the beginning of the big

I’ve seen within myself my entire life, and an example of the big that resides within all of us.

That bigness is the energy of love, that is creation, and this knowledge has been taken from us. I’m here to remind the world of who we are.

Love, Shanna