Guest post by Kimberly Schneider

If you’ve read my book or attended one of my workshops, you know I talk a lot about the power of the stories we tell ourselves.

The stories we create–stories about what has happened to us in the past, why people are doing what they are doing, and what’s possible for us–those stories are everything, really. Those stories, and the feelings they generate, create our reality.

I was thinking about this recently as I remembered an experience I had with my Dad. Here’s the story:

It shouldn’t have been so scary.  

I was not a child anymore, after all. I was 23 and home from law school for the holidays (though I had an apartment in St. Louis, back then I still considered wherever my parents were living to be “home”). My boyfriend was visiting his own parents a few hours away. I was going to take the bus to meet him for New Year’s Eve and then we would drive back together in a few days in his car.

It had seemed like a wonderful plan. 

Until the reality of this particularly gritty, nearly empty bus station in the city. My sheltered suburban mind had not pictured such a place as a launching pad for the trip.  

There were a few people milling around, none of whom appeared to work there. No police. No security guards. Just a few men in threadbare clothes who looked like they might not have bathed, shaved or eaten much in recent days. One guy was sleeping on a bench; I wondered if he had spent the night there.

My Dad asked if I wanted him to stay, and I wanted to say, “Jesus, yes! Have you looked at this place? You wouldn’t really let me wait here alone, would you?”

But I was an adult now. Almost a lawyer. A woman of the world, off to meet her lover. Bravado was more appropriate, so I insisted that he leave. “The bus will be here soon, Dad. Don’t be silly. I’m fine!” 

As soon as he disappeared around the corner I wanted to call out for him to come back, but I was too embarrassed.  I sat there alone, trying hard to look worldly. Nonchalant. Unapproachable.  

I must have checked my watch 37 times over the next 15 minutes.

And then, he was there again. My Dad. A knowing smile in his eyes and a white waxy bag in his hand.

“I saw this doughnut shop down the street and I know how much you love caramel long johns. I thought you might be hungry and I would rather eat mine with you than in the car.”

He brought me a taste of home, enjoyed in a companionable silence on the dirty bus station bench.

I carried the relief and happiness and sense of safety with me all the way to Springfield, and back to law school, and into the rest of my life.  

***

As I was thinking about that story, and remembering how safe and happy I felt, I realized that it has been five years since my Dad left his body.

You wouldn’t think this would come as such a profound insight, because I have actively missed Dad, and grieved him, written about him and talked about him so often.

But thinking about this story helped me see that my Dad’s presence in my life had given me a sense that I was safe, that someone was cheering me on (no matter what), that someone was always looking out for me.  That someone would always understand.  And his death ripped my sense of safety apart.

And somehow, since then, I’ve been living with the unconscious story that I can’t hold my own in a world without my Dad in it.

So now, my task is to take this insight, and apply the mantra Deepak Chopra offered to me this morning in meditation, “Everything I Desire Is Within Me,” to create a new inner story.

I need to find a way to re-create the sense of safety and love I got from my Dad’s presence.  The safety that comes from walking with the Divine.  The safety that has nothing to do with physical security, but a deeper knowing that no matter what is happening in my life, “everything I need is right here.”

May the peace of a loving parent be with you always,

Kimberly Schneider

http://www.KimberlySchneider.com

The Manifestation Maven

http://Facebook.com/KimberlyVSchneider

ABOUT KIMBERLY SCHNEIDER: What do you get when you take a person with the soul of a poet, the mind of a scholar and the heart of a healer–and turn her into a trial lawyer? Existential crisis and more graduate school!  Throw in a counseling degree and decades of coaching extraordinary individuals to consciously create meaningful lives, and you end up with Kimberly Schneider, M.Ed., J.D., LPC, author of Everything You Need Is Right Here: Five Steps to Manifesting Magic and Miracles. 

Kimberly Schneider’s work arises out of a belief that every experience offers a gift to us, if we are open to receiving it.  Her dynamic mix of storytelling, compassionate awareness and accessible poetry make her an engaging speaker and teacher. Kimberly teaches Communication at Washington University-St. Louis and is a regular contributor to Great Day St. Louis television show. She brings her rich life experience and unique insight to keynote speeches, individual and group coaching sessions, workshops, classrooms, radio and television appearances and Celtic Spirituality retreats in western Ireland. You can request her free Conscious Manifestation eCourse at www.KimberlySchneider.com

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EVERYTHING YOU NEED IS RIGHT HERE: An empowering, accessible, simple yet in-depth manual for falling in love with your Self and your life once and for all. You’re not “doing it wrong.” You’ve simply forgotten who you are, and why you are here. Dive into this book and remember. Breathe. Relax. Smile. Everything You Need Is Right Here. Everything You Need Is Right Here: Five Steps to Manifesting Magic and Miracles draws upon Kimberly’s wealth of experience as a licensed professional counselor specializing in spiritual development–as well as her own inspiring life–to create an entertaining and profound step-by-step guide to transformation. “Using candid and authentic glimpses into her own and her family’s personal journey, Kimberly takes us right to the heart of what it means to create our own reality.” (Jody Baron, author of Relax into Sex: The Art of Spiritual Lovemaking) “Kimberly’s words lie naturally and easily beside the words of John O’Donohue, Jalaluddin Rumi, Meister Eckhart and Mahatma Gandhi, making Everything You Need Is Right Here a treasure trove of artistic creativity as well as a cornucopia of right living.” (Noirin Ni Riain, sacred music vocalist and author of Listen with the Ear of the Heart) Take this journey through Kimberly’s life of miracles and rediscover the magic in your own life along the way. Everything You Need Is Right Here.

Buy the Book:

www.KimberlySchneider.com/go (directions for downloading introduction and first chapter for free; you can also get to Amazon link or digitally download from here)