In life, there comes a day when each of us has a deeper need to open up to the world to express and show who we truly are behind the mask of who we’ve tried to be since the world told us we were not enough…

There’s something deeply vulnerable and scary about facing ourselves, our fears and even our joy, but it’s even scarier when we are called to share these parts of ourselves vulnerably with others. It’s been a few years since my inner world completely changed and I was stripped away of everything I knew to be true about who I was. It was a brutal experience that made me feel trapped in my own body, making me feel the worst visceral fear I have ever experienced in my life. There was no coping mechanism, drug or distraction that would help me stop feeling. I had to feel it all and then some more.

 This experience took me down the path of consciousness, self-discovery, and healing. A path I never thought I would be walking on but will continue to do so for the rest of my life. It also took me down the path I least expected and even avoided with all my being… it took me to discover my own personal experience with the Divine.

The past three years have been the destruction of my outer world. I was stripped away of what I thought was my external life… relationships, material possessions, career, etc. The outer part of my identity was all there for me to question, to see if it was in alignment with who I was becoming internally or not. Most of it was not, but part of me didn’t want to let go out of deep fear of loneliness, rejection, etc. I had to see the reality of it all and it was heartbreaking to the point that it took a lot for me to put my heart back together piece by piece. The path to self-discovery is not an easy one, it is truly a path of destruction of the false self, the illusion of who we think we are. It strips away absolutely everything we thought was real… family, friends, careers, our personality, etc.

But for me, this has been replaced with my own essence, the truth of who I am and my authenticity. The best thing is that even though it feels lonely going through it, I am not truly alone, I have been led by God to meet people who have guided me in my own healing since 2016, who mirrored back my own essence and who have also gone through the fires of Hell themselves to recover their own souls just as I did.

Now, it is time to get myself out of the void I’ve been in and finally cross the threshold. I am being called to make a choice. So, I’m choosing myself and the narrow path of consciousness I’m walking on. I choose my essence, my light, and my connection to the Divine and nature. I chose the organic timeline. March of 2023 gifted me with many blessings that are changing my life… It was the culmination of a deeper healing process of many years and the return of a part of myself I haven’t been able to see for many lifetimes. It was the alchemy of everything I have learned that I now need to be embodied, it was the push I needed towards meeting more parts of myself, my body, and my essence.

That is the Julie you see in these pictures… the inner child, maiden, woman, and Divine essence all together revealed in these beautiful pictures. This is the True me who I am uncomfortably and joyfully sharing with all of you because it’s time… time for me to take space, to speak my truth, to share my story, and to step fully in the path of the soul that’s being guided back home to God.

I am a child of Father-Mother God, Father Sun, and Mother Earth. I am dark and light, messy and perfect, a simple human being and a Divine soul, all wrapped up together in this finite human body you all know as Julie.

I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has been part of my journey so far and those who will be part of it in the future… you know who you are.

Photos by Shelby Reid