Yesterday I did an intense guided meditation with a client who’s struggling with the fear of what others will think of her if her business really takes off… So I had her focus on her worst-case scenario: a woman who’d started an online attack campaign against her last year… And then I had her sink into this bitter woman’s skin — to witness life through her eyes… As if she WAS HER, completely.

I was doing this along with my client… and the minute I sank into this Troll’s body, I started to cry… the amount of pain and shame and heartbreak was utterly overwhelming. Both my highly-intuitive client and I could feel how she’s been deeply wounded by her father’s dismissal of her as a child… Her sorrow, rage and confusion — as she spent her life searching desperately for validation and approval — rocked me to my core.

And I couldn’t stop crying the rest of the day… Sure, I could have cleared her energy from me, but somehow I wanted to hold onto this painful reminder a bit longer…

I ended my night watching the sun set over my favorite secluded hilltop spot where I go every day to meditate and reflect… And as Jason Mraz sang: “I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make” into my iPod (from his beautiful song “I Won’t Give Up”), I started crying again… It as if I could see and feel EVERY Soul around the entire world…

All of us the same. All of us searching. All of us feeling deep, intense pain. All of our hearts so innocent, and tender, and lost sometimes…

It was so clear in that moment… Terrorists, fanatics, haters, trolls, cheaters, abusers, you, me (and perhaps even Donald Trump?) are all the same underneath it all… We’re just little lost kids in big giant bodies… looking for love with the (often lousy) tools we’ve been taught.

No human being has EVER done a cruel act to hurt another… I’ve done this empathy-exercise enough to know that down into my very bones. Every mean, cruel or violent act is simply a desperate, misguided, broken attempt to feel better… Always.

Sure, I intellectually “know” this sentiment, and this sure isn’t my first energetic/intuitive rodeo — but to be reminded SO viscerally by experiencing the pain of this wounded-warrior-woman, firsthand — brought it home in a deeper way than ever before.

We’re all a part of the same whole. We all feel the same under our skin and behind the scenes. And we can NEVER know how we’d act until we’ve walked in another’s shoes…

Ah… My deepest desire is to gaze into everyone’s eyes as if I’m witnessing my very own Soul… (Because I’m pretty sure I am.)

I think that’s the ONLY path to peace on this planet. Everything else is just war in disguise…

So I’m sending a secret, silent shout-out to this hurting woman for the gift she gave to me and my client yesterday… endlessly grateful and feeling deeply, profoundly blessed (and humbled) to KNOW her…