My Way or The High Way? How the chaos beginning in 2020 forged me into a Spiritual Badass

In the lower expression of this "My way or the highway" statement, it's an ego declaration. “You better do as I say or else.” The punishing consequences are not usually based in love, but rather for the sake of control and hierarchy. It's different from tough love where you set necessary boundaries that do not cause harm to another, but rather encourage their growth and maturity.

The same energy used to “break a horse” so it's no longer spirited. It learns to fear you rather than works with you as your partner through connection and bonding.

I’ve experienced this threat my entire life through intimate partnerships, bad bosses, toxic friends, employers, families and on and on it goes. I’m certain everyone has to varying degrees unless they’ve been hiding in a cave living with wolves.

It was meant to break my spirit. Rather than doing that, it made me a spiritual badass. To be spiritual strong, we are forged through the fires and pressures of crisis. To prove our true strength to ourselves, rather that to anyone else, we must be tested.

In the way I lived this statement throughout my life, The High Way is the way I chose because it meant the way of The Most High as expressed through my Higher Self.

When we are challenged and threatened by those around us to do it their way or else, we have a choice. At first it is overt and to our faces. When we don’t comply to the cult of one or many, it becomes covert through the withdrawal of conditional love and support, the smearing of our reputations and planting seeds of doubt about our character. The environment becomes hostile to us. This has been my experience over and over again. Yet I also chose the High Way over and over again. They showed me who they really were. They didn't have my best interest at heart. I didn’t need to argue with them.

We do not change life for the better by going with the flow because it’s temporarily comfortable even though we know it’s not sustainable, balanced or healthy. Doing so means we are giving our power and permission to allow the current timeline we are living to play out uninterrupted.

Real change comes from the positive disruption. To insert love and spirit into an emotionally dead or toxic situation. In extreme conditions it means taking extreme measures. When people, places and situations try to hang onto us so that we stay stagnant, it’s not personal. It’s energy. When just one energy changes in any situation, it disrupts and changes the entire timeline. Just one person can do that.

In 2020 when my city of Portland devolved into chaos, destruction, criminality, extreme Covid measures, Marxism and so much more, I had a choice. Again, I chose to go the High Way in accordance with my Higher Self.

Personally I paid a high price. I lost my partner, homes, money, family, friends, and for the short term, my peace of mind. I had to go on faith. I took huge risks and chances because I couldn’t sit back, cower in fear and do nothing.

The hardest part was when I was not allowed anywhere near the young people in the cult-like family I was around at the time because I was an advocate for adults to make their own decision about the injections. I was literally ostracized, scapegoated, lied about behind my back and every other cruel technique cult-like groups use to force everyone to be the same, to do the same without any regard for free will or individual expression. This part of the nightmare experience broke my heart so badly, I honestly don't know how I recovered except by the Grace of God.

I used my voice publicly in ways aligned with my values without yelling at anyone or arguing with them. Occasionally, I did need to stand my ground when some crazy person was yelling at me for no valid reason.

At first, I blatantly registered as a Republican in my condo building near downtown Portland, which was in and of itself a radical act. At the time being known as a Republican could get you beat up or killed walking down certain streets. I wasn't in agreement with everything that meant, but because I was using my energy to attempt to bring balance into a extremely unbalanced environment. I wasn’t on the “side” of one extreme or the other. I was on the “side” of balance like the vast majority of people.

I wrote to every politician asking for reasonable policies. I withdrew financial support from any and all organizations I felt were not (or no longer) charities, but rather political fronts.

I challenged the condo policies that were failing to warn the residents about the often violent and fiery rioting taking place on our street. Now, keep in mind that at least one actual member of the rioting group were working at the front desk of my building. (You know, that group that everyone said didn't even exist?)

I kept my head high while I walked the halls and entrances of that building. People yelled at me often because I was standing confidently in my inner power, holding an inner strength earned by dealing with and overcoming many challenges, and a resolve that people can feel regardless of what I am saying, doing or NOT saying.

The chaos and mayhem went on for MONTHS and even YEARS. (Kudos to the people of Portland for the positive changes that have been made since this nightmare period. Many people have worked tirelessly to help restore their city. It's wonderful to see.)

I posted on social media what my beliefs were based on what I was actually experiencing and seeing with my own eyes. I stood strong in them. I found out who my true friends were. Regardless of any experience they had with me personally, many saw me as their enemy or just plain stupid. I am neither.

In 2021 after an entire year of this craziness made worse by the insanity of the Covid mandates doing everything possible to force compliance with certain injections (Our Way or the High Way!) Again, I chose The High Way by making the hard decision to leave Portland, Oregon. A place I had loved and enjoyed from 2002 through 2019. I cherish those wonderful memories and how much my life was enhanced by the natural beauty and a thriving culture. I decided to sell my condo at a loss and move on. I was in my 60’s. This was not the place I wanted to invest my time, energy and resources at this age and stage of my life. I didn't feel there was any real love left for me there.

I went stealth on social media throughout 2022 and most of 2023 while I put time, energy and resources into creating my new life in a new state for myself and my senior dog. It took every ounce of my resources financially and internally to do it no matter what was said to me or about me by the fake and cold people I was still surrounded by. I am a highly intuitive Empath. So I know what people are saying about me behind my back even while disingenuously smiling to my face.

I trusted the High Way. Going with my Higher Self even though it was difficult and frightening.

Why so much resistance to me, just one woman in her 60’s?

This is why: Because the disruptors are changing the narrative and timeline just by way of being in a different energy. Like that dang pebble in your shoe, it’s an irritant. “If I can just get rid of that pebble, everything will be fine.” Except when you actually take your shoe off, you discover the pebble was actually an insect biting you! It was meant to get your attention.

The disruptors are telling you there is a deeper problem. Something to look into, to dig into limiting stories, beliefs and outright lies.

When these type of disruptors, who are good people, exit an environment, it sends a clear message that there is something seriously wrong happening even when you’re still not ready to see it or accept it.

This difficult phase of my life created a new version of me. I am not the same person I used to be. How could I be?

I’m not going to create some fake happily ever after ending to this story. I have learned to keep the blessings, joys and triumphs I experience in my new life private and personal, shared only with a limited number of people I trust. This is the best way to protect my happiness.

Was it worth the personal cost I paid and the temporary hits I took to my good reputation?

Yes it was. It was worth more to me than I can possible quantify for reasons that are authentic and deeply sacred to my own soul.