A few years ago, I was remembering a moment in my adolescence when my whole life changed for ever in the space of one afternoon. As I reflected on the enormity of that day, I wondered what it was that helped me to survive. I was only 15, and maybe something or someone helped me. I wondered, did I have a guardian angel?

Was it more than just me that got me through that day and the horrendous months afterwards? In the past I had often thought that maybe I had guardian angels or some kind of guides that unseeingly helped me when I was unable to help myself. But I never really thought about it seriously, it was more like just wondering. Two years ago I did more than wonder if it was possible and I  actually sat and thought about it in detail.

After learning so much about the power of the mind, I decided to choose to believe that whatever my brain believes is real is real for me. This led me to wondering if maybe the me that I am now was the guardian angel I had then. As I sat and thought about it I decided to play with it a bit. I decided to pretend that it is what really happened. So I sat down with my journal and I wrote a letter to my 15 year old self.  I spoke to that young woman as if I was her guardian angel. I imagined that I was able to travel through time to go back and provide comfort, compassion, and understanding for that young woman, that young me. Because I was a little unsure, I did my best to observe all of the rules for time travel that I had seen in science fiction movies and had a bit of a laugh at myself while I did it. But my intention was to comfort her, to help her feel less alone and afraid. When I finished, an amazing thing had happened. I had healed more of the trauma around that experience. I felt lighter, more loved, more understanding and understood, and much more at peace than ever before. I felt like I finally had closure around the events of that day after over 30 years. It really blew me away how effective that little exercise was, so about a year later I decided to do it again. I decided that I would go back in time and help myself get through my traumatic birth. But as I sat down to start the story, I suddenly realised that it wasn't me that I want to help, it was my 17 year old mother.  During the course of my life my mother had often recounted how traumatic my birth was for her at such a young age. I decided, at the age of 44, that I was ready to help my mother get through that experience. I decided that I wanted to be my mothers guardian angel during my birth. Even now it still sounds pretty far out. 

I did sit down and write that out and I found again a most amazing healing had occurred in me.  Finally, after 44 years of feeling in enraged and abused, I had learned to feel compassion for my mother and in so doing, I began to learn to feel compassion for myself. My heart began to open more than ever before.

Because of the great and deep healing I experienced from doing this twice, I've decided now that I don't care how weird it seems, it works for me. So now I do these exercises whenever I get the urge. Earlier this year I went through something that I found it really really difficult and because I wanted so badly to see the whole situation with unconditional love and did not feel able to, I decided to the enlist the help of my future self.  I asked my 70 year old self to come back and be a guardian angel for me and wrote out a letter from her to me. That too worked really well and I found some sense of peace within me from doing it. 

Quantum theory does have an explanation for this which I haven't studied properly myself so I won't go into that.  Studies have proved that what my brain believes is real is real for my own brain. I've known and experienced this long enough now to know that I can choose what I want to believe. I can choose to believe what I'm told to believe, I can choose to believe what my thoughts would have me believe, I can choose what my five senses want me to believe. I know now that I can create beliefs for myself and keep recreating them as needed.  My beliefs shape my reality, and therefore need my attention. If I believe that nothing is possible, then nothing will be possible. Fortunately I don't believe that, I choose to believe that anything is possible and therefore anything is possible for me.

I'm not sure where I'll journey to in the next exercise. What I do know is that in learning to master myself through doing what feels good and right within my body and Soul, I'm living a much more fulfilled and happy life.

- June Parkin