“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl

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Throughout my adolescent years, I never gave death much thought.

My family wasn’t the frequent church-going type, except for special occasions like Christmas Eve and Easter. But we did believe in heaven, and it never occurred to me there was anywhere else you could go after this lifetime.

That was until my mother died of cancer, leaving behind four children and a happy life. She was 39 years old. I was 17.

After her death, I felt alone. I felt helpless. I felt like the greater part of me was forever gone. I would’ve crossed the world a thousand times if it meant I could just see her once more.

As a way to cope, I started a yoga practice and went once a week to the same teacher at my hometown studio. When I left for college, I’d come home on weekends to practice at the same place with the same teacher. I was drawn to her beauty and insight.

My mind began to bloom like a little lotus flower, hearing words about spirit and energy and life force and connection. I could feel my beliefs about where my mother was now start to shake and shift and rearrange into new form.

My teacher once explained: if you took a dead body and filled the lungs with air, pumped the veins with blood, and somehow started the heart, that person would not come back to life because their soul has moved on. Their body is now just a body, an empty vessel, because the energy has left.

From then on, I stopped imagining my mother, with her beautiful blonde hair and bright lipstick, as a glowing faded form looking down on me like a spirit in the sky. Instead, I understood her energy to be everywhere. I just never knew how to reach her, until I started learning about source energy.

Source energy is in all things. It’s what makes the clouds move and the grass around my mother’s cemetery plot continually grow. It’s what makes our hearts beat and our brains think. When we leave our physical bodies, our energy, our spirit, our soul, our life force—the very “thing” that cannot be pumped back into a body—returns to the greater energy it came from and continues to exist.

Some people call this greater energy God, the motherload, or simply the Universe—whatever option connects most with you is the right one.

Every time you breathe, you have this powerful and magnificent life force moving through your body and into your being. This is your direct connection to your higher power because it is your higher power, flowing through your veins and keeping you alive. We can live without food for weeks, without water for days, and without oxygen for minutes. But not for a single second can we live without this vital life force.

For anyone who has ever lost someone, it can be incredibly liberating to imagine there is no heaven, no hell, and above us only sky. Because with that understanding, separation is only of the mind.

Everything is energy—that is a scientific fact. The device you’re using to read this article and the apple packed in your lunch are not solid like they appear. Rather, they’re comprised of atoms, all vibrating at certain frequencies.

It’s in the moments of quiet and calm and centering ourselves (like for instance, in meditation), that we can raise and clear our vibration, connecting us closer to source energy. I now know with certainty that the more time I spend focusing on that vibration, the closer I feel to my mother.

So, what’s most important when it comes to being in this vortex or flow with our God?

Doing what makes us feel good.

By taking control of the way we feel and not waiting to be happy until current circumstances change, we can consciously set our vibration higher.

Meditate, write lists of appreciation, talk about self-love, play music in your car with the windows down—whatever encourages that “feel good” feeling, whatever places you back in the present moment (the only moment that ever really exists) counts.

Take the work out of all this “spiritual stuff,” and remember that we are undeniably connected to a complete and whole world that we simply cannot see with our eyes. Be willing to strengthen your faith muscles by focusing on the present moment and consistently choosing to acknowledge the beauty that surrounds us.

And above all, believe in the magic of our Universe, even if your reason or eyesight cannot explain it.

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