Lately there are moments when my husband looks at me as though the “real” me has been abducted by aliens and he wonders when I’m coming back. Of course, this is pure projection on my part because I’m the one who feels like I’ve been abducted by aliens.

In my youth I spent an inordinate amount of time not wanting to feel like me. This led to self-medicating, which eventually led to IV drug use and addiction. It’s interesting to me that in my personal recovery I was finally grateful to feel like me and found that I could alter my consciousness in positive ways through spending time in nature, having a spiritual practice and even living “off the grid” for three years. This has grown for me in interesting ways — what I’ve chosen to study, my work, my service and my current hobbies all reflect ways that I have shifted my consciousness to appreciate what it feels like to be me.

Why the current alien abduction scenario? I am in the middle of a drug regimen intended to rid me of a virus I picked up many years ago. With four months to go, I am experiencing many “alien” moments that would put my drug years to shame. I just don’t feel like me. And yet in the bigger picture of life, nothing is static, change is a given. And there is truly no going back to before, I can live only in this moment. So how do I shift to being with this new “alien” feeling?

Byron Katie wrote: “Life is simple. Everything happens FOR you, not TO you…You don’t have to like it — it’s just easier if you do.”

When I shift my perspective to life happening FOR me, for my highest good, for my spiritual growth, for my healing, for my best interest and well-being, I embrace exactly what it feels like to be me in any given moment and remind myself that change is constant. I can fight it or I can love it. I can resist it or surrender to the flow.

Where and how are you resisting the flow of your life? What would it feel like to let go? What would it feel like to embrace exactly who you are right now?

Life is an adventure, a magical mystery tour, filled with challenges, loss, joy, love, surprises and miracles. Discover what you can love about even the toughest part of your journey and feel like yourself again.

*I took this photo of my husband, Win, on Algonquin, New York’s second highest peak. Hiking this mountain for a second time was what I desired most on my 53rd birthday — despite the rain and fog. When I look at it now, I realize the “mother ship” was there all along. Beam me up Scotty!