Ericka H - Story
About the Author
Written By: Ericka H | Zodiac Sign: Leo | Human Design Profile: 5/1 Generator | Life Path Number: 2
Georgia On My Mind
It was the summer of 82’. I was born in Georgia to a family of three: my mother (the nurturer), father (the hard-working veteran), and older brother (the fellow introvert). Shortly after my birth, my parents experienced a life-changing traumatic incident which left my mom confined to a wheelchair. I don’t remember much about the incident, but the aftermath and her road to recovery brought our family closer together. It also did something else. It served as a catalyst for my mom’s experiential journey as a devout Christian. This later played a huge role in my spiritual awakening — how much so, I wouldn’t realize until decades later.
My Sweet Lord
My earliest memories as a child were happy ones. I remember my mom teaching Bible study at our apartment every Sunday. Looking back on it now, I realize that even as a pre-teen I questioned the nature of my existence and my life’s purpose. I had always wondered why bad things would happen to good people like my mom, why babies were born with debilitating diseases, why some people were born to privilege and others to poverty, and why a God who is supposed to be loving and forgiving could send his children to eternal damnation.
My family did their best to answer my lingering spiritual questions, but their answers – which usually were some variation of us not being able to understand God’s plan – were never really sufficient for me. In spite of all that, most of my fondest memories as a child were spiritual in nature. My favorites involve talking to my mom about her deep meditative sessions. She would sit at the kitchen table, turn on gospel music, and remain in a deep trance for hours – praying and having conversations with her spirit guides. Afterwards, we would talk about her conversations while we played cards and board games. Those experiences had a profound impact on me.
Subterranean Homesick Alien
As an adolescent, I started to embrace solitude and introversion. But, this was difficult for me because people seemed to gravitate to the “quiet girl” who was a great listener, generous, and wise beyond her years. This set the scene for me to become an awesome confidant and unofficial therapist for my friends and family.
After a while, I also started to reject the mainstream narratives and half-truths being taught in public schools, such as Christopher Columbus “discovering” America even though America already had inhabitants. It’s interesting how one word can change the course of one’s understanding and belief system. Everything in the world just started to feel…off.
I also started to grow less and less interested in typical activities – no football games and pep rallies for me. Eventually, I became hyper-focused on attending college and being able to study the subjects that interested me – art history, psychology, computer animation, web design, to name a few. All of these experiences shaped my initial beliefs about the world and spirituality. Yes, I still carried those lingering spiritual questions with me throughout my adolescence, teens, and into my early twenties.
Welcome to the Jungle
Fast forward to early adulthood, or what I like to call my roaring twenties. I was still living at home, but working and attending college part-time. By that time, my dad was working less and my niece had been born, so money was tighter in our household. I didn’t let that bother me though. I found myself happily contributing to the household finances, maintaining a sort of ignorance is bliss attitude about my spirituality, relationships, and the world around me. But that quickly changed.
Respect Yourself
Remember when I said as an adolescent I seemed to be wise beyond my years, a great listener, and the unofficial mental health counselor for my family and friends? Well, this intensified when I became a young adult. Not only was I their unofficial therapist, but I also became their financial benefactors. While it felt awesome to be helpful, what I didn’t realize at the time is if I focused too much on others, then I wouldn’t have enough time to myself to recharge. Because I lacked balance, I began to feel more and more emotionally and physically drained. This caused me to become more reckless with how I dealt with my feelings.
During this time, I started to receive this inexplicable, gentle nudging to re-read The Bible. At first I dismissed these nudges as a waste of time, but they continued. Eventually, I succumbed to the nudges – and I’m glad I did. Revisiting The Bible reconfirmed that there were so many things that just didn’t make sense or sit well with me about this world. While this left me feeling even more frustrated and disillusioned with the world in general, it also did something else. It reawakened my quest for answers.
I Will Remember You
In 2006, while still living at home, my life was shaken to its core. My mom was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer – and I was angry. I was angry she was going through yet another trauma, and I was angry she had made her peace with leaving this world. I didn’t realize at the time that this could have been part of her planned exit strategy. Looking back on it now, I realize how selfish I was — wanting her to remain in this world for my benefit.
One of the greatest gifts I’ve had in this life is that I was able to say goodbye to my mom before she departed this world. She told me that our family had a lot of healing to do, and explained how I could help facilitate the healing process after she was gone. Similar to the awareness yogis have, she knew it was her time to leave and her profound clarity was comforting to me. I still remember when she told me she could see angels waiting for her by the hospital room door. She departed this world in the fall of 2006.
My mom was the love/light and glue that held my family together. After her departure my immediate family (myself, my dad, my brother, and my niece) all went our separate ways. We kept in touch but weren’t as close as we used to be.
Pardon Me
After my mom’s departure, I found myself becoming angrier and more closed off. I started focusing more on myself, neglecting everyone else. I began traveling the world – visiting ancient ruins in Greece, Vatican City in Italy, and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. I also started honing my technical skills – bouncing from job to job based on what was resonating and what didn’t trigger my anger. While all of this seemed wonderful and exciting, frustration was still brewing underneath the surface.
Eventually, all the anger that I didn’t adequately work through began to wreak havoc on my career and relationships and, consequently, my spiritual development. This caused me to become more reactionary rather than responsive. If all that wasn’t enough, my dad lost his battle with cancer and departed this world in 2017. Even though I’d helped our family process some of our trauma, I was barely on speaking terms with any of my family at that time. I still lacked the understanding of how to serve others without becoming a doormat. I continued down this path until 2019.
You’re My Best Friend
Early 2019, I began working as a freelancer. This was awesome because I was able to choose my projects. However, I was still closed off emotionally. I would consider myself a full-fledged, introverted, narcissist at that point. It was at that time I met my best friend, sacred partner, and co-founder of SoaJ – John B. John B, who will probably laugh when he reads this, would have also considered himself a full-blown narcissist at that time. So one can only imagine the friction our relationship initially caused. But, that friction didn’t last long. After some time, something wonderful happened. We’ll get to that in a second.
Initially, meeting John B reawakened my desire to put others first – which was awesome. But I still lacked the awareness of how to be of service to others while not becoming a doormat. As a result, I became someone who enabled instead of empowered. I was helping him to the point where he became less self-reliant and I became mentally drained.
The good news is that it didn’t take us long to recognize this pattern. Once we did, a profound shift occurred. It brought us closer together spiritually and made us realize that we could serve a higher purpose in each other’s lives. We could be each other’s catalysts and mirrors for spiritual development. Being together is teaching us how to be more compassionate, how to compromise, how to set healthy boundaries, how to achieve balance between spiritual/worldly duties, and how to embrace love/light.
With A Little Help From My Friends
Shortly after meeting John B, he introduced me to several of his friends. Their perspectives on life were exactly what I had been searching for. We began reading Edgar Cayce’s life story in There is a River and Arjun’s story in the Bhagavad Gita. Both Edgar and Arjun’s journeys inspired me to seek out my purpose. We also went on hikes in nature, performed meditations, visited sacred monuments, and participated in indigenous ceremonies – which we continue to do to this day. These experiences felt right. I had finally found my tribe..my classmates..my spiritual family.
After reacquainting with old souls, I fully embraced my spirituality. I read, watched, listened to, and discussed tons of spiritual, religious, scientific, and esoteric information so that I could gain clarity about the world around me. That eventually led me down a rabbit hole to other life-changing resources, including the Unlocking the Soul documentary and the Law of One. And guess what? Eventually, I became better equipped to answer those nagging spiritual questions that had plagued me during this life – all of which are mentioned on SoaJ. But, I knew there was still work to be done. I still needed to discover my purpose. What lessons am I supposed to learn in this life?
Are You Gonna Go My Way?
Late 2022, I had a major health crisis. No, not Covid-related. This health scare caused me to reevaluate my lifestyle. After watching several eye-opening documentaries about the meat industry and climate change, I decided to change my diet, exercise more, and reduce my carbon footprint. Around that time, John B and my inquisitive bonus son decided to become a pescatarian – mainly eating seafood, and only eating red meat and poultry sparingly. So I decided to become a pescatarian too, which led me to eventually become a vegetarian. And wow! My body immediately felt lighter and healthier, which would be necessary for what was to come.
Soon after changing our eating habits, we noticed our friends and family starting to eat lighter and healthier too. That’s when it became experiential for us how much one entity can influence others, simply by being the change they want to see in others. Around that time, John B and I had also accumulated a wealth of information, insights, and clarity about the universe, the soul, and Source. But we were having trouble keeping track of everything and recalling specific details. This is when we realized it would be helpful to have a suppository of this information in one easily accessible place.
With the help of BK Shivani’s words of wisdom about souls being on a journey, the idea of SoaJ was born! Now it was time to finally put my technical skills to good use.
All You Need is Love
Creating SoaJ and curating all of the content has been a labor of love. Shortly after we got the ball rolling, I began to get another gentle nudge that I should delve deeper into something I’d briefly heard about during my research – lightworkers. After thoroughly researching lightworkers – and Human Design at the advice of my good friend Tracy – it suddenly made sense why I chose to reincarnate into a challenging family, why I seemed wise beyond my years, why I seemed to become drained by the energy of others, why others seemed to be drawn to me, and why I constantly job hopped. I realized I was a 5/1 Generator, with the potential to become a lightworker.
Generators are said to be the builders of the world. They’re defined by their sacral energy center, which is the center of life force and work capacity. They’re designed to know what work is satisfying for them, and they have the energy to master what they love doing. Generators have a magnetic and enveloping energy field that pulls in life towards them. They’re designed to wait for something in their outer reality to respond to before they make decisions, especially big decisions. Responding can come in various forms – it can be a gut response, a bodily sensation, or a sense of knowing (that’s me). Taking care of their energy is also important for Generators. Despite their capacity for work, they also need to rest, recharge, and relax. This all seems to coincide with my Life Path Number of 2. It explains a lot, right?
It hasn’t been an easy road. John B and I have both experienced some degree of detachment and isolation from our families due to the paths we’re traversing. But that’s ok because we realized that we’re all souls on journeys that ultimately lead to the same destination. As I’ve traversed my path, I realized that I could use all of my cultivated insights, technical expertise, and personal experiences — especially those resulting from my relationship with my rambunctiously intelligent, female, tabby cat — to show others the joy and bliss that comes with living in alignment with your true self. And yes, I will be doing this while spreading positivity throughout the cosmos as a lightworker.
There is still healing, learning, and growth to be done but I have realized my path now. So far, that path has led me to gain realized spiritual knowledge (spiritual knowledge experienced first-hand). So far, I’ve experienced something greater than myself; I’ve experienced how my energy and thoughts can directly impact others and the environment; and I’ve experienced how meditation can lead to peace, stillness, oneness, and clarity. The concepts that resonate with me the most are that All is One; I am not the body or mind but an eternal soul; and I am a conduit and vessel for infinite Source to experience itself as finite matter. And yes, John B and I are still going strong.