Get Intimate with Your Divinity

by Stephanie Bucklin

There are moments when someone else’s words feel like they pierce right into your soul. For me, Elizabeth Kipp’s reminder that “You don’t need to search for the holy. You are the holy.” landed like a bell of truth. It echoed what I have discovered on my own healing journey: the sacred is not found outside of us — it’s discovered in the courage to look within.

The Path Wasn’t Smooth

When I asked the Universe to show me my truth, I imagined awakening would feel like light pouring in — bliss, clarity, and maybe a sprinkle of magic. What actually happened was far less comfortable. My illusions shattered, relationships shifted, and I was invited to walk through fires I didn’t feel ready for.

Self-healing and ascension are not easy. They demand that we face our shadows, our wounds, and the parts of ourselves we’d rather ignore. There were days when I felt like my life had crumbled, and all I had left were my breath and my prayers.

But here’s what I know: the challenges are part of the rising. Each time I surrendered, I was carried. Each scar became a scripture. Each crack in my being became, as Elizabeth describes, “an altar spilling light.”

The Practice of Self-Healing

I learned to anchor myself with mantras when the storms came:

“I am the blessing I was searching for.”
“Every breath connects me to the infinite.”
“I am whole, even in my becoming.”

These simple words shifted my energy when fear tried to take the lead. Over time, I began to trust that healing isn’t about perfection — it’s about alignment.

In Awakened Living: A Holistic Journey to Body, Mind & Spirit Balance, I wrote:

“Healing is not a destination but a way of living. It is the alignment of our daily habits, thoughts, and beliefs with truth, integrity, and balance.”

Every time I chose to pause, breathe, meditate, journal, or simply love myself through pain, I was embodying this truth.

Ascension and the Path of Enlightenment

Ascension isn’t about escaping the human experience — it’s about becoming more intimate with it. It asks us to embrace the paradox: we are both infinite beings of light and humans with scars, fears, and imperfections. Enlightenment, I’ve found, is not a single mountaintop moment. It’s an ongoing unfolding, a thousand small choices to rise — ragged, radiant, and real.

Spiritual teachers across time have offered glimpses of this same truth:

The Buddha spoke of awakening as seeing what is already present.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
Eckhart Tolle reminds us, “You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.”

Their words mirror what I have lived: we don’t earn our divinity; we uncover it.

Intimacy with the Divine Self

To “get intimate with your divinity” is to stop seeking outside approval and start falling in love with the truth of who you are. It means daring to look at your pain with compassion, to honor your outlaw edges, and to celebrate the brilliance already burning in your bones.

This intimacy is not a lofty ideal. It is found in the daily choice to breathe with awareness, to soften into gratitude, and to live as if every act — no matter how small — is sacred.

A Contemplative Invitation

If you are walking your own healing path, I invite you into reflection. These questions may help you deepen your intimacy with the divine within:

Where have my deepest wounds become sources of light and strength?
What mantra or phrase can I carry with me when challenges arise?
How does my soul speak to me in moments of stillness?
In what ways can I honor my authentic “outlaw edges” rather than hide them?
What does it feel like, in my body, to remember that I am already whole?

Take your time with these. Let your pen, or your heart, answer honestly.

Rising Radiant

My journey has been messy, beautiful, and transformative. I didn’t find divinity on a mountaintop or in someone else’s definition of truth. I found it in the cracks of my own being, in the practices that steadied me, and in the courage to rise again and again.

The savior I was waiting for was never outside of me. It was my own unfurled heart. And the same is true for you.

So today, I invite you to place your hand on your heart, breathe deeply, and whisper:

“I am holy. I am radiant. I am already enough.”

This is the beginning — and the continuation — of your path of enlightenment.