The Day I Was Smaller Than a Ladybug.

I was lying on a vibroacoustic table, music moving through me. My eyes were closed under a rose quartz mask. It took a moment for my body to relax and as I did, I felt a presence. I felt hands sweeping above me and I immediately went looking for my seven year old self, bare feet, the one who meets me in the deep. 

She wasn’t there.

My inner eyes began to open, the world was not in a way I knew. 

The grass around me was a forest, each blade a wall. The sun broke through the green bars. 

I looked to my right as I felt movement beside me — red shell, black spots. 

A ladybug…and I was smaller than it. 

And then I felt it — that old, familiar panic. Too small. Trapped. Can’t breathe. 

The panic came fast. The fear of confined places.  I could feel my breath being labored as the anxiety grew.

I stood there one heartbeat, two. Then I remembered: I don’t run from this. 

I exhaled. The grass shuddered, but I didn’t fall. The ladybug continued its slow climb up a stalk, lacking interest in my presence. 

Another breath. 

As I exhaled. I took one step…then then another.

And something shifted. At that moment I wanted to take off the headphones and open my eyes… except the ground let go. 

I started to rise. No wings. No struggle. Just lift. Past the grass, past the fear, until I could see the whole field. The green unfolded. The land spoke as the fields stitched together in greens, golds and browns, the roads twisted through the earth, the ocean catching the sun. 

A longer deeper breath. 

And that is when it hit me…the panic wasn’t saying I was stuck. It was showing me I was looking from the wrong place. From down in the grass, everything is a wall. From up here, I see the whole field.  

I am not small. I just forgot how big I am. 

I could sense a shadow and when I looked to the left…it was an eagle. Not just any eagle but a fucking bald eagle clear as day. 

We didn’t talk. We just flew together. I saw how everything connected, the forest, the field, the water to the land.  The whole system. 

Another breath. 

Then we tipped. The eagle’s wings angled down and I followed, because that’s what you do when you’re flying with something wiser than you. 

We skimmed a lake so low my toes would have grazed it, if I’d had toes. The eagle’s talons broke the reflection, snatched a flash of silver, and lifted. 

And I went down.

I was in it — cold, murky, moving through logs. Not drowning. Swimming. The panic started to rise but then I remembered I don’t have to fight to move in this.  Not with arms or legs, but with a flick and a glide.  I was under water, part of it, no longer separate.  

That darkness wasn’t the end, it was a tunnel. I have spent so much time trying to stay above water. But the fish taught me healing means I can go under, and still come out.  

The current spun me and spun me until I didn’t know up from down. Light shattered above me in moving ribbons. The spin got faster, the pressure built, and then — 

Release. 

I tumbled out of the spiral into salt and light. A wave had carried me to shore, rolled me, and set me down. 

I was on my feet. 

Wet sand under my soles. The ocean rushed away from my ankles, then came back to meet me. 

I looked down. Toes. Human feet. Mine. 

I stepped forward, out of the water. 

And that is when I realized…

I am not just one me. 

I am the one in the grass who panics. 

I am the one with eagle eyes who sees it all. 

I am the one who can swim through the dark. 

I am the one who walks out on my own feet. 

When I remember this the fear stops being a cage. 

It turns into a doorway.  

The music stopped. The table went quiet. I opened my eyes. 

I stood up. Still me. All of me.