About the Founder
My name is Cheryl Young, and I’m the founder of The Authentic Life, a spiritual blog and photography gallery. I’ve been on an intense spiritual journey for the last five years. I have learned and experienced incredible things in this process and want to share them with others. I hope that what I have experienced will benefit other people, even if it’s just to let them know they are not alone.
I believe we can all learn and grow from one another, and because of this, I try to live by example. Over the last few years, I have completely changed my perspective of life. I want to show others there is a better way than what society has taught us. People can change their thinking and behaviors and be happier and more fulfilled. Sometimes, they just need to see someone else do it first.
Everything I write about in my blog is geared toward helping people raise their vibration and grow in conscious awareness. I also want to help others understand the significance of showing love, kindness, and compassion to themselves and others. We’re all part of the larger whole, and we’re all connected. How we treat ourselves and everyone else impacts the world at large.
I want people to understand that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, not the other way around. As spiritual beings, we choose to have this particular life experience to learn and grow in specific ways. We came here with a goal and a purpose. We aren’t alone in this process. There is a higher source regardless of the label you put on it, and our lives are all Divinely guided. This guidance is the spiritual realm helping us navigate this life experience and learn what we need to. The key is whether we’re willing to listen to the guidance we receive and do the work we’re guided to do.
The blog posts I create are intended to help people do this in various ways. There is no right way to be spiritual. We can all be on a spiritual journey but have diverse paths. We can learn a lot from each other if we’re willing to share our experiences and beliefs and be open to hearing those that differ from ours.
Not all our life experiences are good, and I think those that are not can be some of the best learning experiences we have. I know that’s true for my life and those I’m close to.
Although I’m deeply spiritual now, that wasn’t always the case. I grew up having exposure to ghosts in various houses but other than that, I had no particular thought about it. I would say I was very open-minded about spirituality but didn’t have any particular beliefs or practices I would consider spiritual. I wasn’t close to anyone spiritual, so I never had that exposure or guidance. And then, all of a sudden, I did.
My Motivation to Start the Blog
Several years ago, my life was going along great (or so I thought), and things changed almost overnight. I began living my worst nightmare when my daughter suddenly became so ill she was fighting for her life, and no one knew what was wrong with her. At the same time, my fiancé left for work one day and didn’t come back. Five days later, he cleared his belongings out of my house and started a new life with someone else. I was completely overwhelmed, and things got worse with each passing day. I struggled to get through every day as I watched my daughter decline and my life crumble around me. For two years, I lived through this nightmare and its aftermath, forever changing my life. I would not have made it without my family and the spiritual beings that gathered en masse to carry me through.
Amidst all this, the Universe decided it was the most suitable time for me to undergo a spiritual awaking. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with, I began seeing angels and ghosts, hearing spiritual entities talk to me, and started channeling and knowing random things. I developed an insatiable appetite for reading anything spiritually related and sought out others who could help me understand what I was experiencing. As time passed, my spiritual gifts expanded and unfolded in ways I could have never imagined.
As I healed from my trauma and started living again, I realized I had an incredible opportunity to help others raise themselves and start thinking about life differently so they can live the life they want. I had experienced so much that helped me grow profoundly, and I now had the chance to help others do the same. I am a completely different person following my experience with my daughter and my spiritual awakening. I spent considerable time mourning what I lost in the hopes that one day I could live again. I had no idea that a completely new course in my life was about to unfold.
Over time, I started thinking about what it meant to be spiritual and some of the common misconceptions people held about the lives spiritual people lead. I didn’t fit those molds and soon realized I could change those perceptions. I am a different example of spiritual life; I can show others that they can be different and still be spiritual.
We can be spiritual and still work out regularly, be athletic and social, be fashionable, and have nice things. The list goes on, but the bottom line is we can enjoy having a spirit-filled life and the more physical aspects of our existence. I wanted to prove that we can also have all the good things in life. We don’t have to choose. My values are deeply rooted in spirituality, and at the same time, I fully enjoy my life experience. I don’t choose between them but rather find a way to have both.
Challenges I Have Faced
I am a firm believer in manifestation and creating the life I want. I am very positive and believe the key to happiness is choice. Choosing to be happy and positive, my mindset, and how I navigate life. Like many others, I’ve had hard times, but I don’t let those times define me. I look for growth opportunities in the things I experience and ensure I come out of all my unpleasant experiences better than before. It’s a choice I make.
I also make a point of finding things to be grateful for. Approaching life from a perspective of gratitude has made a huge difference in my life experience. I’m deeply grateful for the inspiration to do my blog, and I truly hope I can positively impact others because of it. Writing has proven to be a little difficult because I don’t always know what to write about. I look to my life experiences, thoughts, and beliefs, as well as things I hear or read about, for ideas, but sometimes, the inspiration evades me. I work full-time and have a very close family. I do my blog on the side, which also adds to the difficulty of writing. There are times life just gets in the way.
The name of my website is The Authentic Life. It’s primarily a host for my spiritually-based blog, dedicated to those wanting to grow in consciousness. The blog and resources on the site target those who don’t necessarily consider themselves spiritual but want to live more authentically and those new on their conscious spiritual journey. I’m also a hobbyist photographer and have a page showcasing some photos.
When I created the website, I had no intention whatsoever of doing that. The thought occasionally crossed my mind, but I didn’t consider it seriously. Then one afternoon, I was relaxing at home and felt overwhelmingly Divinely guided to create a website and start a blog. I sat there and did it on the spot without prior knowledge of what to do or how to do it. I played with it over the next week and began writing blog posts. About a month and a half in, I reached out to some experts when I needed help on the website and, by the end of our conversation, had committed to having my site professionally designed. I never intended to do this, but everything fell into place in such a way I couldn’t deny it was meant to be.
The website doesn’t generate any income for me, so that’s also a challenge. I don’t do any marketing or promoting of the website except through Facebook. That’s where most of my followers come from, as well as word of mouth. They predominantly reside in the US and Canada, although there are followers from many other countries. I feel very strongly about the information I share through it, which keeps me doing it.
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