Driving on Vibes How Did I Make It This Far Without Seeing What Was Running Me?

The dream only lasted a few seconds.

Or at least, those are the only few seconds I remember.

I don’t know what happened before.

I don’t know where we were going.

I don’t know what happened after.

But apparently my subconscious knew exactly which scene I needed to bring back with me.

I was driving at night.

Hunter was sitting in the passenger seat.

Grace, Caleb, and Noah were in the back.

Everybody I loved was in the car with me.

And suddenly I realized—

I didn’t have my headlights on.

Not dimmed.

Not malfunctioning.

Off.

Completely off.

And somehow I had been driving down the road like this for who knows how long.

In the dark.

With my entire family in the vehicle.

I immediately started panicking and reaching for the headlight switch.

Except the car felt unfamiliar.

My fingers searched around for the knob.

Nothing.

I moved them again.

Still nothing.

And while I was fumbling around trying to figure out how to turn the damn lights on, another part of my mind became completely bewildered by the bigger question:

Jasmine… how were you driving this long without headlights?

How did you not notice?

How did nobody else notice?

How were you just out here operating a motor vehicle with your loved ones inside it—

driving on vibes?

😂

And then I woke up.

The Part That Got My Attention

I have learned not to treat every dream like a prophecy.

Sometimes the brain is simply doing weird brain things while we sleep.

But every once in a while, I wake up carrying an image that feels less like nonsense and more like a mirror.

This one felt like a mirror.

Because lately I have been realizing just how much of my life I spent functioning before I understood what was functioning me.

I was moving.

Oh, I was definitely moving.

Working.

Parenting.

Loving.

Cleaning.

Paying bills.

Managing relationships.

Showing up.

Solving problems.

Trying to be good.

Trying to be needed.

Trying to be chosen.

Trying to keep everybody happy.

From the outside, the car was moving down the road.

But I could not yet see all the programming sitting behind the steering wheel with me.

Abandonment wounds.

People-pleasing.

Hypervigilance.

Fear.

Religious conditioning.

Perfectionism.

The belief that being useful made me valuable.

The belief that somebody else’s mood was somehow my responsibility.

The belief that disagreement meant rejection.

The belief that love had to be earned.

I didn’t know those were programs.

I thought they were just me.

When Anxiety Was Just My Personality

That may be the strangest part of becoming more internally aware.

You start recognizing processes you once experienced as identity.

For years I could have simply said:

I’m an anxious person.

That seemed like a complete explanation.

I replay conversations because I’m anxious.

I monitor people’s moods because I’m anxious.

I worry about things that haven’t happened because I’m anxious.

I overthink.

I catastrophize.

I prepare.

I scan.

That’s just Jasmine.

Except now I am beginning to catch the machinery earlier.

Recently, I finished a perfectly pleasant conversation with someone at work and suddenly felt a tiny internal alarm.

For just a moment my brain seemed to ask:

Was I supposed to do something else socially?

Then I noticed it.

Really noticed it.

It was almost like watching gears shift inside me.

And because I saw the alarm before it turned into a whole story, it simply passed.

That moment fascinated me.

Because I realized that years ago, I probably would never have noticed the alarm itself.

I would have only noticed the result.

Maybe I would have replayed the conversation for thirty minutes.

Maybe I would have wondered if I said something wrong.

Maybe I would have carried vague anxiety around without knowing why.

And eventually I would have shrugged and said:

“I’m just anxious.”

I could not see the mechanism.

My headlights were off.

Awareness Can Be Uncomfortable

There is a weird stage of healing where seeing more does not immediately feel better.

Sometimes it feels worse.

Because suddenly you can look backward and think:

Oh my God.

How long was I doing that?

How long was I abandoning myself?

How long was I reading rooms before I decided who I was allowed to be?

How long was I confusing hypervigilance with empathy?

How long was I mistaking fear for intuition?

How long was I trying to earn love by over-functioning?

How long was I raising children while carrying patterns I didn’t even know I had?

And that last one makes the dream especially tender to me.

Because my children were in the back seat.

Grace.

Caleb.

Noah.

Hunter beside me.

People I love.

People whose lives have shared roads with mine.

And dream-me suddenly realizes:

Wait. I’m the one driving.

And I can’t see.

That is uncomfortable.

But I think there is a difference between accountability and punishment.

I can acknowledge that there were years when I was steering while wounded without deciding that means I was a terrible person.

I loved my family then.

I love them now.

The difference is that love alone does not automatically make us conscious.

Sometimes we can love people tremendously and still hurt them through patterns we cannot yet see.

Healing asks us to become willing to look.

How Did Nobody Notice?

Dream-me also seemed completely confused that nobody had said anything.

How had I gotten so far?

Surely someone should have noticed we were driving in total darkness.

But that thought makes sense to me too.

Because unconscious patterns often become normal inside families, communities, churches, workplaces, relationships—even entire cultures.

Everybody can be sitting in the same car thinking:

I guess this is just how driving works.

Maybe everybody around you grew up without headlights too.

Maybe they taught you how to navigate by fear.

Maybe they called hypervigilance responsibility.

Maybe they called people-pleasing kindness.

Maybe they called self-abandonment sacrifice.

Maybe they called obedience goodness.

Maybe they called silence peace.

Maybe they called suffering love.

And if everybody around you is navigating the same way, darkness can start feeling normal.

Until one day something inside you says:

Wait a damn minute.

Are the headlights supposed to be on?

😂

Then Comes the Fumbling

This is the part of the dream I love most.

Because once I noticed the darkness, I knew immediately what I needed.

Light.

I just couldn’t find the switch.

My fingers were fumbling around in an unfamiliar car looking for a knob that apparently had no intention of being conveniently located.

And if that isn’t early healing, I don’t know what is.

First you realize:

Oh. I’m people-pleasing.

Wonderful.

How do I stop?

Then:

Oh. My nervous system is activated.

Excellent discovery.

How exactly does one un-activate it?

Then:

I abandon myself when I’m afraid someone will leave me.

Fantastic.

Where is the button for not doing that anymore?

😂

That is why awareness can initially feel frustrating.

You can see the pattern before you know how to change it.

You know you need light.

Your hands just haven’t learned the controls yet.

So you fumble.

You try boundaries.

You journal.

You breathe.

You apologize.

You try again.

You catch yourself after the fact.

Then halfway through.

Then five minutes into the spiral.

Then thirty seconds in.

Then one day, somehow, you catch the alarm the moment it fires.

Your hands are learning where the switch is.

A New Car

Something about the car being unfamiliar feels important too.

Because lately, my life itself has started feeling unfamiliar in the best way.

I know how to operate survival mode.

I am extremely qualified.

Give me chaos and I can figure it out.

Give me a crisis and I will start organizing.

Give me somebody else’s emotional state and old Jasmine will immediately begin assessing how she can stabilize the environment.

That vehicle?

I knew every control.

But this newer life is quieter.

Nobody needs rescuing every five minutes.

I don’t have to constantly prove myself.

I don’t need to monitor every room.

I don’t need to solve every problem before it exists.

I don’t need to earn my right to rest.

I don’t have to keep revisiting old relationships just because the pathway exists.

I can let people have moods.

I can let uncertainty sit there.

I can put in the work order and go home.

I can hear an internal alarm and say:

Nothing is actually required of me right now.

That version of life still feels unfamiliar sometimes.

Of course I am fumbling for buttons.

I have spent decades driving something completely different.

I Thought Healing Would Give Me Answers

I think I once imagined healing would eventually make me certain.

Certain about myself.

Certain about other people.

Certain about the future.

Certain about spirituality.

Certain about why everything happened.

But healing has actually made me more comfortable saying:

I don’t know yet.

That might be one of the brightest headlights I have found.

I don’t know why somebody behaved that way.

I don’t know exactly what tomorrow brings.

I don’t know what every dream means.

I don’t know whether every thought deserves investigation.

I don’t know everything.

And somehow I can still drive.

Because visibility is not the same thing as certainty.

Headlights do not show you the entire road.

They show you enough.

A little stretch in front of you.

Then another.

Then another.

Maybe that is all we were ever supposed to have.

The Road Is Still Dark

The world did not suddenly become fully illuminated because I started healing.

There are still things I cannot see.

There are still decisions I will make without knowing the outcome.

There are still parts of myself I will discover later and think:

Well, look at that little program hiding back there.

There are still moments when old instincts fire.

The difference is that I no longer automatically assume every thought is me.

Every fear is truth.

Every alarm is danger.

Every familiar pattern deserves another drive around the block.

Now I can notice.

I can ask:

What is actually happening here?

What old program just activated?

Is this useful?

Is anything required of me right now?

Sometimes the answer is yes.

Sometimes something genuinely needs attention.

And sometimes the answer is:

Nope. Keep driving.

The People in the Car

I think there is something beautiful about the fact that my loved ones were still there.

My dream was not about abandoning everybody and going off alone to become enlightened somewhere on a mountain.

Of course it wasn’t.

That has never really been my story.

My healing has happened in cars.

Factories.

Kitchens.

Bedrooms.

Backyards.

Arguments.

Grocery stores.

School mornings.

Work breaks.

Ordinary life.

And the people I love are still part of that life.

The difference is that I want to drive more consciously now.

Not perfectly.

Consciously.

If I hurt somebody, I want to see it.

If an old pattern appears, I want to notice it.

If I realize something is dark, I want to reach for light.

My children do not need a mother who never made mistakes.

They need one willing to turn the headlights on when she notices they are off.

Driving on Vibes

I keep laughing about dream-me because the image is objectively ridiculous.

A whole family cruising through the night.

No headlights.

And apparently everybody is just going along with it.

Meanwhile I am eventually like:

Guys?!

HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN DOING THIS?!

😂

But maybe that really is awakening.

Not becoming superior to the person you were yesterday.

Not receiving all the answers.

Not suddenly knowing the entire route.

Just becoming conscious enough to say:

I can’t see.

Then looking for the switch.

Maybe that is why I am so fascinated by the tiny moments lately when I catch my inner machinery operating.

I can see the gears now.

I can feel the programs start.

I can watch the nervous system send its little alerts.

And every time I notice before automatically obeying, another light seems to come on.

I don’t know where we were driving in that dream.

I don’t know whether I ever found the switch.

The dream did not give me that part.

But maybe it didn’t need to.

Because the most important moment had already happened.

I noticed.

I finally realized I was moving through darkness.

And once you realize the headlights are off, it becomes very difficult to pretend you don’t need them.

So maybe healing does not begin when you finally understand the entire road.

Maybe it begins with one terrifying, liberating realization:

My headlights are off.

Then comes the fumbling.

The learning.

The adjusting.

The practicing.

Until eventually your hands begin to know where the controls are.

And little by little, the road in front of you appears.

Not all of it.

Just enough.

Enough to choose.

Enough to steer.

Enough to keep going.

And one day you look forward and realize:

Oh.

I can finally see where I’m going.

Closing Reflection

Sometimes we do not realize we are living in the dark until something inside us finally notices.

Not because we were foolish.

Because what is familiar can feel normal.

Maybe you learned to call anxiety responsibility.

People-pleasing kindness.

Hypervigilance intuition.

Over-functioning love.

Self-abandonment sacrifice.

And perhaps nobody around you questioned it either.

So you kept driving.

Until one day you saw it.

That moment can be uncomfortable.

You may look backward and wonder:

How did I not notice this before?

But awareness is not an invitation to punish the person you used to be.

It is an invitation to turn on the light.

So ask yourself:

What am I able to see now that I could not see before?

What pattern has recently become visible?

What once felt like “just who I am” that you can now recognize as something learned?

And if you can see it, what small choice becomes available to you now?

You do not have to illuminate the entire road.

You do not need every answer.

You only need enough light for the next stretch.

Healing can look a lot like fumbling for the switch at first.

That is okay.

Your hands are learning new controls.

And every time you notice before automatically reacting, another little piece of the road appears.

Maybe becoming conscious is not about never driving through darkness again.

Maybe it is knowing:

When I realize I cannot see, I know how to look for the light. ❤️