Growing up, it was common knowledge for me that we had past lives, angels were real, and our loved ones never truly left us. My mom often taught my sister and I about angels and how to ask for help. We were taught to shield ourselves with white light. If we needed help with anything, we were taught to say “on Angels’ wings…”, something that my sister got tattooed as an adult. As I got older, these beliefs became internal and less acknowledged in everyday interactions. I often explained why I was a vegetarian to people, because I believed humans and animals come from the same source, but I never got much more into it than that.

My dad passed away a month before my 21st birthday. What is an American college girl to do to get over her grief? I started going out… a lot. I was the girl who orchestrated nights out, limos, and townhouse parties. As my social network grew, I often threw VIP parties at local bars, and organized themed parties at my place. I filled my grief with friends and vodka. I didn’t care if you were gay, straight, considered an outcast in high school, or what your background was. I knew life can be hard and that everyone deserved a good time. I feel that’s why so many different kinds of people were friendly with me. If you were the odd one out because you couldn’t afford to come, I would pay. If you needed a ride, I would drive. If you wanted a place to crash, I would accommodate. I loved bringing different people together and having a good time. My little pockets of friends became one big circle. I never wanted the party to end. While I delved deeper into the social scene in southeast Michigan, and made friends around my college, I also started receiving signs and messages from my father through psychics and tangible signs at synchronistic moments, which wasn’t the lightest party subject. I kept a lot of my experiences to myself for awhile. I would go out with metaphysical crystals in my purse, and an angel wing around my neck, all the while feeling a little bit like a hypocrite and not completely myself.

Through my journey I realized my most dramatic signs were experienced while sober. My biggest breakthroughs happened when I gave up drinking. I made a promise to myself to do whatever it took to take care of myself and help my intuition. I started using natural beauty products, gave up drinking, drank lots of fruit smoothies, and ate lots of healthful veggies and fruits (See video: 5 Steps to Develop Psychic Awareness). Signs were coming to me all the time, but I often missed my friends.

While most of my “party” friends lost interest in me when I stopped going out, I hung on to a few. For the sake of privacy, we will be calling my best friend, Miles. Miles and I loved going to a gay bar named Pronto in Royal Oak for Karaoke night. I remember deciding to go out again for the first time since I promised myself to take better care of myself. It would be my first sober night at this particular place.

Miles and I made our way over to the bartenders, who knew our names. I ordered a lemonade instead of my usual raspberry stoli and lemonade. The music was loud and the place was only mildly busy. We stood next to the bar, avoiding blocking others who wanted to walk up for a drink.

I started telling Miles about the increase in signs I had been getting. He knew I had experienced numerology signs, but it was evolving (See video: Signs from Heaven Using Numerology).

“It’s more than just repeating numbers now at weird times. It’s been feathers and pennies lately,” I said loudly over the music. ” I will be thinking about my dad or Angels and I will see a penny in a weird place or a feather will come into my view at that moment.”

While I was looking at Miles, I felt as if something dropped on my right foot. I looked down to see a penny facing up on my black, knee-high boot.

“Umm, are you serious right now?” I exclaimed to my friend. “Did you drop that?”

“No,” Miles answered as he held his drink.

We both looked around. There wasn’t anyone next to us or any sign of someone passing by. At that moment, we both looked up as if it fell from the sky and laughed. Miles had this contagious, goofy laugh everyone loved to mimic. The old bar ceiling was painted a dark color and had patterns that suggested it was built a century ago. It had no logical place a penny could have fallen from.

“That’s really weird,” Miles said, still laughing.

I couldn’t help but smile. I was elated at the sight of a sign right on cue.

“See what I mean! There are even Angels with us right here in the gay bar!” I said, excitedly.

Those moments taught me that the divine is everywhere with everyone, no exceptions. The absence of the divine is just perception from man and is a fallacy. Even in a late night bar with drunken people, the divine is there. No one is excluded. No moment is excluded. It took a night out in a different state of mind to marry my two experiences of life: a party girl, and a spiritual practitioner. Perception is everything.