Back in 2003 I was arriving home from work one evening when I heard a voice say something really random and curious. I’d just gotten off the tube, London’s subway system, near where I was living.

As I entered the garden and walked toward the side entrance, I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular when all of the sudden I heard a voice say, “You are a mystic.” I remember putting my key in the lock and thinking, “A what? Huh, I wonder what that means.”

Oddly, even though I thought about it for a few days, I don’t remember googling, “What is a mystic?” I just sort of let it go.

Then one night two social workers called to tell me I'd just been indicated in a child abuse report. The next morning the bank accounts were empty. And my nightmare began in earnest. He hired a nanny. I had to find a job. Distraught doesn't begin to describe my inner world. I was being investigated for child abuse. I couldn't eat or sleep or function properly. Except, I had to. I had to show that I was a good, capable mom.

For months I did not sleep in the same place as my babies. Speaking that fact made my throat choke and tears stream down my face. There were moments when I felt confident about my choices and direction. But whenever I felt like torturing myself I would ask, "What kind of mother doesn't sleep in the same place as her babies?" And then I would answer myself by falling apart.

My daughter absolutely adores Taylor Swift.

A few months ago we were discussing a scenario where she would actually meet her idol. She couldn't imagine anything but freaking out and nearly having a panic attack. I asked her why and she couldn't say exactly, just that the thought of it totally overwhelmed her. I suggested that it might be that she was thinking of Taylor Swift as something other than a human like her. 

The thing is, sometimes we can fixate so much on someone that they stop being real to us. They become a screen on which we project our desires, obsessions, fears... whatever lives in our own depths.

Every week I meet with a group of murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and other assorted criminal offenders. We sit around tables in a classroom on the fourth floor of a maximum security jail. And we talk about well-being.

For months I never bothered to find out why each of my participants were locked up. I assumed most were for drug related charges. Why I assumed that, I can’t say for sure. Naiveté, most likely. Or maybe because the labels “murderer,” “rapist,” or “pedophile,” invoke images of monsters, not the individuals I talk and listen and joke with.

When I was much younger I thought about integrity as a moral virtue. It meant doing the right thing when no one was looking. It was a constant reminder of the need to make sure I was behaving rightly; being a good person no matter what. It was a word that felt out of my league.

In my most authentic moments, I couldn't be confident that I had true integrity.