Aubrey Page Embarking on a New Chapter in Life
With the birth of her first child, Scientologist Aubrey Page reflects on the way her own parents helped her choose a positive direction for her life. Her profile is one of more than 200 “Meet a Scientologist” videos available at www.scientology.org.
It is not always easy being a parent.
Scientologist Aubrey Page, a new mother, well remembers how she tried her own parents’ patience and put their parenting skills to the test when she was 16.
In high school, Page fell in with the wrong crowd. She started smoking marijuana at 14 and within two years she was using the drug every day.
“My parents were divorced and I lived with my mother in Arizona,” says Page. “When they found out about the drugs, they pulled me out of the school and sent me to live with my dad in San Francisco. To say I was not at all happy with this is a complete understatement—I hated being in a new city where I didn’t know anyone.”
But while her parents, both Scientologists, held a hard line when it came to drugs, they were not judgmental and they encouraged her to examine what she was doing with her life and where unethical behavior would lead.
They suggested she enroll on the Purification Rundown at the Church of Scientology of San Francisco—a detoxification program developed by L. Ron Hubbard that enables the individual to be rid of the harmful effects of drugs, toxins and other chemicals that lodge in the body and create a biochemical barrier to spiritual well being.
“I decided to give it a try,” she says.
The program helped her feel much more alive and alert and she decided to enroll on some Scientology courses.
“One day in the course room I looked around at the other students and suddenly realized everyone in the room was there to do better and improve conditions for themselves, their families and friends,” says Page. “It hit me that this was exactly what I wanted to do too.”
Scientology also helped Page, now 25, pull through a traumatic crisis six years later. Her dad paid a visit to the doctor because he “wasn’t feeling right” and came home with the shocking news that he had terminal cancer—the doctors predicted he had only a few weeks to live.
Page, a staff member at the Church of Scientology of San Francisco by then, took a leave of absence to look after him.
“It helped enormously that we were both certain that we are immortal spiritual beings, but this was still the roughest thing I have ever experienced,” she says.
Devastated when he passed away, she looked to her Church for help.
“I am so grateful for the Dianetics counseling I received when he died,” she says. “I still miss him and love him, but after the sessions the unbearable sense of loss was gone.”
Not long afterwards, Page married husband Ian, 28, also a staff member at the Church of Scientology of San Francisco, and the couple’s first child, Julian, was born in January 2011.
“I love being a mom,” says Page. “I have heard parents say they love their child more than anything else in the world. But it wasn’t until Julian was born that I realized how true that is.”
Having a child of her own has increased Page’s respect for the way her own parents raised her—how they held a hard line when it came to her survival.
“My parents made it possible for me to choose on my own determinism to be ethical and to help myself and others,” she says. “If it weren’t for them, I don’t know where I would be today. They saved my life.”
See the Aubrey Page video at www.scientology.org.
The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total more than 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.
A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own official YouTube Video Channel, which has now been viewed by millions of visitors.