I work with a lot of people who are in some kind of spiritual awakening. Often they are dealing with some kind of crisis.
When we embark on a spiritual healing journey, inevitably we hit stretches where it feels like things are getting worse. In drawing from my own experiences and the teachings I've received from others, I hope to share some helpful thoughts and suggestions that will save you time and suffering.
This article is for you if ...
you've surrendered to the Spirit...to the best of your ability (you might have to re-surrender regularly, and that's natural)
you are willing to change...even if it means be wrong
you are focusing on spiritual solutions instead of fixing things in the world
you are spending your time with the God of your understanding.
If this is where you are, but things are getting "worse," please know that you are okay. Storms are expected, and any particular stormy period will pass. I promise.
Think of it like this: When you finally decide to clean that closet you've been jamming with random stuff for years, you have to drag everything....I mean, everything... out into the room first. For a while, the closet -- and now even your whole room or house!-- seem a whole lot more messy.
But when it is your closet you are cleaning, this doesn't actually scare or demoralize you. You realize it's not usually fun, but it is just an expected part of the process. And it's temporary. Besides that you know that despite appearances in the moment, things are actually getting better! You have confidence that soon you will be able to see the fruits of your effort.
Spiritual healing is like this. To weather the storms without getting stuck in suffering, a proper context will help. So will practical tips. This discussion aims to offer you both.
Inviting up the fear-based identity
When we say "yes" to spiritual healing...and we really mean it....we are actually eliciting the low energies (false beliefs, negative energy, trapped old emotion/trauma, dark perceptions, etc.) stored within our unconscious.
We repressed them because we didn't want to, or couldn't, deal with them. Now we are inviting them forward for a new purpose -- so they can be forgiven and released and so that we can be at Peace. This is how we live completely free and authentic as the perfect Spirit that we are.
This is how we achieve True Happiness that stays.
In the past, this fear-based, unconscious content has driven our lives without our conscious awareness that they even existed. We mistakenly thought we were the issues they created in us. They were part of our identity.
These unconscious influences are why our good intentions, positive affirmations, and other diligent practices aimed at our self improvement have always seemed to be overridden or sabotaged. They are the "why"...why we loop in old, familiar patterns (at work, in relationships, etc.) that do not serve us.
Perhaps you can find yourself in these examples (I know I can):
Why as a mature, competent adult could she feel like a 3-year-old if she receives criticism?
Why would he still feel a swell of rage at the thought of a certain family member, past situation, or a political or other authority figure despite knowing it is unhelpful or that it is actually irrational?
Why can't she get to work on time?
Why does she get a migraine headache every time there's a family gathering or a party at work?
Why won't he stop spending, gambling, working too much?
Why, even though he has everything he every wanted to achieve or own, does he still feel unsatisfied?
Please know this, Friend: You are not inherently bad, a rage-aholic, weak, undisciplined, cursed, needy, evil, or any of the other names you may have been called by ourselves or others. Not at your authentic core level.
You've actually been trying to find happiness, but the fear-based energy (i.e. egoic separate self) has been driving you. It doesn't know about happiness and never will.
Fear-based ego thinks happiness is missing, and/or that it is always being attacked and needs defense/protection from the "out there" that wants to take it. Fear thinks peace/happiness/goodness must be sought after and that something outside itself will provide it.
The repressed fear that we identify as is vicious: It cannibalizes other people, situations, material goods, etc. to fill what it perceives as the lack in itself.
The problem is that happiness is our authentic Self, which hasn't gone anywhere. It's just covered up by an illusion of thought of what we're NOT.
Solution: Own Our Experience, so we can Free Ourselves With Spiritual Healing, we've decided "the buck stops here." We give up blaming ourselves and our world. We shift instead to taking responsibility for our current experience.
We have to take responsibility for everything we feel and do, but we have to do this wisely and compassionately without blaming and shaming ourselves.
We have to stop looking outside ourselves (in the past, the fearful future, other people, and other environments/conditions/situations) for happiness. Why? Because the cause of our suffering is coming from within us...and this means we can, and must, free ourselves.
...the cause of our suffering is coming from within us...and this means we can, and must, free ourselves.
So that's the context we find ourselves in. Now we are working spiritually to heal and forgive and release. What to do when the dark arises and feels overwhelming? Please read Context and Navigating The Spiritual Journey - Part 2.
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