Waking Up: When You See What’s Always Been There with New Eyes

Before waking up, I thought spirituality/religion were something made-up that people attached themselves to, a false sense of hope that our lives have more meaning than they actually do. I didn't believe.

I had to have big experiences to force my stubborn nature to see, to understand, to overrule the strong skeptic inside.

Once the door was cracked open, I sought more and more visionary, supernatural experiences. I craved them. I was intensely curious. Obsessive.

My curiosity brought me to many places - psychedelics, meditation, breathwork, ecstatic dance, psychics, nature, and many, many ways of exploring consciousness on my own.

I thought big experiences like meeting otherworldly intelligences or having out of body experiences were a sign that I was connecting with the unknown. And in a huge sense, they were the bridge I needed to lead me down the path of self-discovery.

I had ego-deaths. I thought I lost (or broke) my mind. I saw and interacted with things you wouldn't believe.

12 years later, I now see that spirituality is in the day-to-day, moment-to-moment. Prayer is your life. The gift of the present is always available, and the ordinary can be extra-ordinary.

My mind is blown every single day. There is an intense yet grounded fascination with life in it's interconnectivity, it's intelligence, it's intricate complexity.

I think about death and dying daily. Not out of fear, but in wonder. In mystery. It brings perspective. It is a close and elusive friend who can appear at any moment and take any one of us at any time. He reminds us to be grateful and to live like it's your last moment to be alive.

Often times, we have to go through pain, suffering, and despair and we might not know why we're going through it at the time, but years later, we'll see that it was a necessary path to take towards understanding, towards true self-love, and towards a contentedness with life that, once you feel it, never really goes away.

Awakening can be messy. It can be intense. It can be more uncomfortable than anything else you've ever experienced.

It can also be transcendently beautiful, awe-inspiring, and overwhelmingly loving. When the door is open and you enter into the portal life is guiding you through, you must accept all of it - the full package.

The cool thing about life is as your beliefs change, your reality changes. God meets you where you're at - WHEREVER you're at.

The universe is eternally patient, waiting for you to have the eyes to see that your life, and every single life, is profoundly significant, supremely important, and undeniably unique.

Nobody can tell you this. Nobody can show you this. Nobody can give this to you.

It is by taking one step at a time through the valley of the unknown that we come to find Spirit in our lives and in everything. Once this happens, your life emits a fragrance so sweet, so significant, that you can only give thanks and gratitude for the path that brought you here.

It doesn't mean you don't have hard days, suffer, grieve, or experience despair. It means that you see those times as an opportunity to grow - life is getting your attention. It is attempting to reveal something to you that may be invisible.

Life urges each of us to see that we are all in this world for a reason. And that reason is to be naturally, wholly, and completely YOU.

It seems so simple. But until it is, it isn't.

Thanks for reading, I hope this perspective touches you in some way. Blessings on your life. 🕉