A fair warning that this is going to be an extremely long one that might take more than one session to read. The details in this experience sometimes seem important so it is difficult to know what to leave out and what to include. I’ve always been a bit of a writer so I could honestly fill a book. Also my experience has stretched over a number of years so I have a lot of events and time to cover. I tried to break things up into sections to make it a bit easier to read.
PRECURSOR
I usually think of my spiritual awakening beginning in 2010 when I became very ill. However, upon reflection, I feel like it might be important to mention that leading up to my illness I used to spend some time regularly thinking about what Jesus would be like if he were alive today. I enjoyed the song “What If God Were One of Us” or songs with a similar concept on a Christian radio station that I listened to at that time so I think that’s what got me started. I’ve always enjoyed thinking about philosophical and psychological concepts so I enjoyed imagining that if Jesus was alive today that maybe he was some random janitor who had a difficult time existing in our current world. I imagined he was probably depressed and on medications and totally unaware that he had amazing abilities. I used to think about how if Jesus were actually alive today it was unfortunate that most people would not recognize him even as they worship Jesus in their churches regularly. And I liked to think that if I saw him I would recognize him or that I would at least try to. There was a part of me that felt like Jesus was technically ALL of us (not necessarily an original intellectual concept) so I eventually came to the conclusion that he WAS alive today but people just didn’t realize that he was already there as a part of us and that we collectively were that random janitor stuck on antidepressants and unaware of our abilities.
I was NOT meditating or pursuing any purposeful spiritual journey at the start of my awakening. In fact I identified as agnostic. I enjoyed listening to the Christian radio station at times for variety and because I found it fascinating. Not because I was religious. But I do think I have always been an innate truth seeker.
BEGINNINGS
Beginning in 2010 at the age of 30 I became very ill. Technically my illness was caused by the wear and tear over time of an undiagnosed (at that time) genetic condition. So I’ve had some form of this illness my entire life and had previous moments of some struggle with it but did not have a label for it. Previously it had also never been this extreme. This time around I spent months in bed because it was so bad. I had so many symptoms that it’s difficult to explain them all and while some of them can be explained by my condition, some of them are still baffling. For example one day I had this weird tightening sensation as if something was twisting around my trunk and wrapping around me from the inside of me and it felt kind of electric or nerve oriented? Similarly I had moments where I would shake and my teeth would even chatter. I’m not certain if those things are kundalini related and I’m still not certain if what I experienced was a true kundalini awakening or just an awakening that happened to be accompanied with medical issues.
Eventually I saw an atlas orthogonal chiropractor in 2010 given that one of my issues involved my neck and regular doctors hadn’t been able to help me much. This did not immediately solve the problem but it’s significant to note this and I’ll explain more about it later.
After limping along for most of 2010 barely able to work, I was finally diagnosed on my 31st birthday near the beginning of 2011 with my medical condition. Being diagnosed was actually a very happy day and one of the best birthday gifts I could receive because it meant I could finally take some educated and focused action to improve my situation. But being diagnosed on my birthday was an interesting beginning “synchronicity” or an event that felt significant to a certain extent. I did not know about “synchronicities” at that time yet the uniqueness of the situation got my attention.
It might be important to back up about a month though and point out that prior to celebrating Christmas with my family that year I had what I refer to as a daydream but someone else might call it a vision perhaps. In the daydream I first became aware that I was flying high above the ground. And I slowly became aware that I was like an eagle flying. From my viewpoint I could see some ants down below and I somehow knew that the ants represented my family. I noticed that they kept walking in the same paths over and over again like ruts that their ancestors had made previously which made sense because it was the only paths that they knew. And ants literally make ant trails that they follow, after all. I marveled at how small their steps were from my viewpoint but I didn’t make fun of them or look down on them. I just realized that from their perspective they didn’t see all of the other possible steps they could take so they just stayed in their usual ruts. That was pretty much the end of my daydream.
At this point of my journey I was very angry that I was so sick and not able to do things as I liked. I was embarrassed to be so ill especially at such a young age. I wanted to fit in and be “normal.” I discussed this daydream with my boyfriend at the time who was an adamant atheist but who suffered from chronic migraines himself so he was no stranger to illness and he told me (very wisely) that I was just “seeing more of what was important because of my illness.” I had been angry about “being the eagle” because I couldn’t see how a sick person could at the same time “be an eagle.” And he comforted me by explaining that a lot of the stuff we focus on as humans isn’t important and that’s why me being sick could potentially be a good thing because then I could see that.
Within days of my diagnosis a new political leader took office in my area and the reason this is significant is because shortly after that this political leader made some changes that created a lot of upheaval and also threatened the existence of my line of work. So after finally getting diagnosed and being able to focus on recovery there was this weird ominous threat hanging in the air in my life. It felt eerie and significant and I found myself wondering “Does the universe not want me to get better? I don’t get it. Why is my line of work threatened right when I have an opportunity to recover?” So I started noticing more in general and seeing connections like that. I’m glad that I did not express those observations to anyone at the time or I think I might have come across as mentally ill or having delusions of grandeur with believing that political changes were somehow related to me and my personal journey. For the most part I just observed and kept most of my observations to myself.
During this time there was a lot of upheaval where I lived but I was staying home working on my recovery. I tried to shut everything else out. My boyfriend was very encouraging and he kept telling me “You’re going to get better.” This helped me shift my mindset into believing that.
During this time I exercised constantly as that was one of my main treatments so lots and lots of walking and I completely changed how I ate. In making these changes I noticed that sometimes I had to confront my inner critic and just be aware of it but also not to buy into it too much and I had to learn a bit about letting go. Thankfully my hard work on my recovery paid off and I was slowly able to return to work full time.
However, I had some other eerie moments and synchronicities around this time of me getting ready to return to work after being off for a few months. More about that later. It also felt like because I was taking care of myself that there were other parts inside of me that were trying to clamor to the surface for attention. Like they were thinking “Hey she’s taking care of herself! We should bubble up to the surface so she can deal with us now.” To give an example one day I caught myself unconsciously engaging in an exercise for “empaths” while watching a Psychic Kids tv show. I originally thought I watched the show for entertainment but there just seemed to be more bubbling up than what appeared on the surface. Similarly around that time my boyfriend and I watched some documentaries about whether God existed or not. Even though these documentaries favored atheism it was as if “something was in the air” and the question about spirituality had risen to the surface more.
As a sidenote religion rubbed me the wrong way at that point (still does) and I had established myself as an agnostic in my teen years. I won’t get into all of the details of why I felt agnosticism was the most “accurate” but I did and in some ways I still do feel most comfortable identifying as an agnostic even after my awakening because I feel like it’s almost impossible to define God.
INVESTIGATING
When I was getting ready to return to work I learned that some people I had worked with previously were moving. And it turned out that my first day back was one of these people’s last days there which again felt eerie or significant somehow. As I mentioned I didn’t know about “synchronicities” at that time but obviously that’s what it was.
I slowly realized that I had formed an empathetic bond with this particular person. This was something that had happened to me previously in my life with others but I had always tried to ignore it before. Over time it felt like this problem of having “too much empathy” for someone built up more and drew more attention to itself each time I experienced it so it became more difficult to ignore each time it happened. So this time I decided to investigate. However I didn’t really know HOW to investigate. I was coming from an extremely logical and scientific background and I had studied psychology in my past. So investigating energy directly wasn’t really in my toolbox. I approached it more like a counselor or psychologist might. What I decided to do differently this time was I contacted the person who I had formed an empathetic bond with and I guess I was trying to investigate what exactly I was picking up on in that person. I figured there was some hidden trauma that I was picking up on from their behaviors or something and once I understood it I would feel better just knowing about it because it wouldn’t be hidden anymore and I’d be able to move on.
During this period of time I realized that from the outside what I was doing looked “sketchy.” Someone easily might have labeled what I was doing as “having an affair” or “cheating” emotionally because I had a boyfriend at the time and here I was emailing someone else with the purpose of gathering personal information from them. However I didn’t feel that an “affair” was my intention and I also found myself realizing that there really was no such thing as an “affair.” I mean on the surface, yes, but I decided that all affairs are is an expression of childhood wounds. When you took away childhood wounds then it made sense to me that affairs ceased to exist. They were an illusion that only existed as a clue to look deeper. So I decided they were irrelevant although I realized that maintaining awareness was important and I realized that other people might not understand my explanation. But I viewed what I was doing as investigating. And I informed my boyfriend that I was contacting this person and I tried to explain why so I WAS trying to be open about it. Even so it was an extremely confusing, tumultuous and difficult time because it was difficult to sift through what was mine and what was someone else’s and I did sometimes say things I didn’t mean. I kept thinking that logically if I uncovered more then I could eventually feel better and get back to “normal” and get on with my life. But instead what happened was that the deeper I went with everything the more shame I felt. And I began to feel like this other person’s energy was consuming me.
I went through long periods of time when I wouldn’t send this person messages because I wasn’t sure what to say after our first few exchanges. Things weren’t turning out as I had hoped and my intentions were being misunderstood which was confusing to me. And then when I would send messages I would come across the wrong way. My questions hadn’t really led where I wanted. So I didn’t think contacting this person was wise after awhile yet I still felt consumed and drained by this person. I didn’t know how to shake off the energy and just move on.
In the middle of this time period though I did get a little reprieve when my boyfriend and I became unexpectedly pregnant. We decided at that time to become engaged but to focus on having the baby first before getting married. For some reason during my pregnancy I felt much better and protected from this person’s energy. But almost immediately upon giving birth (like the following day) it all came back and that’s when I realized it wasn’t just me thinking about it. There seemed to be energy behind it or something about it was really invasive and not normal. So it just got worse and worse.
A DECISION TO TRY REIKI
Finally I began doing lots of internet searches and I decided that it might be possible that “empaths” were real and that there really was “energy” that I was picking up on. So I finally admitted that I was an “empath.” Upon realizing this I started freaking out because I read about “energetic cords” and suddenly accepting some of that stuff as a possibility was just really terrifying to think about. It was really scary at the time and I felt violated. I honestly wasn’t certain what to do next. I wasn’t keen on paying some random person to remove energetic cords for me and I had no idea where to start with that but I found myself researching Reiki.
Reiki seemed appealing because it sounded like a massage for your spirit and I figured I could just get some general Reiki without telling anyone my full situation because I was concerned about appearing “crazy” even though I had taken every care to be extremely logical in the situation. I also liked the idea that the Reiki would go wherever it needed to go and do whatever it needed to do in theory and I imagined that I’d be able to go back to “normal” again. Note: I obviously realize by now that in reality there was no “going back to normal” but I didn’t realize that then. :) I was ever the optimist though.
So I sought out Reiki and tried little 20 minute sessions of it here and there at first and then ended up winning an entire hour session of it for free after going to a presentation about the history of it. When I arrived to the full hour session the practitioner asked me if she could do Karuna Reiki on me instead of Usui Reiki. She had recently learned Karuna Reiki and she said that her guides told her it was a step up from Usui or deeper somehow or something to that effect. I was so naive and clueless at that time that I just said “Sure why not?” But what followed was an extremely intense experience! Admittedly I was already in a really extreme state but this experience with the Reiki was extremely difficult for me to digest!
THE REIKI EXPERIENCE
The practitioner began at the top of my head and the moment she did I could feel and kind of see a pulsing purple light. It felt like a strobe light or like the sensation of going through train tunnels and coming out the other side over and over again due to the pulsating light. It wasn’t super bright and I had my eyes closed but it was significant enough that it was surprising and it made me feel kind of seasick.
Then she moved down to my third eye chakra. At the time I knew nothing about the chakras so in retrospect I have realized the significance of her hand positions but keep in mind that she did not touch me throughout the session. Her hands only ever hovered above me a few inches. So when she moved onto my third eye chakra or forehead I had all of these “dreams” all of a sudden like a movie reel going fast. They really seemed very similar to dreams so I’m hesitant to call them visions. They weren’t particularly clear in their meanings. But one of them seemed more significant than others and it suggested to me that this person I had energetic issues with had issues with one particular parent of theirs and a lot of anger towards this parent.
Next the practitioner moved down to my chest area and there I felt this really strange sensation that’s very difficult to describe. It felt like there was something hard there and it felt like the Reiki energy was “pulling” on it and trying to break it up. Honestly this sensation was very painful physically. It was so painful that I considered asking the practitioner to stop at that moment but I was so in shock that I was experiencing ANY of these sensations at all that I just never opened my mouth. Plus I’m an introvert so it’s in my nature to just freeze up when I’m overwhelmed. Eventually afterwards I found something online about “heart walls” and that seems to make sense given the sensations I experienced in my chest.
I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary when she was in my stomach area or my throat area but once she moved down to what I’m assuming is my root chakra I had this very strange sensation of sexual energy rising up out of me. Similar to the heart chakra sensation, this sensation again felt like the Reiki energy was “pulling” something up from deep in my body. It felt like this sexual energy was just hiding out in my cells previously and then this Reiki pulled it to the surface of my body which sounded very strange to put into words at the time but now that I know that kundalini literally hides out in your cells there could be a connection there. I have also considered that maybe it was a wound surfacing somehow? I really don’t know. Again this practitioner was not touching me. But I was sexually “turned on” via this energy completely unexpectedly and very randomly. And I am not a lesbian so I was not attracted to the Reiki practitioner at all. :) You’ll notice that I tend to find humor sometimes in the most dire situations. That’s obviously one of my coping mechanisms and to this day I still think it’s funny to think about me thinking “Well I’m not a lesbian so what’s going on here?” But I honestly could not wrap my mind around it.
After my session the Reiki practitioner did talk with me a little bit and I think she hoped that I would tell her about anything I experienced during the session but I was extremely hesitant to do so. I didn’t really know how experienced she was or how she would react to me explaining everything I had just felt and I think I was kind of in shock. BUT she did tell me that since she began practicing Reiki she had become more intuitive and could “see” things sometimes. She gave me a very simple and concrete example of this using an experience she had with a different client. But in MY case she said what happened with her ability to “see” things during my session was that two beings came down right away and stood on either side of her and she said all she got from them was “mother father” so she was wondering if my parents had passed. My mother had by then but not my father. So that didn’t make sense. To be honest I have no idea what that meant and I’d rather not think about those two beings as it gives me the heebie jeebies. :) But hopefully they were nice beings. I was obviously in a crisis at that point. So even if what I’ve experienced isn’t a kundalini awakening it was at least a spiritual crisis type thing so hopefully those beings were there to help.
REIKI AFTERMATH
Afterwards I honestly was more stirred up than I had been prior to the Reiki and even more at a loss of what to do. I felt even more shame and things just got deeper and worse. Just to give a timeline on things as I seem to have stopped mentioning years…I first became ill in 2010 as you’ll recall. Then I was diagnosed in 2011 and worked on my recovery. As I returned to work in 2011 was when I first started becoming aware of having “too much empathy” and when I decided to investigate about that problem. Then in 2012 I became pregnant. In late 2012 I gave birth and by spring of 2013 was when I had the Reiki session. I was 33 by the time I had the Reiki session. 2013 was perhaps one of the most tumultuous years which I will get into more further. It was followed by an equally tumultuous year in 2014 though.
So after the Reiki session I remember sitting on the floor of my kitchen overwhelmed and not knowing what was next and my fiancé at that time (you’ll recall we decided to get engaged) noticed my situation. Even though he was an atheist he was observant and sensitive. So I told him a little bit about what I had experienced during my Reiki session but I was so incredibly ashamed about it. I was ashamed that I had seen and felt things that were clearly not accepted by our mainstream culture so I only managed to tell him about some of it. While it was a relief to tell someone about some of it and to admit that I didn’t know what was going on with me I feel like telling him simply resulted in stirring HIM up to some extent. And we were both freaking out. It was just this really crazy tumultuous time.
ASKING SPIRIT FOR HELP AND DECIDING WHAT TO DO
Eventually what I started doing was I decided to start asking “spirit” for help even though I had never really done that before and it felt foreign to me. I had started thinking about sending one more message to this person and telling them that I knew some things about them and their childhood via the “dream” I had during Reiki. There were a few reasons why I was hesitant to do this. The first one was that I had no “proof” that this whole issue about this person’s childhood was even true. It seemed weird to base a message on some vague dream I had. The second reason was because it was plain old weird and inappropriate in our culture to do such a thing. And attached to this reason was the thought that it was nosey for me to do this. However, I already felt this person’s energy was invasive and I wasn’t sure how else to get rid of it. The third reason I think was because I was scared. I didn’t know what would happen if I sent such a message and I desperately wanted things to go back to things just being “normal” rather than a constant state of spiritual crisis.
But what I did was I asked my mother one day (because she had already passed and I felt the least weird asking her) if I sent such a message to this person would everything be okay. That day when I went on my walk on my lunch break there was new graffiti on a building that I always walked by that said “Everything is okay forever and ever and ever…” I realize that’s a gigantic sign especially since that building never had graffiti on it before and it literally used the same words I did in my question when I asked if everything would be okay. But I had a difficult time even digesting that so I don’t know that I accepted it right away or honestly even now. It’s just a lot to wrap your head around. Also note that it said everything WAS okay so I don’t know that it was really telling me to send that message really. So I wasn’t sure what to think. And in retrospect I realize that from an awakened standpoint everything IS okay no matter what. But back then I was more action oriented.
Another day I asked another general question out loud which was basically “What about demons?” I didn’t necessarily believe in the devil or hell or whatever but it still seemed smart to ask such questions. I wanted to know if I messed around with this further would demons try to interact with me in some way or would something negative happen like that. Well THAT day on my lunch hour I walked by a Little Free Library and found a large old book about religion in there. So I picked it up and opened it and the first page that I came to was literally labeled how to deal with demons. Ha ha It basically said that if you are a true believer then a demon cannot touch you so you really have nothing to fear because demons are a nonissue I guess. I was like “Um okay whatever crazy old book from the Little Free Library.” Ha ha Honestly I just didn’t know what to make of it all.
Anyway one day I was thinking about what it might feel like IF I sent a message. I was trying to think of what I would even say and I heard a voice in my head say “You need to learn how to keep a secret!” And what is so interesting about that is that when I was 19 my mother said that exact phrase to me about something entirely different. In other words apparently when I was 19 I must have spilled the beans about something that my mother thought I should have been more discreet about. And she had used that phrase to try to shame me into acting accordingly. But because I KNEW where that phrase came from in my life and because I KNEW my mother would have NEVER wanted to shame me in her spirit form (because even in physical life she was very loving and I know she would never hold grudges or anything like that) I realized from hearing that voice that a part of me was just plain old afraid of sending this message and of speaking up. But more importantly, I realized that because this voice said that I needed to learn how to keep a secret I felt that that meant that there WAS actual clout to the dream I had seen during my Reiki session. Because while I don’t necessarily trust my “intuitive visions” because I’m new to that sort of stuff I DO trust that deeper parts of me know deeper truths and so this part of me had committed a Freudian slip so to speak by basically admitting that there was in fact a “secret” in this situation that I knew about. And what was interesting is that upon my more logical side realizing this I also could feel the fear behind that voice. Like this voice within me had tried to be a bully essentially when it told me I needed to learn how to keep a secret. It was trying to bully me into behaving but I could sense the fear in this voice that’s secretly behind EVERY bully and it led to me having an “Aha!” moment. And so at that point I basically knew that I might as well just send the message. Because there was no other reason not to. That negative bully voice had come from a part within myself and certainly not a demon or anything else negative. It was just a reflection of my inner fears. And even though it was “weird” to send an email like the one I was planning to send in our culture I figured if you stripped away all of our culture what ultimately mattered was us reaching out to each other and spreading love. So I reached a point where I just didn’t care about conforming in the “normal” world anymore. That just didn’t matter. I mean it was just one little email that I would send anyway. I realized that there was a chance that this person may not understand my message or they might think I was way super weird or something but I decided that it didn’t matter. Spreading this information was still important.
I spent some time forming what I wanted to say and in some ways my final message was very codependent but in other ways it was a good message. And if I were to break it down into just a few words it would have been “I know what happened between you and your parents while you were growing up. You didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong and the universe loves you.” I built up my courage and somehow ended up consulting this random man online that I had somehow found who was willing to go down this crazy rabbit hole with me and then I sent it.
Afterwards I asked for a sign that I had done the right thing and within seconds a doorbell where I was located played a song unprompted. In other words the location of where I was in that moment had a doorbell that was capable of playing various songs although it had been programmed only to ding. But WITHOUT anyone walking through the door it didn’t ding but played a song which is very unusual so could have been interpreted as a sign. Then I went to the bathroom and I started jumping up and down with excitement because I was so glad to finally be done with it all. However I quickly realized that part of that excitement was from the other person’s energy and it felt like when I was looking back at the mirror that this person was partially there. Like they were in my energy which was really freaky. So I tried to just be calm and I switched into a different mode. I got excruciating anxiety and to be honest I kind of freaked out. I missed two days of work and I sang constantly during those two days because it seemed to strengthen my energy and keep other energy away and it felt like I had to fight against something and be strong which of course freaked out my fiancé even further.
CUTTING THE CORDS
I then started frantically contacting spiritually knowledgeable people to assist me and told them more of the story finally. I considered cord cutting necessary at this point. I called the person I had the Reiki session with and told her that I had weird sensations during our session although I didn’t go into detail and I told her about this person I had the issue with and I’ll never forget her saying “This is beyond. This is just beyond.” Again my dark sense of humor thought that was hilarious in spite of me being in a state of crisis myself. But she gave me the contact information of a well respected psychic in the area. AND on top of that this psychic was also a mental health counselor. I met with the counselor and she “cut the cords” of this person from me. When she went to physically cut the cords I had this sensation of getting kicked in the gut lightly and I cried a little. She seemed slightly surprised by this but then said “Yes just let it go” as if she was realizing that was my physical reaction to the cord cutting and I guess that’s what it was. Interestingly this psychic also hinted at picking up on the same issue that I had picked up on regarding this person. This happened without me mentioning it to the psychic so that was validating to hear.
A SIDE TOPIC OF THE IFS MODEL
I’d like to point out here that the type of mental health counselor that this psychic was is what’s called an Internal Family Systems Therapist (or IFS therapist). I didn’t know it at the time but these types of therapists treat each individual as if they naturally have different “parts” within themselves. So, for example, just like how I heard that “voice” inside of me that I mentioned earlier. That “voice” was one PART of me and it was trying to protect me from doing something that might bring harm to me in our culture. In spite of its bullying approach that part of me had good intentions and this model uses the philosophy that ALL parts of everyone have good intentions although some parts of you may be in conflict with each other and have different opinions about what’s best. An “inner child” is one example of a common “part” within a person’s psyche. Or an “inner critic” is another example although there can be many varying parts.
According to this model of the psyche, ideally you would work with all of the parts of you as best you can so that everything is run fairly within your system and so that all parts of you have a voice. The way you do this according to the model is to try your best to access the higher Self of you (the Self with the big S and not the small selves of you with the small s) and then using the Self you are better able to engage with your parts fairly and to run your own system competently. As an interesting side note, this model of the human psyche has delved more and more into the spiritual world as time has gone on from the beginnings of my awakening. So the model itself has evolved and gotten deeper over time.
I have not delved deep with an Internal Family Systems Therapist individually myself but being aware of this model of the human psyche has been very helpful for me at times. At the time of the cord cutting I was NOT aware of this model of the psyche. But, even so, I find it interesting that I intuitively understood on some level at that point that there were different parts of me given that I recognized that previous “voice” (which told me to keep a secret) as being a “part” of me. What’s interesting further is that during my interaction with this psychic I “heard” even more voices within my head speak up. One of them was being sassy toward the psychic even. So at that point my system was very stirred up and even though on the one hand I was in this very broken down state where I clearly needed assistance, there were other parts of me talking smack. Again my dark humor parts found this internal “talking smack” voice hilarious.
So I wanted to point out this gradual growing awareness of the existence of “parts” that I was developing at this point of my awakening. I find it an interesting coincidence that this psychic’s existence was almost like a little nudge in that direction or a foreshadowing of my future interest in the IFS model of the psyche because even though she didn’t really speak to me in depth about there being “parts” of me and never once explained this model to me, she did practice that exact model in her counseling practice.
In the middle of this “parts” talk this seems like a good place to talk about earlier in my journey when the political climate of where I lived at the time seemed to respond to me personally. It now makes sense to me that as individuals “wake up” and as we “wake up” collectively that our systems (and therefore the larger system as a whole) will naturally become “stirred up.” To go from surviving in one existence to taking a step forward into another existence it just simply makes sense that parts of us will rebel against that because it’s a big step. Evolution is a big step. And even if some parts of us don’t directly rebel then they might still have fears or something to say about it. OR some feelings or parts might come up to the surface simply to be released. Thus a stirring up of things. And I believe that it’s possible for even one person waking up to affect many others even if those many others aren’t consciously aware of being affected. This is simply because we are all connected. There is a book by Paul Levy called Dispelling Wetiko that helped me to find the words to express some of those thoughts. And I wanted to point out that in the case of my own job being threatened just as I was given a chance to recover physically could have simply been a reflection of this stirring up of things and of all of us being connected. But I digress. Back to my journey…
BACK TO CUTTING CORDS
The psychic who cut the cords from me did chide me for sending the message I had sent and point blank told me that I should not have sent it. I believe she meant that I should not have sent it for boundary reasons. So IF my goal was to set up healthy energetic boundaries with this person and not encourage them to suck my energy dry, then yes I should not have sent it. But I had already been through so much at that point that I honestly did not feel that I needed to be chided. In my opinion I had done nothing wrong and if anything I had been extremely brave. I had meant well and had loving intentions. In retrospect I don’t think she really realized the full extent of what I had been through as I only shared snippets of my story with her.
Also this psychic tried to teach me how to protect myself in the future by imagining roses all around me but I just wasn’t a fan of that concept because it seemed laborious and tedious and I also just didn’t like it although I didn’t have the words at the time to express WHY I didn’t like it. While there are probably a mixture of reasons, I realized weeks later that one main reason I didn’t like the protective roses idea was because I would much rather get to a wound and heal it. If I’m having trouble with someone’s energy most likely it’s because I have a corresponding wound and I’d much rather heal that wound than sit around hiding behind fake roses all the time and not really growing. So I realized that my unconscious goal with this person hadn’t been to setup healthy boundaries, but to investigate wounds and heal from them. So what I did was completely valid for that goal even though it was done unconsciously.
Overall this psychic was very nice to me and she meant well. I just wasn’t having it with some of her suggestions I guess. And she wasn’t really capable of assisting me through an awakening of my sort. But she thankfully managed to cut the cords from me which I desperately needed during that time!
AFTER THE CORD CUTTING: PTSD AND PROCESSING
After the cord cutting I was extremely paranoid. The psychic had told me that afterwards the memories would still be there but that there wouldn’t be any energy behind them. And honestly for the first few days I was paranoid that the cord cutting might not have even worked because I was still so worked up. However over time I did notice that things seemed different. But even so I think I basically had PTSD from the experience because I noticed that if I went through an hour or two of not thinking of this person that I would suddenly think of them almost on purpose as a protective mechanism and I’d search my brain for thoughts of or evidence of them in an effort to reassure myself that they were, in fact, gone. It was sort of like checking that the stove is turned off 35 times if you’re anxious about a possible fire. It was an extremely difficult state to explain because it was all internal. I mean there was no physical stove to check obviously and I was not skilled in dealing with energy so it was difficult to wade through it. I would also randomly have little moments of panic where I’d think I might run into this person while grocery shopping or doing other activities. So clearly I had PTSD from feeling invaded by this energy for so very long. I was never diagnosed with PTSD and I never shared these feelings with anyone very thoroughly and certainly to no one in the mental health field, but PTSD is the term I’m using to describe it.
I should mention here that one of my first reactions to having sent that message was an “oh sh*t” moment when I realized that in reality I had sent that message to MYSELF. Because at some point I think I realized that I could not believe that the universe loved this other person without believing that the universe also loved ME. So I felt kind of “tricked” for a bit as I realized all of the “we are all one” aspects to things. The reason I felt “tricked” was because I was then worried that I would have to heal which was scary to me because I didn’t know what all that would entail. And I think I sensed that it would potentially be big moments of healing and come with a great force which was terrifying. So I realized that it didn’t really matter how this OTHER person even took my message. Instead what mattered was that I sent it and meant it with sincerity and so therefore I had love for MYSELF and my own childhood too. I had previously believed that we were all connected but I think in the past my belief that we were all connected was more of an intellectual concept. So for example I recognized that if one country was destroying the environment then that was affecting all other countries but I hadn’t really thought about it on a deeper or experiential level before. So I was more deeply understanding the reality of the concept that we really are all one.
In spite of the PTSD symptoms and my feelings of being “tricked” I was able to plod along and move on at least some. During this time period I often told myself to take things moment by moment. I often stopped and just breathed a lot honestly. While I was having anxiety to a certain extent I’ve never been a person who is very anxious naturally. I tend to get very calm so I think that trait was a benefit as I was good at talking to myself and taking things one moment at a time. So I slowly began to heal and in reality it didn’t take me long to move on in some ways. In fact, with the energy of the person I had the issue with gone finally I was able to move onto digest my wounds rather quickly! If I remember correctly, at first I investigated why I didn’t like the idea of using protective psychic techniques and I found a website that helped me explain that it was because I wanted to heal from my wounds rather than ignoring them. And from there I started noticing that some of the people in my life reminded me of my family while growing up and that felt eerie. I started to put two and two together and slowly realized some issues I had with my parents. Due to more googling I was finally able to label some of what I experienced growing up as “emotional incest.” To be clear my parents were pretty amazing overall. It is my belief that because I was so sensitive growing up I was more easily or deeply affected by what little dysfunction I DID experience and that it was also easy for my parents to get sucked into unconsciously relying on my empathy without really intending to. Also I’d like to point out that a lot of what I experienced with this “emotional incest” growing up was extremely subtle and in some ways more energetic. Hence I unconsciously re-created this same pattern of inadvertently supporting someone energetically with this person I had trouble with. So THAT was my wound and it had drawn so much attention to itself with a vengeance because it wanted to be healed. It all made sense at that point then. It was almost laughable how simple and obvious it was in retrospect. I did my best to try to heal from this of course but honestly just being aware of it was half the battle and made it easier to heal from.
After awhile I started to have some moments where certain parts of me would “take over” for the lack of a better term. For example one day on my lunch hour I took off walking in a direction I hadn’t walked before. I literally sang out loud while doing so and didn’t care if others heard me. I remember a part of me thinking while I was doing this though that we (and I think “we” sounds more accurate here vs “I” because it reflects the many parts of my system more) were going to be late getting back to work. Normally I would have listened to that part of me that was worried about the time but somehow these other parts of me overrode my system and I kept walking. Eventually I happened upon a beautiful gazebo in a park which I hadn’t consciously known was there and I remembered thinking that it would be a beautiful place for a wedding. I walked up to it and sang a song about being in love while standing in the gazebo. And then it hit me. Here I was engaged to be married at that time and yet when I had seen this gazebo and thought it would be a beautiful place for a wedding I never made the connection that I was engaged to be married and that MY wedding could take place there. Somehow instead I had viewed the beautiful gazebo as something for someone else to enjoy for THEIR wedding. So it hit me that my entire life even though I had assumed I would get married someday and had enjoyed romantic stories and whatnot that I had never actually allowed that for MYSELF. I had kept up a certain block about that. And I realized for the first time just how much parts of me WANTED to get married and I felt the parts inside of me rejoice at me figuring this out. They were ecstatic like “Yay! She’s getting it!” And I realized that while contacting that person I had the energetic issue with could have at one point been misconstrued as an “affair” that my ultimate goal had been to heal those very specific wounds so that I COULD get married to my fiancé rather than keep up certain emotional walls! So what could have appeared on the surface of our culture as a diversion or something “bad” (aka an “affair”) had actually been congruent with the ultimate goal of marrying my fiancé the entire time! What an amazing and validating discovery for myself!
When I had these moments when certain parts of me would override my usual system I started noticing that the parts of me that were used to managing my system and being in control (such as the parts that would tell me to head back so we weren’t late for work) really started to get angry. And what was interesting was that when I noticed this anger it really took me by surprise because it just made it really obvious that these parts that were used to managing my system weren’t the real “me.” Because I knew the “real me” wouldn’t get angry about such things. So then I would have thoughts like “Wait a minute! I thought I was these parts that manage me this whole time and I thought I was a nice person and stuff but those must be PARTS of me and not the REAL me but if I’m NOT these parts then WHO AM I?!” So I was starting to realize more and more that who I thought I was wasn’t necessarily the real me and my system was continuing to get more and more stirred up.
SOME EPIPHANIES
My fiancé and I put our wedding in motion then. We decided to do it later in the summer and just have it be rather casual and small. Even so, there was still some planning to do. I wish I could say that my summer was filled with blissful wedding planning but it still continued to be tumultuous. For one thing, my epiphanies continued especially during that year. I’m not exactly certain when these all happened but generally speaking in 2013 so I’ll just list them here. I had the epiphany that I was a highly sensitive person or HSP. Previously in my life when I was 19 I had found a book about HSP’s in a bookstore and had felt like it was an “eerie” moment like a setup or like someone was watching me during that moment but back then I was able to push it aside and tell myself that I was “too tough” to be considered highly sensitive and that I was just an introvert. However, this time around I fully admitted that I was a highly sensitive person and I delved into a number of books about the topic. Similarly, I also came to the realization that I was codependent. And interestingly the same day that I had found that book about highly sensitive people when I was 19, I had also found a book about codependency in that same bookstore. And I had the same eerie “this feels like a setup” feeling that I had with this topic at that time as I did the other one.
Another epiphany I had came while watching an unlikely tv program. I was watching the reality show Wife Swap of all things and the two families that swapped wives were a very religious Christian family and a very strong atheist family. What was interesting was that near the end of the show when the two couples got together to discuss how things went the atheist husband broke down in tears when he found out that his wife was expected to pray while with the other family. And even if this had been doctored for the purpose of reality tv that moment resulted in me having the epiphany that some of the most spiritual people in the world today are actually atheists. It just suddenly made sense to me. The reason for this is that atheists perhaps have parts of them deep down that know how spirituality SHOULD be but because of the prevalence of religion in the world and the incorrect interpretations that many religions carry atheists become frustrated and eventually give up and cut themselves off from their spirituality in order to survive in our culture. This results in deep but hidden wounds. This doesn’t mean that religious people are “better” or that atheists are “better.” It just means that in order for us to grow collectively that atheists will need to start pulling these wounds regarding spirituality up and healing them. I realized that this was probably the case for my own fiancé who identified as an atheist himself. I did eventually share this information with him although I was not pushy about it and didn’t necessarily expect him to change personally. I just pointed out my epiphany. But again I think it probably resulted in stirring him up even more.
ROBBERY AND DEEPER ISSUES
A couple weeks before our wedding date my fiancé and I were robbed overnight in our home. Thankfully nothing violent happened. It occurred in our home while we slept but the thieves took our television, some computers and my fiancé’s wallet etc. It was incredibly surreal as nothing like that had ever happened to me before and we didn’t live in an area with a ton of crime. Given everything else that seemed to be building up, this incident seemed weird too. I mean why us? It was just one more incredibly difficult thing to digest or wrap my mind around and, in retrospect, I think it sent my fiancé over the edge.
Growing up my fiancé suffered from chronic migraines and so he had been given opioids at a fairly young age during the opioid boom. As a result he had developed an addiction over the years. Plus, I believe he had some childhood trauma that helped fuel his addiction. The thing is that he would sometimes go through periods of time such as a year or two when the addiction wasn’t an issue. And it seemed to be under control when we married. However, I think getting robbed (on top of all of my awakening experiences) really sent him over the edge and into a downward spiral. For one thing, he felt responsible for the robbery because he identified as the “man of the house” and I think it just really bothered him that something COULD have happened to me or our baby and that he hadn’t prevented the robbery from happening in some way. It was just very difficult for him to let it go. He went out and bought a gun and insisted that I learn how to use it too just in case. So slowly over time at this point he just got really worked up and he started on a downward spiral in terms of his addiction.
One interesting moment that happened during this time was that the police officers had suggested that we check all of the outside dumpsters and garbage cans in the area for my fiancé’s wallet as they said it’s very common for thieves to take the cash in wallets or any other valuables and then to dump the wallets in a nearby dumpster or trash bin. So if we checked we might at least recover his driver’s license or possibly some other important things that they left in the wallet. So one day I went with my fiancé to help him look through all of the garbage cans in the area and we did eventually find the wallet which seemed like a miracle within itself but my fiancé also found in or near that same trash bin, a book that someone had thrown out which was all about an atheist coming around and deciding to believe in Christ. It was called The Case for Christ. And hilariously my fiancé picked it up and tossed it at me and said “Here I found a book for you.” And when I read the summary on the book I told him that maybe it was a book for HIM instead. It was just this really poignant yet also funny moment in the middle of chaos. And we both kind of laughed about it. Like what were the chances that such a book would be in the trash that we were digging through at that exact moment?! So thankfully we could both laugh about it.
I should mention that around this time I did have a strange dream when I fell asleep one afternoon. I can’t remember if this dream happened before or after we were married but I’m going to assume it was afterwards. As a sidenote, the wedding day itself went very well and yes we were married in that gazebo that I had walked to inadvertently that one day. Anyway at some point probably sometime after our wedding I fell asleep on the couch in our home and took a nap. During this nap I had a dream that I was still in my home but it looked somewhat different and there were maybe 5 entities trying to attack my husband and I. When I say “entities” I’m not really sure how to describe them. Honestly they were basically people but I think they had wings?? And I think one woman was dressed in white? I think most of them were wearing black though and they looked kind of grubby like they had dirt on them. They were all physically good looking though like people from an action movie would be. At one point they had me cornered in the living room and they were threatening to make me their slave forever or something along those lines and I remember almost giving up but then I noticed something. I noticed that the whole time they didn’t seem to be able to touch me physically. So I realized that they couldn’t actually hurt me. It had just all been threats and physical intimidation but no touching. So I just remember keeping that in mind. However, my fiancé/husband had already engaged with them and had been throwing punches with them in a different area of the house and two of them had him incapacitated. And the remaining three interacting with me liked to rub that in and say that they had incapacitated my husband. And they were like taunting me about what I was going to do now that they had gotten my husband. I just remember in the dream thinking that I should just try not to let it bother me and I remember thinking that I needed to get to my husband to tell him that they couldn’t actually touch us so he should just stop fighting. So when I woke up from that dream I wasn’t certain if parts of it had been real or what? Real meaning was my husband really fighting demons or entities at that time? Was it the spiritual reality of that moment? Or was it just a dream? Or symbolic of our unconscious minds somehow? I don’t know. But I do feel like during that time was a real time of change where my husband was starting to struggle a lot more and his addiction was taking hold more.
What followed throughout the year of 2014 was a downward spiral as I’ve already mentioned except it’s worthwhile to point out that there were ups as well as downs during that time. When my husband was able to get sober during brief periods of time it really felt like we were the closest we had ever been and really on the same page. So in some ways it felt like our growth continued but it was in this very extreme and tumultuous way where things were either really bad or they were really amazing. And it might be important to point out here that thus far I know I’ve focused a lot on explaining the negative experiences of things but I would have moments of love at times or other “high” moments too. For example I remember asking one Reiki practitioner I trusted at one point why I might be having thoughts that I could “save the world.” So obviously I was having some intense “highs” at times too. But I think I’m just really good at recognizing that those moments were a reflection of imbalance or I was good at observing them and not taking them too seriously so I don’t focus on those moments when I think back on my awakening. And even the answer that the Reiki practitioner gave me (which was that that was my ego) didn’t fully make sense to me. I just really wasn’t a fan of this whole New Age pop world’s obsession with the ego which is a good transition into the next topic. And just as a sidenote here, I understand that it’s totally normal during an awakening to have moments of thinking you might “save the world” or something because you are trying to digest this surge of energy and concepts.
CONSCIOUS DISCOVERING OF PARTS
The extreme highs and lows that I noticed within my husband allowed me for the first time to consciously recognize the existence of there being other “parts” to people. So previously in my journey I had intuitively recognized other “parts” of me in a semi-conscious way but I had never really put that into words yet or investigated that further. But what started happening was when my husband was under the influence the more pronounced certain parts of him became. It got to the point where I would recognize that these parts of him WANTED me to argue with him and it got to the point where it was very easy for me to remain calm instead because I understood that energetically my buttons were being pushed and I simply had no more energy left for that. So I started to get very calm and I would say things to my husband like “This isn’t the real you. I’d like to speak to the real you please.” And it was fascinating because sometimes just by doing that other parts of my husband could be accessed for awhile. For example one time when I did that, the “real” parts of him came forward and just said “I love you” and I told him I loved him too and he would express that he didn’t really know what was going on with him. So it appeared that there was this weird protective part that was increasingly running his system that really disliked me.
At this point I knew nothing about the Internal Family Systems model but upon noticing these very clear differences within my husband I started googling about the existence of different parts within people (in particular addicts) and I eventually happened upon the Internal Family System’s model and everything just clicked! This model also helped me to explain why I wasn’t a fan of the obsession that the New Age world had with the ego because this model allowed for more parts than just the ego and the higher self to exist and it viewed all parts as “good.” Whereas with the ego/higher self model you have these very limiting two choices to choose from and the ego is constantly looked upon as “bad” which in my opinion isn’t accurate.
Aided with this new information I was hopeful that my husband would be able to overcome his addiction because viewing these parts as “protective” finally made sense to me and I felt it opened up new avenues for treatment and approaches. But I knew it would take time. I began taking our child with me to live elsewhere with family because it seemed the wisest course of action with our child involved. I didn’t want my child exposed to that or to have to act like addictions were normal or like nothing was happening. But even so I had no intentions to “leave” my husband. It’s just that certain boundaries were necessary and given that I had realized that I was codependent I am proud that I took that step forward to set up boundaries for myself and my child especially given how tumultuous things were. I also started seeing an Internal Family Systems Therapist whom my husband ended up seeing as well. However, in the end, I think it was all too much too soon. Everything was just too stirred up and eventually after a year and a half of marriage my husband passed from an overdose in late 2014. I believe that his protective parts took him out. Around that time I actually had some dreams suggesting that his protective parts were threatening to do just that. There were also a number of weird moments and it would be impossible to describe them all here but, for example, one day my husband remarked that he felt like our oldest cat didn’t have much life left in him. There was no logical reason for my husband to believe this. Our cat wasn’t THAT old. So it’s like I somehow knew even in that moment that he was projecting his own feelings onto the cat and letting me know that he didn’t feel like he had much of his life left. I hope that makes sense.
ANOTHER CHILDHOOD WOUND SURFACES
A day or two prior to my husband’s death I had yet another epiphany. This epiphany was about myself and it was that I had never fully healed from when my best friend had moved away when I was in grade school. It felt as if this information had been hiding out in my body somewhere and then it just popped up into my brain seemingly randomly. Now granted, previously in my life I was somewhat consciously aware of this issue of mine but to have it pop into my brain like that made me realize that I hadn’t actually physically healed from it all yet. At the time that I had this realization I had actually been excited because I thought that if I was able to heal from this childhood wound of mine then it would result in my husband and I becoming even closer. I was excited and felt a lot of love regarding this. But then he died literally either that same night or the following night. And I don’t think that the timing of my realization and his death was a coincidence. It was just yet another synchronicity.
Obviously having my husband die was devastating. It’s difficult to even put it into words because it is such a huge event. And it added a new layer of “survival mode” to my scenario in that after his death I had to plan his funeral and take care of so many other things. Logically speaking I know that when I look at my experience through the lens of a spiritual awakening that technically my husband’s death could be viewed as a gift from the universe because his death provided me with an opportunity to grieve the loss of “a best friend” and to therefore heal that childhood wound of mine once and for all. But doing that is easier said than physically done especially when the physical aspects of life and of raising a child now as an “only parent” have to be attended to.
Since my husband’s death I’ve continued to grow in certain ways but I also feel like I still have some walls up. For the first four years after my husband died I didn’t even think about dating at all and just focused on grieving, healing from various wounds, doing more reading on codependency, etc. And of course I was busy with dealing with all of the changes after the death and with raising my child. There were also some major issues with my mother-in-law to attend to so I have not really had many breathers at all in this process.
Once I did think about the possibility of dating sometime in 2018 and tried it a little I did not have good luck. So I’m not convinced that my grief from my childhood or my present is healed although I also don’t pretend to really understand what is going on or what things mean in terms of dating.
Interestingly when I did try to date I had two separate experiences where I ended up talking to two separate sets of men who knew each other earlier in their lives and who were no longer friendly with one another. To me having that happen twice seems very strange. So for example I’d start talking to one man and then the other would contact me without realizing that I was already talking to his arch nemesis or whatever. Ha ha Then after awhile everything would come out. In the second situation the two men somewhat reconciled so hopefully that’s an improvement? But either way none of these were good matches for me for dating purposes. So I’m not certain what all of the coincidences and connections meant. And to be honest I still really miss my husband. I think it’s totally normal to continue to grieve a spouse even if I go onto have another relationship but I hope I’ve healed enough to have a healthy relationship someday at least.
Upon reviewing this draft of my awakening I feel like me mentioning all of this dating stuff is coming across as a little odd. Please understand that I bring this up only as a way to explain that I’m concerned that I have not fully worked through all of my grief yet but that hopefully I have. Sometimes having a relationship helps act as a good mirror for things and because I am not in a romantic relationship and have not been for years then I feel like I haven’t gotten a good glimpse in a good mirror for quite some time regarding certain topics. Hopefully that makes sense.
STRANGE OCCURRENCES AFTER MY HUSBAND’S DEATH
Immediately following my husband’s death I had some weird stuff happen. I suppose you could categorize some of this stuff into the psychic phenomena category. As I already mentioned I had some dreams about my husband’s possible death but then the day he died my very quiet neighbor who had developed a friendship with my husband over time came out of his house and upon hearing the news from the medical personnel there he offered me a hug. This was very uncharacteristic of him as he struck me as someone who kept a lot of walls up. But my husband and he had been on a similar wavelength. Anyway upon offering me this hug I accepted and when we hugged it was like I could feel our heart chakras connect. Like I could feel it kind of buzzing and open and for one small moment I completely let go but then after awhile I could feel his heart chakra closing and he eventually broke the hug and left presumably because that interaction had been too much for him. A couple months later when I was moving out of our home this same neighbor came up to me to ask me how the move was going and that’s physically what he said was “How’s the move going?” But as he did so I felt pressure on my ears like there was energy pushing on them and in my head I heard “Would you like some help with the move?” I actually had to ask this neighbor to repeat what he said TWICE because the voice I heard in my head was loud enough that it was difficult to make out what he was physically saying and I wanted to respond to the “correct” question. In my opinion, a part of him wanted to connect with me but other parts of him didn’t know how to. And on the surface we also tend to maintain the status quo so that’s what the surface of him was used to doing. But this experience was very helpful for me in terms of understanding my empathetic issues as it was a clear illustration about how a person might give me mixed messages energetically. And it helped validate all of my previous empathetic moments because most likely what had happened before was that parts of other people had been tapping me on the shoulder and asking for my attention so no wonder I had struggled in the past with such conflicting messages between hidden energies of parts of people vs surface behaviors of people.
What was difficult for me through these experiences was understanding what was important and what wasn’t important for me to pay attention to in terms of my personal life. Like did hearing that offer to help me move mean that I should have asked this neighbor to help me? I didn’t know. In the end I decided to try to “shake off” this neighbor’s energy. After all, my husband had just died and I decided the last thing I needed was some other person’s energy bugging me again. So I shook off this person’s energy mostly by consciously ignoring it and also by exercising a bunch. And thankfully I was successful.
As a sidenote I had experienced some other psychic phenomena at various earlier points of my journey. Obviously I experienced the sensations I mentioned during Reiki but also one day I experienced a sensation of my energy being in a different part of my office than where I physically was and it made me remember a time when I had done that same thing as a child but had “caught” myself and made myself stop. It was interesting because it felt like I had my “feelers” out and I was “drinking in” the energy of the office and noticing how much more healthy it was than previously during my awakening. So it was a positive experience and it was feedback showing me how things WERE improving around me.
ONE MORE EMPATHETIC ENCOUNTER
A couple years after my husband’s death, I had yet another empathetic moment with someone from my past. This time I went into the experience much more aware and what helped was that this person was also very intelligent and spiritual themselves. But even so, they didn’t really appreciate when I finally uncovered something from their past and pointed out what I thought it meant. But even so, this person had been nice to talk to about my grief and I was aware of some of my wounds that were involved. In other words it was another opportunity to play out certain codependent roles specific from my childhood again because we don’t necessarily just magically get over those things. Instead growth is usually gradual so I feel like it was helpful to have someone to reflect some of that stuff back to me again and because I was so much more aware of it all I didn’t feel as badly about it because it was more mild if that makes sense. This person eventually stopped talking to me because they didn’t want to exist in the reality that I did with admitting to certain wounds but they have since reconnected with me and we have wished each other well. They have also been very careful about never denying what I picked up on as being wrong. So in a way I feel like they are validating my reality yet at the same time they don’t want to step into it if that makes any sense. We actually kind of joked about it the last time we interacted. And I know enough to just leave it alone now anyway. If it’s not my own wound then it’s not mine to deal with. I do feel like on a soul level that this person and I might potentially be very close. I just feel like I understand them and I feel like they are capable of understanding me.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED WITH THE MESSAGE?
I got all the way through writing this and realized afterwards that I never followed up on what happened with the “big message” I sent and I realized that there might be some people out there wondering about that so I created this section. Well for quite some time not much happened. Honestly at the time that this happened I felt so much shame that it was difficult for me to even check my email sometimes. I even created a new email after sending that message so I wouldn’t have to check my old one for quite some time and I avoided social media for two years because it gave me the heebie jeebies and made me feel more shame or worried about running into certain people or weird energy from others on there. I realize now that all of this shame that I kept encountering regarding this was simply shame coming up from my childhood or from me being indoctrinated into our culture and feeling shame for picking up on stuff that’s not normally accepted. And I’ve been hopeful that this shame has been releasing as it comes up although I guess I can’t be certain.
Eventually I met this person I had the issue with again in person coincidentally at an event or two. This happened maybe a couple years after my husband passed. Simply being in the same room as this person and not freaking out was a big deal for me but it was clear to me that this person was unaware of my husband’s death and the severity and gravity of the situation overall which was frustrating. Generally speaking when I speak with this person I feel like I’m trying to speak three layers deeper than them and then when they respond it’s either surface oriented or in like riddles. Well eventually I contacted this person directly and informed them that my husband had died and I did ask them point blank about my message to them. They unfortunately were not very helpful or validating and never really got on the same page as me. We no longer have any contact and the parts of me that found that entire experience with that person’s energy terrifying are completely fine with that. Ha ha And I suspect that my initial instincts about me simply trying to speak at a deeper level than they do are probably accurate. In other words we are simply not on the same page.
However, in a beautiful but gentle and quiet moment years later (maybe in 2018?) my father finally revealed to me something about his own childhood which was the EXACT wound that I picked up on from the person I had the issue with. So there was this unspoken trauma from my father’s childhood that had hung in the air while I grew up. He had thought he had been protecting us by not talking about it but because of my sensitivity I believe I grew up sensing it and the sensitive parts of me wanted nothing more than to just have it spoken out loud so that it didn’t have power anymore. And so in a beautiful and simple moment my father was able to voice it to me one day. And I told my father the same thing I told this person which was that it wasn’t his fault. And that moment was really a beautiful closure moment for me and incredibly validating. It was interesting how soft and uneventful it was as a moment but I think by then a lot of the energy had already been worked through. So I have no idea if my message had any positive affect on this person I had the energetic issue with at all but ultimately that’s not my business. All I can do is focus on my own wounds and I’m very proud of all of the growth that I and my family too have achieved as a result of me focusing on my own wounds and nudging things along within my family.
ON MY OWN
Having said this about my family, the majority of my experience has involved me having to go it alone a lot as my family doesn’t do a lot of the deep processing that I do. They have some of their own processing of course but they also just seem to come along for the ride for the most part. And they aren’t having quite the same spiritual experience as me in terms of feeling “hot” or like accidentally ticking off others etc. So it’s difficult to briefly encapsulate all of my encounters with everyone else I have interacted with but generally speaking I’ve mostly been on my own in all of this in spite of a generally supportive family.
It seems like most of my interactions with people don’t end well (i.e. I tick them off or scare them or something). For example I actually had to stop seeing my therapist after my husband died because she was the last person to talk to him in his own personal session with her before he died and I think that weighed on her. Then as she spoke to me about it she revealed something from her own childhood that was a similar scenario in terms of dealing with an addict’s death. She was offering that information to me I think because she thought I might find it comforting to know that she could relate to my situation personally but my spidey senses went off and I was like “Oh! Of course! Because this is bringing her OWN stuff up too. It’s all connected.” I mean the universe wasn’t going to waste anything if that makes sense.
And then the real kicker was that she seemed to have some parts that were angry at ME most likely because these wounds of hers were surfacing. The anger was completely unconscious on her part so it’s not like she was purposefully being mean. She just had her own wounds triggered which isn’t necessarily a bad thing unless you’re a therapist. So I realized that I couldn’t conceivably continue to see her. It just wasn’t a safe place for therapy for me anymore. If a therapist isn’t recognizing and dealing with their own unconscious “parts” then what can you do?? So I had to go it alone. But I realized that experience with her helped access other wounds of mine of feeling alone in my childhood when I’d pick up on my sisters’ hidden anger, for example. So I tried to “milk” my triggers for everything they were worth if I could but it was when others were triggered around me that was the problem with me having to go it alone so much.
Similarly at one point I contacted a teacher I had found online who worked with people going through spiritual awakenings. I thought maybe he could counsel me through mine. But after I typed up my whole story to him he responded by telling me that I was incredibly caught up in my ego and that IF I worked with him it would be a lot of work. I decided that was a load of crap. Ha ha I mean the ego isn’t “bad.” There’s multiple parts of us anyway. So even if he thought that I was stuck in my “ego” a lot I don’t know that that should have mattered. So even though I knew I did the “right” thing by not working with that man it was still incredibly lonely to be on my own so much through this all. I decided that if he had actually been loving that he would have met me where I was and offered me kindness. I don’t know. Anything but chiding me about my ego. But thankfully I was able to grow from that experience too in that I learned to trust myself more and rely on myself rather than looking externally for validation or help.
In case you’re wondering…I know I mentioned a different man earlier who I talked to online in preparation to send the message I sent. I did contact that man after my husband died to try to get help with the other empathetic issues or psychic phenomena I developed at that time but he respectfully told me that he wasn’t able to help people anymore as he had realized it wasn’t good for him. He said it spread himself too thin which makes sense as he had been a good support to me back before and hadn’t asked for a single thing in return. He hadn’t been a guru or an expert or anything. He was just this random guy that I somehow found on the internet who seemed super open to spiritual experiences and who had his own fair share of weird phenomena and was willing to support others so that’s why I found him so helpful because he wasn’t hung up on being an “expert” or a “teacher.” But it was understandable that he, too, would grow and realize that he had to set boundaries for himself too. So even when conversations were respectful amongst others there was still generally a lack of support for me and I ended up going it alone a lot.
Even in 2021 I decided to look up a woman I had befriended for a short period of time who knew my husband and vaguely knew of some of our spiritual issues we had been going through. But when I googled her I learned she had died in 2020! She was only in her early 40’s! Similarly I recently contacted the Reiki practitioner who gave me that big momentous Reiki session in an effort to finally discuss my experience with someone who was physically there but she’s no longer practicing or meeting with clients due to health reasons. So it has felt like there has been no one around to walk through this with me or to even provide feedback on the fact that it actually happened. And it is only recently that I’m discovering much more down to earth and relevant information about awakenings online which has been a relief. Previously even with the internet it seemed like I had to cobble together my own framework for understanding my awakening based on taking concepts from various places and piecing together the parts that made the most sense to me.
And I understand now that it’s normal to be triggering to others when you are going through an awakening but it still can hurt to be the person who is always doing that to others.
HEALTH ISSUES AND CURRENT STATUS
I mentioned some health issues in the beginning of my journey. While I’ve struggled with health issues off and on this entire time I had to stop working in 2021. It was just really really bad. As you may recall I mentioned that I saw an atlas orthogonal chiropractor near the beginning of my journey and I told you it would be important to keep in mind for later. The reason this is important is because technically with atlas chiropractic work the patient’s body uses it’s own intelligence and straightens itself once the atlas in the body is adjusted but this is a slow process that happens over time. Of course my original chiropractor is now retired (another going it alone scenario) so I can’t run these things by her but what seems to have happened in my case is that from 2010 through 2012 the main parts of my spine worked on straightening and that portion happened rather quickly. Then at some point in 2012 I noticed that my skull was trying to move and change as well. This was originally very surprising to me to realize that the skull was a part of my spine but it makes sense. It is an extremely slow process but things are finally at a point now where there is a lot more movement in my skull. Things literally move and shift regularly. I am hopeful that this is a good thing as it means things are straightening and working themselves out following my body’s intelligence. However, in the meantime I can have issues with my eyes, skull, jaw, tongue etc. And these issues can be very painful and debilitating to the point where even writing this has taken weeks to months. Granted this is very long but I could have written this all much more quickly if I didn’t have the physical issues I currently have.
I feel like IF this is a kundalini awakening then perhaps this is finally the kundalini energy reaching the top of my head and working its way out. But it’s such a slow and painful process with me that I just have to wait and do my best to keep myself as decent as I can be for now and yet my “decent as I can be for now” is still a disabled state. I do lots of physical therapy and I do bodywork and more recently I’ve started seeing an energy worker who I love. I have finally admitted that I’m a little sensitive to energy obviously and I actually find it comforting now that I can feel the energy worker doing things to me such as releasing excess energy from my system. What she does often makes me lightheaded which can be uncomfortable in the moment but it’s so nice to have feedback that something is actually happening simply because I can feel it. Even so, I figure it will still take some time for my body to heal and normalize.
And I find it interesting that there is such overlap between what my atlas orthogonal chiropractor told me about this spine straightening process and with what I’ve learned in more recent years about the kundalini process. Regarding the chiropractor work I was told that my entire spine would heal itself from the inside out and that it had an intelligence to it that you just had to let happen. And now here it appears to have been slowly working its way out to the very top of my skull. I mean it’s just really interesting to see the similarities. What’s also been interesting is that it has only been within the last year that I have learned that kundalini awakenings often involve sexual energy activating at the base of the spine. Hearing that has been validating given what I experienced earlier in my journey with the Reiki. But as interesting as all of it is it doesn’t make my surface life very easy unfortunately.
I worry about not being able to work and having to “prove” my medical condition in order to get further financial assistance. I am also just plain old exhausted from all of the traumatic events I’ve experienced and I feel like I’m long overdue for a physical, emotional and spiritual vacation. Ha ha I don’t meditate currently and in general I’ve mostly just done what feels right to me throughout this process. I’m hesitant to do too much with meditation partially because meditation has never really clicked for me and partially because it gives me the heebie jeebies to go too far “out there.” In my past I think I’ve preferred meditative activities such as drawing to actual meditation. I did do some guided meditations for a few years but haven't gotten back into them. And I HAVE tried some Usui Reiki since my big scary Karuna Reiki session and that took a lot of confronting my fears but I did okay with it eventually. I don’t do that anymore though. One of the things I have to do for my medical condition is to exercise a lot and I’ve found that exercise has really helped with grounding. I also try to eat a lot of protein and meat. I can get off track with my eating habits simply because I’m exhausted but I do my best. I also have to drink a lot of water. So a lot of the things I have to do for my health are helpful for the spiritual side of things too.
I’m not really sure what’s next for me but I really hope that I heal and become more able bodied. And I’m just excited that I feel like I’m finally finding some down to earth people who understand this awakening stuff as I’m really resistant to going too far out into “woo woo land” lest I get chided for having an ego or whatever. And I feel like integration is so important so I guess I like to take my time! I do remember hearing about Bonnie Greenwell a few years ago but for some reason I didn’t really notice her work until now. I know she has passed now but I am appreciating her practicality in the videos I’ve listened to of her. And I appreciate you all as well! Hopefully I'll be able to check in here somewhat.
Most likely sharing all of this information will initially result in me feeling a little shame as that tends to be how things go. I know myself and my patterns well so don’t be alarmed if I don’t respond to any possible comments right away. I’ll probably avoid things for a bit. But I’ll eventually check back in again.
I have written this anonymously (my real name is not Eliza) because I’m worried about identifying any people in my experience. I want to protect their anonymity and I want to protect my future prospects for work etc in the current world we live in. Even so I have shared an awful lot here so it’s a little anxiety provoking to be so vulnerable but thank you all for listening to my story. I really appreciate it. Simply writing this all out has been incredibly healing. So thank you!
Thank you for sharing your incredible story. A lot of it resonates with me, especially all the synchroncities, having a knowledge of people's unspoken issues, the IFS work and the way you have been guided to self-heal with support and help from therapists. I wish you well as you continue your healing journey 🙏