While this journey to understand has been a lifelong one, I found that the downtime I had in 2020 allowed for tremendous introspection which allowed me to get to the place I am now. I was thinking back on that this morning and remembering how the process unfolded during the whole year, up to now.
The biggest theme of my spiritual life up to this point has been a big chase, for me. I'd had a few experiences where I would say I felt close to God or felt like I was at peace with my spiritual journey. Those were fleeting phases in time and I would find myself in a rut or feeling numb or depressed and then put great effort into trying to get that "connection to God" back again so that I could have peace and love in my spirit again. Such a futile effort, looking outside of ones self for these validations and for a sense of peace. I have learned that it's everywhere and also within.
2020 started out rough for me, emotionally speaking. I had a MAJOR Christmas hangover. It was a huge void for me and a big let down. I had trained myself to get all worked up over the holiday season; trying to feel all the feelings and make all the memories and keep it magical for myself and my family to the point that when it ended it was a major let down. 2019's Christmas was extra hard for me because, as I put in all the effort to force myself to feel like everything was magic, it was staring me in the face that my children are almost grown and the magic was going to be lost.
I spent the next two months wallowing and searching for something to fill the void. Since I wasn't getting any help from God, I decided to look elsewhere. I bought crystals and studied chakras. I started listening to Alan Watts and reading Ram Dass. I put things in my bedroom that make me happy, to try and create a happy space to exist. I watched endless hours of Bob Ross, looking for inspiration and joy in SOMETHING. I started practicing yoga again and I began meditating. Meditation worked so well that it actually scared me; with the things I saw. So, I stopped.
As the lockdown started in March and we were all stuck in our homes for that extended time, I was pretty content with being in my own space. I had curated a nice corner of the world and I began feeling open. I began feeling centered. I started having odd premonitions in the forms of quick flashes and nighttime dreams. I started making art. So much art. I listened to music. I found myself open to learning and I found myself wanting to live more authentically. I did shadow work and exercises in self awareness. I wore jewelry with crystals and started studying herbs.
As spring sprung, I spent time outside in nature each day and I started to get more interested in growing plants, both inside and outside. I gathered some supplies and bought some little house plants and started a little houseplant project. I found that working with the plants and caring for them brought me tremendous joy. I planted and cared for outdoor gardens as the weather got warm and felt a familiar connection with nature. I bought a book about being a green witch and started finding and collecting pretty rocks and crystals on walks down the road as the evenings got longer and warmer. I felt more at peace than I had in years.
I had more dreams and more quick little premonitions. I started to put a lot of thought into things like energy fields, consciousness, the universe, the planet and I started to see and understand how everything is connected and the planet itself is alive. I even felt drawn to a particular tree in the woods and would sit by the tree and feel happy and connected. This frightened me.
The teachings that had been pounded into me since birth started to invade my thoughts. I found myself thinking things like:
- The crystals and the potions and the thoughts about nature and the universe are opening my mind to being vulnerable to evil.
- The book about green witches is probably actually a devil worshipper book.
- The dreams and the meditation are against God. I am conjuring up something evil.
I ended up closing the book about green witches and considered getting rid of it. I stopped listening to philosophers and stopped reading about "other religions." I stopped making art. What if everything I had been doing was just putting a bigger wedge between me and God? What if I never felt at peace again? I took some time off.
But I couldn't escape it. I came back, though a little more cautiously, but allowed myself to continue spending time in nature. I started finding beautiful feathers and collecting them. I started foraging. I made a goal to learn how to make herbal teas from the plants near me and those I grew. I also grew an entirely new perspective on life, priorities and what really matters. I was able to free myself from the judgement of others and work towards allowing myself to live more authentically. This turned out to be a huge blessing when financial hardship struck. I never lost sleep over it and I never stressed out about it. In my self examination I realized that my money worries and stress were always less about the reality of paying a bill late and what the actual consequence would be and was actually all about how paying a bill late might look to others and how they would view me as a result. It was all selfish nonsense. Once I was able to let that go, I had the most peaceful financial crisis imaginable. I wasn't praying for God to help; I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just maneuvering life with the understanding that sometimes you have a lot and sometimes you have a little. Nothing is forever. And I didn't need to worry about what other people would think; about anything! Talk about freeing.
As I allowed myself to open my mind again and actually started studying world religions and world history, the dominoes really started to fall, with my beliefs in God and the Bible. I was finding good reasons for all of the questions I'd always had about contradictions and things that just did not add up.
See, you are taught to never consider other options. You are taught to never "let the devil trick you" into falling for secular or worldly views. We were taught that this was for our own protection and for our own good. But, when you take a step back and evaluate everything you can see that it would NOT be in the best interest of the church to have people thinking critically or delving into the details. A thinking congregation is dangerous for the church. It's why there are apologetics classes in seminary school.
The more I allowed myself to be open and look at Christianity objectively, the more flaws I uncovered. The more things just didn't make sense. The more manipulation I saw and the more problems I noticed. Being someone who has been life long "on the fence" about things, I finally allowed myself to be released from it. Now, that is also a process. Undoing 40 years of indoctrination doesn't just get undone overnight. But, separating myself from it I can see things more clearly. I also understand that there are people out there who need religion because the idea of anything else is too big or too scary or too inconvenient for them to fathom or even consider. There are plenty of Christians who are Christians because the alternative is just too scary to them. They cannot confront the idea of the Bible being wrong and they are of the opinion that there is no harm in them being believers because in their eyes they can only stand to benefit. If they're right they go to heaven and if they're wrong, nothing happens. They won't risk going to hell. I get it. And I agree there is no harm as long as they don't force those beliefs onto others.
So, I am going to read the rest of the green witch book, just because I no longer fear it. I am going to allow myself to think about things the way my brain naturally wants to process them instead of running them through the Christianity filter first. 2021 is going to be another good year for personal growth. I will try and study all kinds of things. I will be open to dreams, intuition and premonitions without the need to label them or myself, for having them. I will keep growing plants, collecting rocks, making art, helping others and brewing tea. I will allow myself, in my 40th year, to be me.
Circling back to the start of this post, living authentically also means not trying to FORCE myself to feel things a certain way or yearn for a connection. I am not going to fabricate feelings of magic and joy around a holiday or event. I will allow myself to experience it naturally. Christmas was much less of an emotional roller coaster this year because I just let it happen. I didn't try to make myself do mental gymnastics, force feeding myself holiday music and longing for snow and searching for it to "feel like Christmas." I just let it be Christmas. And it was one of the best I can recall. The word for 2021 is AUTHENTICITY.
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