An Awakening After An Awakening #91

Shared from my personal Substack website I continue the unwinding journey of writing out my experiences. I wrote this piece in December of 2023 after some revelations appeared in my life I wanted to not only share with the public but record for my future self. Thank you for listening. 

 

“Is anybody ever really awake?
Just beneath the skin, always reminded
You can only live so long as a fake
Time is wearing thin, let our love begin”

Incubus-Our Love

I’m wondering how many times I can reintroduce myself and my beliefs as I stagger through this shift I was gifted with almost 5 years ago. Coming from a background in church benches, summer bible school and rolling on a bike in a humble small town all the way out to a small family farm I must admit to you on this platform if I never directly experienced a “Spiritual Awakening” I do not know if i would ever be able to comprehend the depth of change it can invoke in someone.

I am not sure if I didn’t have this very personal experience that I would be writing this post to you today. I’ve been trying to make sense of what happened to me two weeks before my wedding. I’ve been a lover of Jesus since I was a child but could never subscribe to the boxed in teaching that so many church benches were trying to show me. It’s not that I didn’t believe in his story I just thought so much was missing in the story. I believe there is an ignorance that has been cast into modern day religions and the day I dropped out of college I vowed I would access the world as my school to find the answers I was searching for. Right before I dropped out I had my class list in my hand and I had signed up for a World Religions class. I had just experienced a expansion of perspective in a sociology class and was hooked to learn more of what was out there on the Spectrum on God.

My first day of sociology class our professor opened the classroom up with a movie scene discussion and stated if you can prove the physical existence of God to me now in this classroom, in my hand, you have an A for the rest of the semester.

My mind was frantically searching for the answer to the A I deeply yearned for in the academic realm. I was never an honor roll student; the school formats were a struggle for me to say the least. I enjoyed the world of music and poetry. Everything else seemed so out of touch for me. So, as I sat in my college classroom astounded, I had made it to college I was enamored with finding the answer.

So many students replied with “Faith” as the proof of God.

He reminded them he needed physical proof of God in his hand for their argument to be made. I was determined to answer the question, but my mind was blank with delivering the correct answer. I wanted so badly to dig back into the banks of my mind and be victorious in handing over God to my professor and solving the mystery for everyone. Instead of being discouraged I was not able to solve the biggest question in life I sat back and listened to the girl in front of me argue a valid point that still sticks with me to this very day.

She said, “isn’t physically explaining the existence of God like trying to physically explain love? All of us have experienced love in some capacity but none of us can physically prove it is there. I cannot physically place love in your hand but I know it is real based on my personal experience with it.”

The classroom went silent and the teacher I believe was also taken back by her answer. Although she did not physically prove it and put it in his hand she did bring up the profound correlation between God ( the highest, ultimate creator of all that exists) and love. It left me hungry for more answers and I was determined to pass that class and enter into the world religions class full speed ahead with deep diving into all the ways I and others choose to connect with the Divine.

 

As i threw my class schedule in the trash and walked off the campus I looked up at the sky and said I don’t know what the plan is here but I am going to go out there and search for what I am looking for.

Fast forward another year or so I find myself in a thrift store in a small town holding a book on world religions and gasping in remembrance that my quest to find any and all knowledge of the interpretation of God was still alive in me.

Having a Christian background, you are taught that anything outside of Christianity and Jesus Christ is not the way to salvation and most paths are laced with demons and poisons to knock you off your eternal path leading you back home. On the other hand, you are also taught that God loves you more than anything, more than you can understand and if you repent, change your ways while allowing him in your heart the holy spirit will wash over you and you shall be saved.

That was my favorite part of the faith. That although the humans around were not as quick at forgiveness as your creator, salvation could still be yours. My problem I found cropping up was Christianity was a baby compared to all the religions and theologies out there.

I was particularly lit up inside when I found the word “Karma” in my younger years. So much that I tattooed the word on my left wrist along with Epiphany on my right wrist. It made sense to me, in fact it ran parallel to the Catholic teachings of “do unto others as you would want done to you.” I might be paraphrasing that line, but you get what I mean. I sat in so many different religious places that I started seeing strings tie between the doctrines that lined up with other doctrines that my eyes were not supposed to see. My eyes kept seeing things that others couldn’t. I wondered if my curiosities were going to lead me astray or if maybe I would take the long way home and explore all that I could in the world and the ancients’ texts had to show me.

As I left the thrift store, I carried 4 books out with me. The World’s Great Religions by Time Incorporated (LIFE), The Girl I loved by James Whitcomb Riley, Saucerful of Secrets The Pink Floyd Odyssey by Nicholas Schaffner and Meditation A Beginner’s Guide by Charlotte Parnell. Once again, I looked up at the sky and said alright well, I’m gonna go check this out and see what the world is into outside of my small-town upbringing.

 

I took the World Religions book and found myself having extreme thoughts of betrayal of my upbringing and my personal relationship with Jesus. I had always been big on praying and honestly talking to Jesus like he’s my translucent best friend. I guarded my relationship with him to the point that most around me would presume I have no God at all.

I was rebellious and at that age very reactive with back talk and eye rolls. I felt extremely misunderstood and looking back I do not blame them for thinking what they did of me. However, I held onto my own convictions of them judging me that I was in turn doing the same thing to them that I was receiving.

I sat on my floor staring at the World Religions book I was about to open, retrospecting back to the day I thought I was going to enter a college course to explain all of these writing to me and just closed my eyes.

“Hey Jesus, It’s me again. I know you see this book in my lap and it’s clearly not the holy bible. I think there is something missing in the book I was raised to read in for the answers to life. I feel almost guilty for looking at anyone but you, but I can’t shake the feeling that something is missing in this.”

“How can I believe in you and karma? How can I believe in you and Reincarnation? I don’t want you to think I am leaving you or I do not believe in you. I just feel it down in my soul that there is more to this story and there is more to your story. It’s a feeling I cannot shake and if I go too far, please pull me back in and put me back where I am supposed to be. Please stay with me as I need our conversations and experience this life alongside me. “

 

Then I opened the book to the first religion it was Hinduism. It spoke of Karma and Reincarnation on the first page. My body erupted in a passion like I just had a grand idea or an epiphany. I had to keep reading and documenting my findings in my notebooks.

At this stage in my life, I had never felt any of the things referenced in this book. I admired those that felt a deep connection to the Divine energy that created them but never really felt anything. I had always seemed disconnected even though I said my prayers every night. These cultures I had never experienced were referencing spiritual practices I had seen in passing on movies. The energy they were referencing was so foreign to me I truly could not comprehend or feel what they were saying. But I continued to highlight my favorite parts and jot them down for later reference. I was hoping an older and wiser version of myself would be able to make sense of what I was documenting or maybe just maybe that future self with finally feel the connection I had read so many others have in their lives.

My favorite hobby that no one knew about was me sitting in my room writing these notes and flipping through these books on salvation, nirvana and enlightenment. Looking through each belief system inspired me to change my ways. I was heavily distracted in my younger years and falling into every pit I could in those days to distract me from a lot of inner turmoil. I had no education on emotional regulation I just knew to shove it down and keep going. I would pick a practice up for a while and never fully build enough neuroplasticity to keep it. I believe I was still heavily wrapped in outside validation and a dying need to fit in with my surroundings. I truly struggled to know or be my authentic self. Earthly life kept calling and that is the phone I picked up for many many years as I cycled through my experiences. As I moved further and further away from home all the traumas, I had no definition for were swirling in me like a hurricane as I continued to believe they were in the past and nothing could be done but keep putting more distance between those lower octaves of myself.

Fast forward this story to two weeks before my wedding and I was smacked in the heart space and third eye with a spiritual phenomenon I had only read about in books. Never thinking anything of such transformation could happen to me I studied what was coming out of me and sought guidance from a mentor to help me understand what could possibly be happening to me. I reached out to an old friend, and she led me to all the information about what a spiritual awakening is and kundalini activation moving through the energy centers in my body. I was a very literal and skeptical person before this experience when it came to the world of unseen energies. It was hard for me to wrap the idea around my head that I had energy centers in my body or floating around me for that matter. The closest I had seen these energies were on a shrooms trip and when the shrooms leave the system the logical brain will just chalk it up to what the medicine does in the brain.

Over the last almost 5 years I have met many who call themselves healers, guides and masters. All human beings believing they have tapped into the invisible energy around all of us. I started a podcast to document my journey and my findings along the way. I’ve been in the presence of some who did not have my best intention in mind but I do believe the big picture was to have all these experiences lead me back to myself and this digital notebook I am sharing with you.

 

 

If you ask me I am in the middle of another unraveling, another awakening of sorts. I’ve felt destabilized in trying to navigate the new shift in my brain and energy. Although i do not believe every energy worker I’ve come across I do believe in the energy inside and outside our bodies we cannot see. I know for those in left brain overdrive its hard to believe in something you can not see but as the girl in my sociology class states it’s more of a feeling than being able to physically touch it.

My goal is to write to you guys on the updates I find in this ever-expanding journey and talk about it until my last breath. Over the new year I will be recapping the last 5 years of all the places and people I have sat in front of. I am not passing judgement when I point out the reasons, I chose to leave these people in my rear-view mirror I am just describing the feelings that ultimately led me back to me. I do believe the same cosmic energy that created you the reader. I feel in some incomprehensible way we are all connected we just suffer from the illusion of seperation.

Join me in this digital safe space by clicking the like and subscribe button. Leave me a comment and if you find yourself needing to peer into the lives of others, I have a podcast called Safe Space with Cheyenne on all streaming platforms.

I’ll see you on the next post my friend.