Managing a Troublesome Ascensionitis Symptom

I’ve been going through a very troublesome ascensionitis symptom for the past day. Thank heavens it occurred on my day off or it would probably have created a great deal of mischief for me.

This way I got to keep silently to myself until I reached a point of resolution.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning because this one was both troublesome and interesting to resolve and jumping to the end sets up a particular kind of listening that’s less useful than hearing the story.

At first I would not have been willing to say it was an ascensionitis symptom. I would have just said that something was wrong and I would have reacted as if something was wrong. But I want to stress that, by the end, I did not any longer feel that something was wrong. So, if I had acted on the situation at any time prior to the end, I would have been acting on a false appraisal of the situation. That’s important to keep in mind.

Ascensionitis symptoms come and go and many are not troublesome. If it were fatigue, I’d have just slept. If an ache somewhere, I’d attend to that as well. But this one was a feeling I did not like at all.

I responded to it with what Krishnamurti called “passive awareness,” what Adyashanti called “seeing,” or what I used to call “being with and observing.” I think I’ll start using Krishnamurti’s term now because it’s easier to understand than mine.

I remained passively aware of the feeling. I did not react. I did not think. I did not force anything.

At first I was facing a range of situations that I did not see at the time as related. In fact, if I were to tell you what they were, there would be no way to see the relationship among them. They were these.

Situation 1

My wife had asked me to copy two CDs. I used to be a PC user and know the procedure for copying a CD well, but now I am a Mac user and I’m not as familiar with the process. Being confronted with a procedure that was a wee bit unfamiliar to me, I felt totally overwhelmed.

Now this is silly. The unfamiliar procedure is really no big deal so what I’m communicating to you is that being faced with something small that was a trifle unfamiliar nearly sent me into a tailspin. You would think that a bit fishy, wouldn’t you?

Situation 2

I dreamt of an old girlfriend whom I feel quite uncomfortable with because we broke up under conditions that were never really resolved. Around her I feel a little lost, as if I am just about to be swallowed up in a whirlpool of uncertainty. I don’t know how to act around her.

In the dream we were dating again and she had reason to be in my apartment, which I had just moved into. Again there was uncertainty and a feeling that I was not able to offer her very much in the way of food because I had little and didn’t know where anything was. It seemed like I couldn’t do the simplest task, which was added to the angst I felt at not knowing how to be with her.

So notice some of the common threads: feeling uncertain, lost, incompetent, in danger.

Situation 3

I’ve been unable to reach a friend who said he was going to do something for me. The task is important and I’d dearly like more certainty about it. But he’s hard to reach and, when I do reach him, he answers some of my concerns and not others. I then can’t reach him to get the answers to the rest of my concerns.

I considered calling a halt to the whole set of transactions and falling back on Plan B. I felt dismayed at the inconvenience and, again, uncertain, lost, in danger.

Situation 4

I felt cold at night. I turned up the heat and jumped into more clothes. But, while, on any other night, it would have been no big deal, on this night, feeling cold I also felt dread. This very small, very simple situation, was blown out of proportion. I felt concerned for my safety instead of just feeling a little cold. And, if I had not been familiar with this process, I’d probably be acting as if my safety was at issue instead of knowing that something else was happening.

There were other things arising. But they all had this similar connection – that I felt uncertainty, dread, angst, incompetence, dismay. I felt like something bad was going to happen, that I’d be unable to handle that something, that I was lost and being drawn into a whirlpool. (Gee, I feel better even saying this. Notice we are walking through the “emotional clearing process, [1] if you hadn’t noticed it already – the same process used with a vasana.) And the situations, though each of them was small, were being exaggerated in my mind, blown out of all proportion.

Up to this point, I was not approaching the situation as if I were clearing something. I was simply feeling these feelings, dreading in a vague sort of manner, and exaggerating, not connecting them all and feeling very uncomfortable. I was in danger of doing all sorts of inappropriate things I’d regret – panicking, getting mad, projecting responsibility outwards, attacking.

Moreover, I didn’t like the way I was feeling and this not liking it was added to the situation itself. I feel this way and I don’t like the way I feel and I’m exaggerating it. Altogether I was in a very unpleasant place.

I asked my twin flame to ask my guides to help me handle this situation, whatever it was. I was feeling genuine alarm, as if I were losing it. The exaggeration of each situation was causing me anxiety.

The first help I received was to see that all the situations were related: they were all connected by the feeling of angst. Let me define angst: A feeling of anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression. Yes, that’s as good a definition as any. A feeling of anxiety or apprehension, but not just that alone, but accompanied with a feeling of depression – or I’d have said “dismay.” I felt dismayed, like something really bad was going to happen.

If this were a vasana rather than an ascensionitis symptom, I’d continue to use the emotional clearing process on it and track it down to an earlier similar incident. But I’ve done that and no earlier-similars came up. So I know it’s not a vasana.

I also know we passed through the 12-12-10 portal and new energies are playing on us. And we are heading for the 12-21-10 and more new energies will play upon us.

Given that I cannot “source” this “upset” – that is, I cannot find its beginnings and so cause it to disappear – I am assuming that it’s a function of the energies and simply being with it.

However, seeing that all these seemingly-unconnected symptoms are related and that they do not come from something somehow exterior to me (that is, from a present-day incident or the memory of an incident) but come instead from my interior without a cause, I put it down to ascensionitis.

I’m now being with it knowing that I’m going through something and not forcing myself to do the unfamiliar or, if I must do it, then doing it slowly and forgiving myself for feeling angst.

This is the first time I’ve encountered such a strong, unpleasant, and troublesome ascensionitis symptom and it’s taken hard work to reach this point of having it continue to go on with me but feeling capable of handling the results.

So just to recap, our usual practice is to feel a certain way and, if it’s unpleasant, look outwards for the cause. We end up blaming our feelings on someone or something else and perhaps doing some things we later regret. But by remaining passively aware of the feelings, we either process them if they derive from a vasana (persistent reactive pattern) or else create space for them to flow through us if they are ascension related. We save ourselves a great deal of upset and ward off inappropriate behavior and a lot of hurt feelings on the part of those around us.

(Since writing this article, I made myself a bowl of Quick Quaker Oats and left it in the microwave a mite too long. It boiled over onto the glass plate. I immediately felt angst again, but this time I was not fooled by it. I knew it was all a part of this ascensionitis symptom and just flowed with it and allowed it to flow within me.)

Footnotes

(1) For articles on the emotional clearing process, see:

Footnotes

Share this: