People are discussing going through many emotional states right now, whose turmoil is added to by spiritual experiences that are happening. It may be good to have a discussion about the situation we’re facing and useful ways of responding.
1. Transformational Moments and Their Aftermath
Some people are discussing breaking through to a place of expanded consciousness which they have for a while and which then disappears. When it disappears, people are saying they are disappointed; they feel let down. They wonder what the value of the spiritual struggle is.
Transformational moments do have the characteristic of opening and closing. The interval between the two may be days in length or minutes or hours. But they do close down and leave us more or less in the same place where we started. The fact that we find ourselves having “lost” the experience or back at the same place is not a judgment on us. It isn’t a sign that we screwed up. It doesn’t say that we are foolish, incapable or undeserving.
Transformational moments of and by themselves do not have the power to produce lasting consequences. Think of them like a vacation abroad – a time-out which is lovely while it’s happening but whose benefits may disappear soon after we return to work. They remind us of how life can be but they themselves usually do not alter life permanently.
2. Spiritual Awakenings and Their Aftermath
Spiritual awakenings can bring new capabilities online but we again expect that they will be unalloyed in their effects whereas in fact they can often bring with them much need for reorganization or they can stir up negative memories and feelings. These must be resolved before we find ourselves in a place that we feel happy overall with. So, while transformational moments are disappointing because they leave, spiritual awakenings can be confusing because they bring with them some uncomfortable moments.
3. Unresolved Issues Coming to the Fore
As if this wasn’t enough, the rising energies are bringing all sorts of unresolved issues to the fore, both in us and in those around us. In some cases I know mammoth unresolved behavior patterns are being challenged by unforeseen and troublesome events. Bosses are being bullyish. Financial situations are exploding. We’re being caught in severe weather. Relatives appear to be going mad or choosing to remain asleep.
Some people have had transformational moments or spiritual awakenings, and encouraged by them, have once again tried to tackle recalcitrant friends and relatives, only to be met by resistance, in the face of which they have lost their transformational moment or have wondered what good their spiritual awakening was.
Think of it as a large riverboat having gone through the channel and having raised all the mud from the river below. The river is cloudy with silt and the fish are thrown into confusion. That is about how the situation seems.
How to Proceed?
What is central to all of what is happening now is what we need to do with ourselves. Whether a transformational moment disappeared or a spiritual awakening stirred things up or unresolved issues have just surfaced in the face of the rising energies, the need of the moment is the same.
These situations, all of them, call for the same response from us.
We are used to being riled by our upsets and projecting our wrath on others. We are used to feeling self-righteous about behaving in this manner. But what we don’t realize is that this way of living life simply adds to the layers and layers of reactivity our personality is composed of and makes us ever more petrified. We now have to totally change the way we live life and it becomes more important to do this as each day passes.
To what way do we need to change?
Instead of projecting our upsets outwards or for that matter instead of “introjecting” them inwards and blaming ourselves rather than others, we need now to follow a two-step way of life, just as we walk on two legs or breathe in and breathe out.
The two steps are experiencing and observing.
Experiencing
We’re used to resisting our negative feelings or projecting or introjecting them. But we now must start experiencing them. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say we need to start experiencing them through to completion. So whereas, in the past, we’ve resisted feeling, say, panicky, or overwhelmed, or fearful, or hateful, or whereas in the past we have attacked others because we think they have “made” us feel those ways, we now need to start experiencing those feeling states, in order to complete the experience of them.
We won’t relieve ourselves of unwanted feeling states and conditions unless we experience them through to completion. We’ve tried resisting them or projecting or introjecting them. That hasn’t worked. It has only added to our stress and tension and reduced our awareness or consciousness. We need to go a different route now.
That different route is to breathe, when we feel an unwanted condition, and allow the unwanted condition to play upon us until it completes itself. That is the way to have the condition release its grip on us and finally dissipate and disappear. If we proceed in that way, then rather than adding to our stress, we will be completing the experience of these states and watching them disappear.
Observing
Just as we never take a step with our right foot without following it with a step with our left foot, or don’t take a breath in without following it with a breath out, so experiencing is not the only thing we do. We also must observe.
It’s true to say that while we’re experiencing we should only experience. But we should also follow it by observing what experiencing raises – just not at one and the same time.
In fact we cannot experience and observe at the same time. One is a subjective state and the other is an objective state. We have to move from one to the other.
We need to experience and then take a moment to observe what experience has brought. So I may breathe into an unwanted condition and feel it and then I may follow that by observing what has occurred and even perhaps naming it: “I feel fearful.” “I feel hatred.” “I feel anxious.” I will name the feeling I feel and watch how it alters.
So long as I’m experiencing something, I don’t observe it. I do one or the other but not both at the same time. After I have breathed into the experience of an unwanted condition and filled myself up with it, I may then observe what has happened, and then experience again, and then observe. And by moving in this manner, I work my way through an upset.
What I Don’t Do
Well, unfortunately I do what I shouldn’t do all too often. But just pretend for a moment that I actually practice what I preach or walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Thank you for that. You’re most kind.
If I practice what I preach or walk the walk, then, when I feel upset, I don’t pick a fight with someone else. I don’t blame them for what just happened. I thank my lucky stars that I am upset because now I have the opportunity to complete that upset, which I wouldn’t have otherwise, and I set about experiencing that upset and observing what happens.
So I literally walk around all day, breathing in and breathing out, experiencing how I’m feeling and then observing what just happened. I “be with” the feelings and observe. Experience, observe. Experience, observe. I may link these two to my breath and experience on the inbreath and observe on the outbreath. Or I may spend a certain amount of time experiencing and a certain amount of time observing. In this manner, I pass my day, with attentiveness. When I’m not focussed on another, I’m focussed on my internal realm and internal life, wherein is to be found the Kingdom of Heaven.
Plugging This Back In
So now let’s plug this back into the scenarios just listed. I have a transformational moment and I lose it. I don’t blame others or blame myself. I experience how I feel losing it and observe what happens to that feeling over time. I observe how I feel now having lost it and then I observe again how I feel after having experienced my response to losing it. Then I observe how I feel a few minutes later and watch the rise and fall of my reactions and emotions. Before long I am out of the upset of having lost my transformational moment – or I may be back in the transformational moment! It can happen. Less often than losing it, but it still could happen.
Or I have a spiritual awakening and everything gets stirred up. So then I begin to experience how I feel with everything stirred up. I breathe into the feelings and fill myself up with them. Then I begin to observe them, perhaps naming them, perhaps breathing into them and watching to see what happens to them when I accept them.
I work with the feelings, filling myself up with them and experiencing them and then observing what happens over time. I continue doing this over time and watch the upset rise and fall or the stirred up issues assert and resolve themselves. Nothing lasts (but a very advanced stage of enlightenment). I watch the rise and fall of situations within myself and my reactions to them continuously. In this way I navigate through the storm of stirred up feelings as a result of my spiritual awakening.
Or the rising energies bring up unresolved issues in me or in those around me. Again, I proceed in the same way – filling myself up with the experience and noticing its rise and fall, what it feels like, what other feelings and issues it’s connected to, when it changes, when it returns, where it goes, what it feels like.
We are heading into a time of incredible change soon. Hopefully it will not always be chaotic but at some point will transition into being peaceful, but it’ll still be change. I suggest we’ll feel happy with ourselves if we master this new way of being with life before the change gets really wild. If we do, we’ll be well-positioned to move through constant change, experiencing our reactions and observing how they come and go and where we’re at with them at any given moment.
Breathing in and breathing out, walking on the left foot and on the right, being with and observing, experiencing and noticeing, feeling and seeing.
This is the way I recommend walking through life, especially when life becomes eventful and constantly changes. Keep the attention on ourselves. Watch how we respond to things. Observe how we’re feeling. Experience our feeling states. Remain with what is happening internally until our experience of any one situation is complete and then open to what’s next. Rising and falling, going in and coming out, experiencing and observing, experiencing and observing.