Our attachments and pain prevent us from progressing towards a happier, more fulfilling life. A key part of processing our pain and moving beyond it is the act of forgiveness. By forgiving someone or something, we let go of the pain brought to our life, releasing ourselves from it. There are, however, common misunderstandings about what forgiveness is.
A great many people think forgiveness implies forgetting. That everything can “go back to the way it was before”, with the relationship reverting to former levels of trust and respect. They want it to feel like the incident never happened in the first place.
This concept of total, instant absolution is not what spirituality—or religion—asks of us. It’s what abusive, toxic people want us to think forgiveness is.
When something or someone causes us pain, it creates in us a heaviness and noise. It weighs us down emotionally, and burdens us psychologically. We devote far too much precious energy to the act of mentally replaying the incident over and over again, picking it apart and scrutinizing every aspect. With hurt feelings, we look for ways to defend our part in things, and to lay blame at the feet of others.
All of this is normal, but it’s not good for us to stay in this place of dwelling long. The biggest gift we can give ourselves whenever we feel wronged is to look for a way to process the experience, release it, and move beyond it. The longer we hold on to the weight and the mental noise, the more harm it causes. It can truly crush us. And by failing to move beyond the pain, we give those whom we feel wronged us the ability to hurt us even more, for a possibly infinite amount of time.
Don’t get stuck in pain.
Forgiveness is acknowledging what has happened, and agreeing to let go of our attachment to it. It involves understanding everyone involved did their best at the time, even if their actions failed to live up to expectations. It means declaring the incident finished, that we wish the others involved well, we send them love, and we are releasing all our negative feelings about it.
By forgiving, we are able to leave the past in the past. We stop trying to drag it forward into the now. This is a healthy thing to do! We must always strive to recognize that the past doesn’t exist, except in our thoughts and emotions, and we all have total control over our thoughts and emotions. We can choose to only hold onto the ones serving our highest good.
What forgiveness does NOT mean, is forgetting what happened. The reason we endure trials in life is so we may learn from them, thereby allowing us to act differently if something similar happens again and spare ourselves further pain. These trials might be avoided by staying away from certain people or situations, or by adjusting our own behavior. Life itself is a series of lessons. We’re defeating the purpose of life by ignoring the lessons it presents us.
Those who attempt to define forgiving as forgetting are actively working against the point of being alive.
By learning that touching a hot stove causes burns, we learn not to touch hot stoves. Forgiving the stove for burning us does not mean we can go around touching hot stoves without consequences! It just means we are recognizing it’s in the stove’s nature to be hot, and it wasn’t a personal attack against us when we were burned.
It is possible to forgive those who fail to be accountable for their actions. Being accountable involves the three R’s: repentance, restitution, and being personally responsible. Repentance is remorse or self-reproach for what one has done or failed to do. Restitution is the act of making amends; of returning or restoring to someone what is his. It is reparation for injury or damage. And of course having personal responsibility means being legally or morally obliged to take care of something, and being able to account for one’s actions.
There are unfortunately many people who cause pain in others, and totally fail the test of accountability. These people do none of the three R’s, and they go on to cause pain in the same ways repeatedly in many people around them.
Please understand it’s not our job to fix this people, or even to force them to behave differently. Their behavior is completely beyond our control, thanks to free will. We cannot stop them, but we can learn the best ways to protect ourselves from them. Forgiving them is how we break the ties linking us to them, setting them free and wishing them well as they continue on about their lives.
People who do not have accountability are not people you want to be linked to for any length of time. Without forgiveness, you’re permitting them continued access to your energy and happiness. You’re giving them the power to make you miserable for a long time. Please, spare yourselves that.
We are only responsible for our own actions and feelings. Take care of yours by releasing painful ties with love. Love will always guide us to happiness and light. You can show love to someone doing terrible things without losing the moral high ground. It’s loving to discover ways to prevent further pain. It’s loving to deprive others the ability to hurt us. It’s loving to witness who someone really is, and to hope they also learn and grow.
Forgiving does not mean our trust is restored or our respect earned.
Learn, let go with love, and move forward with a free heart.
The point of a spiritual awakening is to shift focus to your spiritual growth in pursuit of enlightenment. When going through a spiritual awakening, you typically expect your spiritual life to evolve. You might not expect, however, the way this process changes other aspects of living as well. There are many side effects you may not even be aware are directly tied into your awakening.
A few weeks ago, I discussed symptoms that are experienced during the initial spiritual awakening process. Because the strange occurrences don’t stop once you progress through the first stages of awakening, this post is a discussion of symptoms that can be experienced when you’re living your life while awakened. Some refer to this as Ascension Sickness. As a “sickness”, it comes and goes in waves of varying lengths as your physical form adjusts to the evolution of your spirit.
Below is a list of things I’m experiencing right now, and often see discussed by others in the spiritual community. It’s unfortunately so uncommon to find honest discussion of these side effects, I wanted open up about what I’ve been dealing with in case it helps someone else. If there is anything you’d like to see an expanded discussion on, or something not mentioned here that you’ve experienced, drop me a note in the comments below.
Spiritual awakening is part of the Ascension process. If you’re not familiar with what Ascension is follow this link for a basic primer (but be warned, it’s quite a rabbit hole to fall into! Think of the movie The Matrix. Investigation into Ascension is equivalent to taking the red pill).
Whether or not you are aware of what Ascension is, our reality is already in the process of expanding all around you. The Oneness of creation is rising above the divisiveness of fear and hate. Polarities are collapsing into states of non-duality as we begin to remember the infinite ways everything is connected. What was merely 3D is becoming 5D. It is our choice whether to ascend and raise our vibration as our world undergoes transformation. The more of us that ascend, the better the chance our planet and us as a people will survive and thrive. Those of a lower vibration are so dead-set on destroying this world through greed, hate, and fear, it’s up to the rest of us to help lift this plane of reality to a better place through light and love.
I’m a few years into my awakening, with all of the intense initial side effects of my spiritual awakening process tapering off months ago. My understanding is that once awakening begins to raise your vibration in earnest, this is what causes the initial side effects. Your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual being are all undergoing transformation at the same time. You’re evolving while incarnated, which takes quite a toll!
Of course, you’re not “done” once you make it through the first stages. Once “awake” you find a new normal, but everything remains in flux to a certain extent. Living a typical day-to-day routine with family, work, social commitments, etc. while awakened is a bizarre experience. As the zen proverb states: “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” Things carry on as they always have, but you are different in fundamental ways. The way you move through reality is impacted on many levels by your heightened vibration. And your vibration may continue to rise! If you commit to this path, you will keep growing and evolving.
Below are some of the things that have been happening to me. I continuously open myself to a deeper understanding of them. Knowledge is conveyed through the spiritual community, but also, and most importantly, from guidance within. Our various experiences as diverse facets of the same divine Source are by definition all very different and stem from unique perspectives. Not everyone will experience the same things I have and this is by no means a comprehensive list. As always, if something doesn’t resonate with you, leave it be and look for something else that does.
Also, with any worrisome physical symptoms, it’s wise to first consult with a doctor to rule out other possibilities first.
Tingling/Vibrating Sensations Within the Body
As your being becomes infused with waves of higher vibrational energy, you will literally be able to feel the energy coursing through your body. It’s a thrumming, shivery, pulsing sensation. It can be draining (sometimes causing insomnia) or enlivening. It can change from day to day or hour to hour. Be kind to yourself as you adjust to these new sensations. Focus on them as a way to stay in touch with your connection to Oneness and Source energy. They can make the “solid” world around you feel more ephemeral and transformative. This is a good thing!
Unusual Sleep/Dreaming
Lately, when rising from sleep I feel like I’ve taken powerful cold medicine or am coming down with something—the deliriousness is so intense. Sleep is heavier. Dreams are more vivid and weirder. Waking up makes me feel like I’ve just been yanked back from traveling in unfathomably far away places. It’s common knowledge in the spiritual community that we do much of our good work in this world while asleep, through astral projection, travel to alternate dimensions and other planes of reality. You’ll become very busy while sleeping, and you’ll feel it!
Sudden Exhaustion
I’ve had exhaustion hit me like a hammer in the middle of the day for no reason. I’ve had it last a few hours or a few days. It’s beyond the normal kind of tiredness, as it encompasses the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self. It makes it near impossible just to function and perform basic tasks. When this happens to you, don’t fight it! Your self is telling you that you need rest, so rest. Do as little as possible. Listen to your intuition, take it easy on yourself, and wait it out. This kind of exhaustion means your energy body has either been busy doing important work and needs to recharge, or that you’re receiving energy downloads to help raise your vibration and activate your DNA codes. This is good news and not something to worry about!
Sudden Waves of Intense Emotion
Awakening can bring a supercharged empathy drive. The smallest, silliest things can make you emotional, and once you’re already emotional it can feel like you’ve been swept away with the tide. It’s intense and a way your energy is magnifying your experience. These emotional moments can also be blocks and attachments rising to the surface for clearing. The best thing to do in all cases is to lean into the emotion. Let yourself face it and feel it, and then let it go. Treat yourself with patience and love, always.
Consistency of Synchronicity
I’ve been experiencing synchronicity for longer than I can remember at this point, but it has become delightfully consistent lately. Almost every time I look at a clock, it’s a multiple of 11 (311, 411, 511, 811, 422, 544, etc). This is in addition to seeing repeating numbers or number patterns in all kinds of places (license plates, signage, computer programs, time stamps, etc). 1111, 222, and 444 are my big ones right now. I also experience mindblowing event synchronicities on a regular basis, along with my husband and daughter. We’ll hear a song at an important moment, and then that song will keep popping up in other places around us. We’ll discuss a topic and then find ourselves surrounded by it when we check our phones. I got the inspiration for my last blog post while on an exercise bike, then began listening to a podcast that surprisingly enough was discussing the exact same topic as my inspiration. It’s weird! But it’s also proof that our entire experience of reality is based on patterning and that nothing at all is a coincidence. When we see these synchronicities, it’s the universe showing us we’re tapping into the flow and reading the energies around us more clearly. Think of them as loving encouragement from the beyond!
Ability to Request Specific Signs
We are always surrounded by our guides and our angels. You can communicate with them, but keep in mind they do so through telepathy and through signs. An easy way to begin communication is to clearly and directly request a specific type of sign from them. For example, I never see feathers as signs, so I requested to see one. The next day I took a walk and there, sticking up out of the grass was a giant, beautiful feather! I found feathers waiting in my path for days afterward.
Stronger Intuition
When we clear the mind (or begin to), we allow our inner voice to speak more freely. Our truth and wisdom will always be found in this core of intuition inside us. It’s our compass, pointing the way. You’ll FEEL which ways you are pulled, which way to sway when making a choice, what to stay away from, and what to pursue. When you let your intuition lead the way, you’ll have nothing to worry about, no matter what may cross your path. It will always steer you toward the best course. Our culture does not encourage searching out quiet so that our inner voice can speak more loudly than the multitude of voices that are around us all the time. But I’m here to tell you everything will become easier, in every conceivable way, if you learn to listen to this source of guidance. Now, when I have a decision to make, no matter large or small, I don’t think about it, I look within to feel which way my intuition is pulling me, and I trust that first. The more you do this, the stronger your intuition will grow!
Activated “Clairs”
During the awakening and ascension processes, your senses may become activated, allowing you greater clarity. “Clairs” such as clairvoyance (clear vision), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairsentience (clear sensation), clairscent (clear smelling), clairtangency (clear touching), clairgustance (clear tasting), and clairempathy (clear emotion) may become activated. This happens as our blocks and attachments clear away, allowing our spirit room to expand our senses into new territories. This is an area I’ve been doing a lot of research, as I’ve been experiencing both clairaudience and clairsentience in increasingly strong ways. I get information through these senses that goes well beyond “normal”. It’s exciting to experience things that break out of the confines of our typical, limited human awareness. However, there is no rule book for this stuff. It’s usually up to us to find our way and figure out how to interpret what we sense. As with everything else, trust your intuition if you begin to experience things. If you’re open to it, welcome the experiences and see where they take you.
Experience with Collapsing Polarities
We like to try and define this world we live in by dividing things into pairs of opposite extremes: light and dark; day and night; up and down; left and right; in and out; wrong and right; happy and sad; love and fear; Democrat and Republican; rich and poor; white and black. The truth is that everything is One. Everything originates from the same Source. I’ve had a few intense experiences lately with the collapsing of these polarities. This happens as our vibration rises to a level where we are interacting with 5D energy. One example of this is that while meditating, I felt an overpowering rush of emotion that encompassed both the deep despair of loss and the elation of pure joy at the same time. It honestly took me an entire day to recover from the experience as echoes of emotion worked their way through me. If you also have an experience of experiencing two extremes at the same time, this is a good indication that you are witnessing this phenomenon. It’s a good thing! You are reaching a state where Oneness is actively overpowering divisiveness.
Living in the Flow State
As I writer, I became familiar with the flow state, where time has no meaning and you’re so invested in what’s actively happening the rest of the world falls away. There is no past or future, no thinking or worrying about anything but what has captured your focus. It’s a wonderful, heightened way to experience being that infuses us with joy and exhilaration. Following awakening, you may begin to live your daily life in the flow state. This is where I’ve been recently. Thought can’t hold me, I just go with things as they happen and deal with them as they arise. I don’t plan ahead or rehash anything after it happens. Living in the flow state lets fate and the universe be your driver, taking you where you most need to go. It’s a wild ride, full of emotion and challenges, but it’s the fastest way forward. You’ll skip all unnecessary detours and float along exactly where you can do the most good.
And More
I could keep going. There is much more to cover that shakes up our world during this transitional state. Your core body temperature may lower slightly. You may become wildly overheated when sleeping. You may experience severe body aches as different chakras open. Headaches. Nausea. Light sensitivity. All of it unexplainable, coming out of nowhere and clearing up on its own. No matter what, as long as you’re sure there is no medical explanation, just allow yourself to rest. Do some journaling or meditation for guidance and clarity. Take it easy. Everything is temporary, so move through whatever phases arise as peacefully as possible, without resistance. Good luck out there.
The most persistent torment of my life has been loneliness. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. For decades, I believed my worth and happiness was directly tied to how many people showed their love for me. I thought if only I could figure out how to exist correctly, other people would finally want to care about me and my life would improve. Say the right things, act the right ways, and presto! This problem would be solved.
But that’s not how any of this works.
The trap I was stuck in was in believing I wasn’t trying hard enough. That harder work on my part would make my family act in nurturing, empathetic ways. Or would win me closer friends. But we can’t make anyone else do anything they don’t want to do. We can’t change anyone who doesn’t want to change. I had to LET GO of my need for others to fill the void of loneliness inside of me.
Where Does Loneliness Come From?
The reason we feel such desperate loneliness is because of where we come from. We originate from the Oneness of creation. This current plane of reality we’re inhabiting as we sit here reading these words on a screen is not our “home”. When in our natural, spirit state, we are constantly connected to all that Is in infinite ways, always. We are linked telepathically and energetically to those we love, and also to the Source of love itself. The isolation we feel in this dense dimension is intentional and short-lived. When we incarnate here, we choose to temporarily forget about Oneness so that we may experience human life and all it entails. This amnesia helps us learn and grow. It’s an adventure we embark on for a little while before going back home again to Oneness.
Loneliness comes from our deeper awareness that we are not in our preferred, natural state of being. We’re homesick. We miss our connections to Love and Spirit.
Loneliness stems from the craving to be seen, understood, and accepted. When we are not surrounded by those who are like us, or see the “real” us, it causes a yearning for this kind of connection. But when life puts us amidst those who are unlike us, there is always a reason. It becomes our job to search out what that is, to find what we’re meant to learn from such circumstances. Isolation forces us to be introspective. It gives us no choice but to question things at a deeper level. To unearth larger truths.
The good news is that you can find ways to rediscover your connection to Spirit to sate the need of connection. But the only way to do that is by going within. Our relationships with other people will never truly “fix” our loneliness. What we’re really craving is a fuller experience of Self. Loneliness is a signpost that our biggest lesson can only be solved within ourselves, and not out there with anyone else. Find ways to love yourself more, to take care of yourself more, and go in search of larger truths. This is the way to overcome the lonely ache. The more you understand the beauty of your Self, and how fully you are loved, always—more profoundly than we can dare to dream—the more you will be able to release this pain.
You Are Never Alone
I mean that literally, by the way. We are always accompanied by a plethora of spirits. We have spirit guides, ancestors, deceased loved ones, and all sorts of higher beings watching over us all the time. They guide us and keep us safe. You may picture them hovering above you in the air somewhere, but the truth is they come through the energy of our soul. It’s our constant link with the other side, and our higher self. All of these beings who love you so very much are actually with you, in the core of your spirit.
They feel your emotions. They hear your thoughts. They see what’s up ahead on your path and are eager to help you in whatever ways they can. All we need to do is ask, and open our hearts to them. If you ask them for a sign they are there, they will provide it.
Psychic mediums help demonstrate how closely our loved ones are tied to us. They are able to sense their spirits with us, and help us relay messages to them and from them. I’ve had several personal experiences with this and always highly recommend seeking out trusted mediums to those who have suffered a loss. Those we love keep watching over us. They are with us in very real ways, and have a lot of opinions about the choices they see us making! Any time we think of them, or speak to them in the privacy of our hearts, they hear it. We just usually have a tough time hearing their replies.
If it wasn’t enough to have this literal team of spirits coming along with us on this road through life, there are also other ways we’re not alone.
Each life we live, every incarnation, creates a distinct persona. They are part of us—the larger “us”, that encompasses all of our experiences in being, from the time when our soul was first formed. Every person we’ve ever been, through countless lifetimes, is also with us, linked to our soul. They’re with us through all of our trials and victories. When we heal deep wounds within our selves, releasing karma and evolving into stronger beings, they are healed along with us. They’re rooting for us. Doing the hard work on your inner self helps many more people than just one.
When we do eventually pass on, something we will all experience is something called a life review. We will re-experience in profound ways every single moment of our life, experiencing things from other points of view so we may understand the impact of our choices on our self and others. We will have the opportunity to delve into the moments to study what we did and why, and how we could have chosen differently. What this means in that right now, you’re being observed by a future version of yourself! And not only that. If you’re currently with any other people, you’re also being observed by future versions of them, too.
Yeah, I know that might seem like a lot of pressure, or make you think that to have so many others observing means they’re all judging you. But remember the world of spirit is one of pure love. They want the best for you. They are coming from a place of total forgiveness and compassion. They’re cheering you on and trying to help you find new ways to succeed in all of your goals. And on a deeper level, they are all you. They are all just different, beautiful facets of the Oneness of creation.
What Does This Mean?
This means I talk to myself a whole lot more now! I’m not kidding. I know they’re with me, so if I need to try and figure something out, I’ll talk through it. Or crack jokes when I’m “alone”. And I find it impossible to take anything too seriously. We each have our very own peanut gallery eating metaphorical popcorn and yelling silly commentary and encouragement that we might not hear and will probably ignore.
It also means you have the whole universe inside you. It means you ARE the universe. You are love. You are truth. You are never, ever alone—in any sense. It’s quite impossible, really. So, laugh at the mind when it tries to scare you into submission. Let love conquer fear. You don’t need to be anything other than your beautiful, weird self. Spend less time and energy reaching outward to feel more connected, and instead try going within. And when your loneliness surfaces and makes you sad, let the sadness move through you as strongly as it wants, and then let it wash away with the tide. In its wake will be all of the eternal love of those who are with you, always.
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