So, I kept studying, and I kept meditating, every single day in January. I was writing a lot too. It was a lot of journaling about what I was learning, and what would come to me during meditation, all these little flashes of insight that would show up for me. It was also journaling about the transition I was going through as I was beginning to shed my former identity.

I started to share what I was learning with my husband, who is always willing to listen and dive deep with me. But this was really unlike anything I had ever shared with him before. Until this point, neither of us would have considered ourselves particularly spiritual or religious. But the teacher in me began sharing anyway, half out of excitement about what I was learning, and half out of the desire to lock these new ideas in my head. I’ve found that teaching is the best way to learn, after all.

These activities kept me busy for part of the day, and without knowing it, they were slowly starting to ground me. The rest of the day was less structured, and sometimes that felt disorienting.

I’d just hopped off the hamster wheel of corporate America, and I was still a little dizzy. I didn’t know what to do with myself when I wasn’t studying, meditating, or writing. I’ve never been much of a housekeeper, and have never enjoyed cleaning, but suddenly, I found myself vacuuming in the middle of the day or dusting something. Or I’d reorganize the pantry or the linen closet. 

Without the constant noise of doing, grinding, and building, it was like I didn’t know who I was anymore. Family members, all well-meaning, would ask me in jest, “how does it feel to be retired now?” Or “how does it feel to not be working anymore?” And those questions would make me wince. I’d get all huffy and defensive (inside only, of course) and then calmly share, well, I am writing. I felt it necessary to defend myself. I mean, I’d been working since I was 16 years old. I moved out at 18 years old and took it from there, paying for 80% of my college education, and my living expenses since then. I had worked hard for nearly 30 years. How long did I need to work until they would let me off the hook here? How long was long enough, anyway? 

So, this was triggering for me. I wasn’t a corporate leader anymore. All that was gone. And I had to reckon with that. I had to find out who I was without all of that. Now was the time for me to do that, to take the time for an in-depth spiritual exploration. Deep down, I had always wanted to do this, but never believed I would actually get around to doing it. 

On Jan. 2nd, when I started studying, I didn’t intend to necessarily have a spiritual awakening. That would have sounded so big and so unattainable to me that I would never have dared to even attempt such a thing. I mean, who did I think I was, Buddha or something? 

Each day, as I studied, it felt like I was getting a little bit closer to what I was seeking; the veil becoming slightly more transparent. I could feel the momentum building and as it grew, my appetite for the truth and peace became insatiable. 

I started re-reading some of the spiritual books I’d collected through the years. This time, through clearer vision. I was studying the works of Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Michael Bernard Beckwith, Thomas Merton, and others. I started reading more in general, and I also found Sue Monk Kidd, whose work resonates with me on the deepest level of my heart.

What started as a spiritual goal, gradually started to become so much more as the month went on. On January 24th, the lesson I did that day revealed what I was aiming for. That day, I got completely immersed in the feeling of peace. 

The lesson was, “I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.” *ACIM Workbook: Lesson 23.

Of all the lessons I’ve done, even to this day, this was the one that cracked me wide open. I realized that I was creating my own suffering by withholding forgiveness and judging others. Every time I judged someone, blamed someone, or got angry at someone, the person I was hurting was myself. It sank in, this was the thing…this was my biggest blocker to experiencing peace.

It was a true epiphany in that it changed my mind, and my heart, in a single moment. There I was, sitting in my favorite chair in my loft with my eyes closed in one moment, and the next moment, I was delivered straight into the loving arms of pure bliss. No joke. The rest of that day, I was literally smiling from ear to ear, giggling at nothing, practically floating in a state of pure bliss. I was not my normal self, for sure. I was, for lack of a better phrase, “blissed out.” I thought this is what it must feel like to be on psychedelic drugs.

My husband was like, “are you ok?” And I was like,” oh yeah, honey…just fine.” He would tell me a story and I would listen and giggle and smile. I mean, it was crazy bizarre, and, crazy awesome. At the end of the day, he put on the news, and I would just giggle at it; I mean nothing was getting through, none of the bad news mattered, and everything was just fun and full of joy. I got a good 9 hours of this, and it was the absolute best feeling I have ever had. 

When I woke up the next day, I half expected it to still be there, waiting for me, and it was, but in a different way. The intensity of it had diminished. The giddy, giggly blissful state that was at a 10, was turned way down to like a 2. And yet, I didn’t feel like I had lost anything. I had been there. I saw behind the curtain. I knew it was there, and because I experienced it once, I knew that it was there for me and that I could experience it again.

Fast forward 10 months, and I spend most of my time feeling peaceful and fulfilled now. My daily spiritual practices have grounded me in peace and yet, presence teaches me that it is still my choice to be peaceful in each moment. My peace can be disturbed if I let it, but it takes a lot more for that to happen now. And I don’t feel like I have to reach for peace anymore. Now it is with me, it’s become a part of me. I know that it always was, but I was blocking it before. All I had to “do” was to remove the blocks to the awareness of its presence. And "doing" isn’t the right way to describe it. Because we need “do” nothing to experience peace. It is already there for us. It is our natural state. And, I didn’t “do” this alone. I simply allowed Spirit to remove my blocks. 

I share an excerpt from my journal on 01/31/22, so you can get a sense of how this was playing out in real-time. Here it is:

I began my journey into healing on January 2nd of this year. When I say “I began” I mean that this is the first time in my life that I have wholly committed to my spiritual healing such that I am prioritizing it above all else. There were many glimpses into what I am now learning earlier in my life, some quite profound and extremely moving, some that transformed my view on God, and some that opened my heart to what more is possible for me. And yet, there has been no other time in my life where I was clear that healing or spiritual awakening was to be the most important thing to focus on. I don’t recall making a clear decision to prioritize this awakening either, I just began studying every day. 

Throughout my life, beginning first in a comparative religion course in college, I have studied many different faith traditions and spiritual philosophies. First, out of curiosity, and then as the years went on, the search shifted to one of belonging. I have always left the door open to learning about different spiritual paths, and as a result, have been led to the understanding of the many shared ideas and wonder of the eternal as expressed through so many different languages and forms.  

I’ve studied the works of many great teachers including Michael Bernard Beckwith, Thich Nat Than, Marianne Williamson, Eckart Tolle, and many more. I have read a lot of the bible to learn the ways of Jesus. I’ve attended worship services in Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic faith traditions. All in search of understanding, connection, and the one truth. 

For the first time in my life though, I now feel like I am becoming more peaceful, and connected from within, instead of from the outside in. I am taking the time to heal myself so that I can share from a place of peace. Instead of just forging full blast into what my ego, or false self, is telling me to do. This is a definite shift in how I am choosing to show up in the world every day. I am choosing to be led, rather than my typical process which is to make a 100-point plan and methodically and meticulously, and flawlessly execute it, obsessing over every detail in search of perfection. Ugg...I feel anxiety rising just writing that last sentence. But that is the way I have been living my entire life until this point. With an endless need to have all the answers first, see twenty steps ahead and plan for every last possibility and scenario. Needless to say, this has been extremely exhausting. Don’t get me wrong, it did make me very successful. But, at what cost?

I have been letting go of my identity based on my external things and working toward understanding the eternal me. The unchangeable me. The spirit having a human experience. That is the journey I am now on.

My aim is simple, to know who I really am. To let go of fear and choose love.  

I am early in my awakening process, and I trust that it will unfold as it is meant to. Any attempt to try and plan for this, time it, or control it will be futile. Any attempt to speed it up is also futile. For once, I am choosing to just let something be what it needs to be without trying to plan for it, control it or overanalyze it, and I have to say, it is SO blissful, relaxing, liberating, heavenly, divine, and fantastic! And at times – extremely maddening for that part of me that just wants to go back to the way things were. And that part is still very much present, no matter how much suffering was attached to it.

I am going to continue to write about it. I am feeling called to write about it, so I am going to listen to that inner voice and share this experience. 

So, I am here, in my loft overlooking our snowy winter landscape with equal parts brown trees and white snowy hills. There has been one predominant thought on my mind over the last four weeks that is still unclear, and that is, “How can I be truly helpful? How can I serve?”
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*"A Course in Miracles, Third Edition, Workbook for Students, Lesson 23. Foundation for Inner Peace"