by Liz B | Apr 1, 2016 | Consciousness, Fear, Mental Health, Mindfulness and Meditation, Spirituality
The older I get, the more I truly learn how to follow my heart.
But following your heart a lot of the time is not easy. Reason being, is there is so much that gets in our way. At age 32, I’ve awakened more and more to the realization that I am often programmed to perceive certain things based on what I think is the “right thing to do.” A lot of times, this “right thing to do” is not what feels exciting or good to me, and I’ve almost subconsciously chalked this up to just being a responsible adult.
While there ARE things that we have to remain responsible for that we may not want to do but are necessary (that IS being a responsible adult), there’s also another side of this that I believe comes from taking actions almost based on a mistrust of myself or possibly some kind of fear — but also not consciously.
Its basis is on the idea that if I don’t follow a certain path, that I might fail at life, or end up broke and on the streets, or let down others, or miss out on some connected opportunity. I’m not sure which it is, because I don’t really intellectually believe these things. It’s not something I think about, but rather something that was taught and programmed into my mindset.
The truth is, many of us have this same programming. It stems from the idea that we need some authority figure or some structure in order to keep us working hard or doing the right thing, like we are inherently wild animals with no moral compass without someone always keeping us in check or leading the way. It’s almost like the system was designed specifically based on the fact that people cannot function like a decent human being by their own will (hey, maybe some can’t…), but it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. There’s always someone teaching us how to learn, or teaching us which path to follow to ensure success, and punishing us (albeit possibly indirectly) with an air of disapproval if our life paths look drastically different than others’.
We don’t realize it, but without constant external validation that we’re doing what we’re supposed to or what’s considered normal, many of us might feel lost (maybe we haven’t really grown up at all, have we?).
Our whole lives, this is what we’ve had. People telling us what to value. School. Society. The status quo. Peers who are all achieving different things but going about them via a similar path. We don’t really learn to listen to ourselves at all except for when it comes to asking ourselves what we want to do for a living. And even then, the answer is often purely a result of influence from other people or some kind of reward we get for the accomplishment. As humans we crave community, to be a part of something, to be RECOGNIZED as something, and this can take precedence over our own true feelings until we forget how to listen to those entirely.
So even if we don’t believe in black and white ideas of punishment and reward, sometimes we automatically think that way. We punish ourselves if we don’t meet our own expectations that are coming from things we have been taught, and this can subconsciously guide our actions in life. We might always be trying to fit ourselves within a box or a path that gives us some sense of satisfaction, but no lasting happiness, joy, or peace.
We may not know what true happiness or peace feels like (if we’re locked in the cages of our minds our whole lives, we are accustomed to that as our only reality).
What we might have though is a nagging voice, a consistent lack of energy, a yearning for more but not knowing where it’s coming from, until we take a good look at why we’re doing the things we’re doing. And even then, sometimes we might not even have an immediate answer, or one that truly comes from within ourselves.
My new life path, therefore, is on pursuing joy. Rather than analyze my “why” with reason and logic, I am learning to do so with feeling and senses. I encounter a situation and I think, how does this make me feel? Do I feel incredibly excited about this opportunity? Or do I feel a sense of hesitance that comes along with “I SHOULD do this but I don’t really want to.” If it’s the latter, in most cases, I am learning to say no. But it isn’t always straightforward, because I’ve participated in things I “should” be doing basically my whole life. And sometimes it takes some experimentation to see where something really leads.
But in general I’m learning to look for something that makes me FEEL something. One that gets my creative juices flowing. Because I know that the world will benefit from that much more than anything else I might do, and because I value having my own mind over almost anything else. Over having a mind that really is just a product of others’ opinions and methods.
It’s about learning to trust yourself.
All in all, I know I am a solid individual with good intentions. I’m empathetic. I’m reliable. I want to give to the universe first, I want to help others. I’m responsible. I don’t need to validate this externally by force things upon myself that then give me that recognition as one thing or another. I need to look within and trust, first.
Sometimes it becomes a problem of learning to strike a balance between being able to operate in this world in its current state as well as pursue joy and happiness. For many years I used to think that I wanted to throw away society and live as a hermit. While this would definitely take away a lot of the noise and expectations that come with living as a member of society, it’s not really necessary.
The current state of things are as they should be, because the human-created world as it is in this moment (society, culture, events, etc) is a reflection of humans’ state of collective consciousness. Everything is an energy exchange, and the universe is consistently responding to what we’re putting out there. Many of us just do not know this yet. We are reacting, not yet understanding how energy works, what energy is, or the fact that we have greater control in general than we think we do. The key is in recognizing this and not feeling enslaved by it.
Instead of resorting to being a hermit, we can use money, our systems, and so on without really being caught up in the system. Because it’s our minds we are freeing, not anything else. Everything starts from within first.
• • •
“Should is an ordinary, everyday word — except when it is used to indicate an order that may not be refused. Then should becomes a finger waving under the nose. …”Should” users build prison cells for themselves. They are so focused on what they should do — that they cannot think about what they can do, what they might do in the future.”
— Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose Dewolf
“Many of us have been taught to do our duty. What does this imply to you? For me, ‘doing my duty’ means doing something I really don’t want to do. My heart’s not in it, and so the energy for the act isn’t there. I have to force every move. Usually, there’s underlying resentment. When this is the scenario, tasks may get done but there’s no gift to the world.
We do not truly serve the world if we give to others but neglect our own truth and our own needs. It’s only when our own needs are fully met that we can generously and whole-heartedly give of ourselves. It’s not selfish to look after ourselves — it’s essential!”
— Source: Higher Awareness E-Newsletter, John & Patrice Robson
“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart.”
— Pearl S. Buck
by Liz B | Apr 1, 2016 | Consciousness, Fear, Mental Health, Mindfulness and Meditation, Spirituality
The older I get, the more I truly learn how to follow my heart.
But following your heart a lot of the time is not easy. Reason being, is there is so much that gets in our way. At age 32, I’ve awakened more and more to the realization that I am often programmed to perceive certain things based on what I think is the “right thing to do.” A lot of times, this “right thing to do” is not what feels exciting or good to me, and I’ve almost subconsciously chalked this up to just being a responsible adult.
While there ARE things that we have to remain responsible for that we may not want to do but are necessary (that IS being a responsible adult), there’s also another side of this that I believe comes from taking actions almost based on a mistrust of myself or possibly some kind of fear — but also not consciously.
Its basis is on the idea that if I don’t follow a certain path, that I might fail at life, or end up broke and on the streets, or let down others, or miss out on some connected opportunity. I’m not sure which it is, because I don’t really intellectually believe these things. It’s not something I think about, but rather something that was taught and programmed into my mindset.
The truth is, many of us have this same programming. It stems from the idea that we need some authority figure or some structure in order to keep us working hard or doing the right thing, like we are inherently wild animals with no moral compass without someone always keeping us in check or leading the way. It’s almost like the system was designed specifically based on the fact that people cannot function like a decent human being by their own will (hey, maybe some can’t…), but it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. There’s always someone teaching us how to learn, or teaching us which path to follow to ensure success, and punishing us (albeit possibly indirectly) with an air of disapproval if our life paths look drastically different than others’.
We don’t realize it, but without constant external validation that we’re doing what we’re supposed to or what’s considered normal, many of us might feel lost (maybe we haven’t really grown up at all, have we?).
Our whole lives, this is what we’ve had. People telling us what to value. School. Society. The status quo. Peers who are all achieving different things but going about them via a similar path. We don’t really learn to listen to ourselves at all except for when it comes to asking ourselves what we want to do for a living. And even then, the answer is often purely a result of influence from other people or some kind of reward we get for the accomplishment. As humans we crave community, to be a part of something, to be RECOGNIZED as something, and this can take precedence over our own true feelings until we forget how to listen to those entirely.
So even if we don’t believe in black and white ideas of punishment and reward, sometimes we automatically think that way. We punish ourselves if we don’t meet our own expectations that are coming from things we have been taught, and this can subconsciously guide our actions in life. We might always be trying to fit ourselves within a box or a path that gives us some sense of satisfaction, but no lasting happiness, joy, or peace.
We may not know what true happiness or peace feels like (if we’re locked in the cages of our minds our whole lives, we are accustomed to that as our only reality).
What we might have though is a nagging voice, a consistent lack of energy, a yearning for more but not knowing where it’s coming from, until we take a good look at why we’re doing the things we’re doing. And even then, sometimes we might not even have an immediate answer, or one that truly comes from within ourselves.
My new life path, therefore, is on pursuing joy. Rather than analyze my “why” with reason and logic, I am learning to do so with feeling and senses. I encounter a situation and I think, how does this make me feel? Do I feel incredibly excited about this opportunity? Or do I feel a sense of hesitance that comes along with “I SHOULD do this but I don’t really want to.” If it’s the latter, in most cases, I am learning to say no. But it isn’t always straightforward, because I’ve participated in things I “should” be doing basically my whole life. And sometimes it takes some experimentation to see where something really leads.
But in general I’m learning to look for something that makes me FEEL something. One that gets my creative juices flowing. Because I know that the world will benefit from that much more than anything else I might do, and because I value having my own mind over almost anything else. Over having a mind that really is just a product of others’ opinions and methods.
It’s about learning to trust yourself.
All in all, I know I am a solid individual with good intentions. I’m empathetic. I’m reliable. I want to give to the universe first, I want to help others. I’m responsible. I don’t need to validate this externally by force things upon myself that then give me that recognition as one thing or another. I need to look within and trust, first.
Sometimes it becomes a problem of learning to strike a balance between being able to operate in this world in its current state as well as pursue joy and happiness. For many years I used to think that I wanted to throw away society and live as a hermit. While this would definitely take away a lot of the noise and expectations that come with living as a member of society, it’s not really necessary.
The current state of things are as they should be, because the human-created world as it is in this moment (society, culture, events, etc) is a reflection of humans’ state of collective consciousness. Everything is an energy exchange, and the universe is consistently responding to what we’re putting out there. Many of us just do not know this yet. We are reacting, not yet understanding how energy works, what energy is, or the fact that we have greater control in general than we think we do. The key is in recognizing this and not feeling enslaved by it.
Instead of resorting to being a hermit, we can use money, our systems, and so on without really being caught up in the system. Because it’s our minds we are freeing, not anything else. Everything starts from within first.
• • •
“Should is an ordinary, everyday word — except when it is used to indicate an order that may not be refused. Then should becomes a finger waving under the nose. …”Should” users build prison cells for themselves. They are so focused on what they should do — that they cannot think about what they can do, what they might do in the future.”
— Dr. Arthur Freeman and Rose Dewolf
“Many of us have been taught to do our duty. What does this imply to you? For me, ‘doing my duty’ means doing something I really don’t want to do. My heart’s not in it, and so the energy for the act isn’t there. I have to force every move. Usually, there’s underlying resentment. When this is the scenario, tasks may get done but there’s no gift to the world.
We do not truly serve the world if we give to others but neglect our own truth and our own needs. It’s only when our own needs are fully met that we can generously and whole-heartedly give of ourselves. It’s not selfish to look after ourselves — it’s essential!”
— Source: Higher Awareness E-Newsletter, John & Patrice Robson
“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart.”
— Pearl S. Buck
by Liz B | Mar 28, 2016 | Consciousness, Spirituality
I’m part of a large Facebook group that was formed on the topic of near death experiences (NDEs). I joined it because I find the insights of those who have experienced an NDE fascinating, along with NDEs themselves.
There have been many spiritual experiences and realizations I have personally had that came naturally to me without any outside influence, and allowed me to fully understand and accept the NDE experience. If I hadn’t had these experiences in my life, I might be more apt to take a more logical approach and attribute NDEs simply to the brain dying. I have come to learn through my own experiences that there’s truly more to them than that. But even if there weren’t, the insights that come as a result are incredibly life-changing.
In the Facebook group, someone asked a question aimed at those who have had an NDE:
Can anyone explain in words what being dead is like?
Here were some of the responses (each one from a different person):
- “Its like being more alive than you’ve ever felt. Here is death by comparison.”
- “Freedom from pain. New perspective. No, I can’t explain it in words.”
- “The most alive I have ever been.”
- “it felt like the purest love I have ever felt!“
- “No fear, No apprehension, No regrets are the feelings I had. They were gone instantly.“
- “A happiness I never felt in my waking life … pure love ..“
- “Like being in love multiplied by a billion.”
- “It felt like I was just there only moments ago.”
- “Best most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Beyond words. Pure love. Peace joy acceptence. Beauty. One with all. Home!“
- “complete freedom and peace, it’s like you forget how to be sad or worry.“
- “Holding and looking at your new born baby”
- “Clear, light, unbounded…Love is the glue which holds it all together.”
- “It only needs one word, ‘peaceful’”
- “Only your human body dies. You have been in countless other bodies before.“
- “It was like swimming in an ocean of love at the perfect temperature.”
- “Bliss. Imagine the most perfect feeling you can ever have.”
- “Liberating, astonishing, enlightening, humbling…it’s something to actually Live Up To while we are still granted Life….there are so many blessings contained IN it. :)”
- “Best most wonderful thing that ever happened to me. Beyond words. Pure love. Peace joy acceptence. Beauty. One with all. Home!”
- “Completely wrapped in unconditional love. Instantly having all knowledge and understanding.”
- “Not dead……ALIVE AND GOING HOME!!!”
- “There really are no earthly words to describe the incredible sense of love and peace that engulfs you”
- “Pure freedom. Pure knowledge, pure understanding I felt more alive doing my NDE than I do now”
- “Pure love and undescribable happiness”
- “It’s a continuation of this life without the evil, or temptations, and negativity.” -Steven J. Orme
Most of all, near death experiences teach us that death is absolutely not to fear and in itself is something that we can learn from that allow us to put our lives in perspective, learn more about ourselves and ultimately learn how to live life here on Earth better.
by Liz B | Feb 29, 2016 | Mindfulness and Meditation, Spirituality
One of the most important themes I’ve come across in any “spiritual” experience or consciousness breakthrough I’ve had is the importance of keeping your mind “clean” and pure. I’m going to sound like a lot of things here (hippie, self-development junkie, however you see it) but there truly is nothing more important on this earth than openness, humility, positivity and how well you can love yourself and others. This is not something I believe in or took on to understand, it’s something that has been revealed to me sometimes at shocking speeds through experiences — such as in meditation where your mind state is delicate and can easily take you out of higher consciousness states if you approach it in a way that is imbalanced in one way or another.
Most people do not realize the extent of how detrimental negative thoughts can be. They affect much more than we realize. I’ll liken it to this analogy (which is actually more relevant than one might think): someone who is used to eating crappy food for years over time forgets how good their body and mind can feel when their diet is clean. The bar is lowered and they don’t realize it. They actually forget what it’s like to feel really good, and truly nourished.
Negative, judgmental or closed-minded thoughts are a very heavy energy, while positive, open and humble thoughts are light and expansive. The heavy energy of negative thoughts not only can shape your entire life and bring negative consequences, it also just generally weighs you and your awareness down — just like a crappy diet would.
But oftentimes it can be very difficult for us to sense this, unless we are operating from a higher state of awareness, which would bring us much more clarity and automatically less tolerant to things such as negativity or greasy cheeseburgers (this is another benefit of continual meditation).
I would go as far as to say that making it a point to cleanse and control your thoughts — which is a daily practice — is the most important thing you can do, since the state of our lives, and death, starts from within. This is the practice of mindfulness and like with most disciplines, it’s difficult to be consistent.
My negative thoughts still come, especially when I’m in traffic (those dang drivers!), but what’s interesting is my natural evolution in awareness is what gave me a bit of a boost in looking back at my own mind at the negative thoughts collectively and realizing “whoa…these are not doing good for me.”
Aside from that it’s just self-discipline. When a negative thought arises, look at it, embrace it, then let it go.
“Mind precedes all knowables,
mind’s their chief, mind-made are they.
If with a corrupted mind
one should either speak or act
dukkha [suffering] follows caused by that,
as does the wheel the ox’s hoof.”
-The Dhammapada
by Liz B | Feb 23, 2016 | Consciousness, Out of Body Experiences, Spirituality
A couple of weeks ago I left my body for the first time, consciously, yet during sleep. In the last 6 months or so, many “lights” have turned on in my head and I have come to understand the self in a much larger sense even than before even though I wasn’t necessarily seeking to.
For those of you who might be reading this that don’t already know me, I’ve had a natural “spiritual sense” for as long as I can remember. Meaning, I was never one to blindly believe in anything (I grew up an atheist regardless of going to the Mormon church for years as a kid and a Catholic high school), but spirituality was a natural part of me since the time I was young, and I wouldn’t have ever given it a label if I didn’t have to in order to communicate the idea. In fact, to say it’s a part of me is strange – because everyone is a spiritual being; it’s just that only some are aware of it.
“I wish I were a real girl”
One of the many things I’ve felt over the course of my lifetime is that I’ve never felt “real.” From the time I was as young as 5 years old and probably before that, I’ve always had this feeling of life being surreal to me. I even remember once saying to my friend at age 7 or 8, “I wish I were a real girl” (funny, I know).
As I got older and started to understand myself, spirituality, and my place in this world further, I realized that the part of me I identified with the most was not the one interacting on a daily basis. It wasn’t the one working at a job, interacting with people, or playing my role here on this Earth. That was secondary to who I was. I intellectually knew this already, but the self comes in many layers that can be deeply explored to greater and greater levels. There was something very far behind all of this that I kept wanting to further explore, to understand it more and receive any insights along the way.
It wasn’t until I came across near death experiences on nderf.org (and I must say at the right time in my life; at any other time I may not have been as open and the stories may not have been as relatable as they are to me now). Reading these actually gave me a faint sense of “remembrance” – of remembering things that would come back to me based on certain things people would say and how they’d phrase certain things in the journey into other states of consciousness. That’s what was so remarkable. Sometimes what they would say would spark visions in my mind of another world.
In fact, I read hundreds of them before I finally had an out of body experience myself, which was completely unexpected, as I had never had anything like it in my life, wasn’t anticipating it, and wasn’t meditating at the time (though I suppose you could call reading near death experiences a sort of meditation).
Lucid Dreaming
The experience started in what felt like a lucid dream (I’ve also never had a lucid dream previously in my life). Right before I had fallen asleep that night, I had read an experience about a man who was at a funeral for his niece who had died at only 19 years old. He had had no previous spiritual experiences of any sort, and yet he heard her talking to him during her own funeral. He barely believed it, but she kept talking to him and showing him things – images and messages. She told him that she wasn’t talking to him directly, but he was the only person to be able to hear her. Her name was Michelle.
After I finished the story, I fell asleep. Then I found myself in what felt like a consciousness state where I felt awake and asleep at the same time (essentially a lucid state), and wondering if I could possibly talk to Michelle. I expressed with my mind in this “dream” that if in the nonphysical dimension, time is more or less meaningless and energy can will itself to wherever it wants, then SHOW me – maybe I could communicate with a spirit like Michelle right in that moment (this was essentially me first understanding certain attributes of a non-physical dimension, then inviting and wanting an experience).
What was different about this was that I was asking for an experience to happen while not being in an ordinarily consciousness state. I could not, while completely awake, just think about wanting an experience then willing it to happen immediately. My state of consciousness was already different being that I was in this lucid state.
Immediately after that, my entire body started vibrating HARD. Legit, actual vibrating, and my body kept fluctuating from hot and cold, and it was LOUD. Not loud in our everyday physical dimension, but the noise was heard in my mind. It sounded like a train chugging along on its tracks. The vibrations woke me up, so after they stopped I was essentially awake but had the strangest sensation I have ever had. Almost as though I can lift up out of myself, but I didn’t know what had just happened so I didn’t even realize that I was somewhat disconnected from my body and likely could have willed myself further out.
It ended there because being mostly awake now, my rational mind piped in and went “WHAT just happened?” and I had a natural fear response to it – I laid there for a while then when I could get myself together I looked up the “vibrations” and realized it was a common symptom that happens before you’re able to leave your body.
The vibrations in and of themselves felt very significant to me personally, since they encompassed my whole body, and felt as though they could take my body to another dimension of reality. I thought it was incredible in the moment, and the vibrations actually felt pretty good to me (albeit intense) as long as I was able to enjoy them.
I wish I could have gone farther, but what was a bit odd in my experience is that it wasn’t until the next day that I began to realize some of the other aspects of the experience (perhaps I needed some time to process what had happened).
The next day, I realized an intense, all-encompassing, pure sense of love.
Love doesn’t even do the word justice, because our Earthly experiences of love are nothing like what this was.
I realized during the experience that I felt as though I had fully “met” my higher self, and this higher self actually felt like it was almost a separate being from me, but was myself at the same time. I’m still not sure 100% of it was a separate being or not, but I am fairly sure it wasn’t. I felt like this presence is with me at all times, and one of the strongest parts about it was that I felt like I was the child and it was the parent. It gave me the sense that I was always being taken care of by it, or looked over by it. Even now a few weeks later, even though I don’t sense its presence the way I did during and shortly after the experience, I can still feel its love at any time, and I talk to it often (if some witnessed my conversations in my mind they’d think I’d gone insane).
This love I felt is a love unlike anything experienced in our typical earthly lives – it carries incredible wisdom. You can learn so much from it just by experiencing it. Your current beliefs or thoughts would not matter, because this love shows you, in direct experience, that you belong to something greater. Nothing that we do in our earthly lives matters (not achievements, nothing) as much as how well we are able to love ourselves and others.
It is incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to accurately describe. But it also showed me directly, just by being itself, that we are not alone in a cold, and indifferent universe left with only our speculation or interpretations of it; but rather we are here on this earth for just a temporary time – a small interval of our existence to experience things, to learn, and most importantly, a complete part of a massive whole. While it’s important for now, there is so much more to YOU than your earthly role and your body.
We are just children here and very immature in our wisdom. Again, I grew up an atheist, non-religious, and I still don’t interpret anything as a “God,” but if I did I would call this love “God,” and this love is equally and us all, accessible to varying degrees at any time, always guiding us, should we only remember how to recognize and listen to it.
By the way, I am only one out of thousands that have had this experience of love and higher vibrational states, most often experienced in an NDE rather than purely an out of body experience. I am forever grateful for what this experience showed me – or in other words, what I allowed to happen to myself.
By the way: If you have had an out of body experience yourself and/or know a lot about this topic, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
by Liz B | Sep 13, 2015 | Consciousness, Mental Health, Mindfulness and Meditation, Spirituality
The other night I was on the phone with my mom, and she recalled a spiritual experience I had in 2005 (but this isn’t the exact experience I’m going to talk about in depth today. Stay tuned for part 2 for that one). She said, “tell me what you saw again exactly? And, how did you even get there to begin with?” She had been coming across more and more accounts of people from all different backgrounds and life experiences that were experiencing these remarkable things in regards to evolution of their mind and consciousness. She noted that so many of these people seemed so different, but were coming to the same conclusions as each other and as I have.
Similarly, what I’m seeing now the longer I’m alive, is that more and more people are become “spiritually” aware (which in my mind is something I’d normally just term “awareness” in general). Though we still have a gaping lack of this spirituality (or awareness) in this day and age, I feel like I see more people around me that get it. It could just be me noticing it more, too. Regardless, I always knew it was something inherent in all of us. But many times, what people do and what they believe actually turns them away from their own guiding light.
My mom had began to become more and more curious…with herself wanting to see what others have seen. This conversation with her led me to decide I would write a bit about how my own spiritual experiences happened and how they have affected me today for any others who might have this same wonder; or for those who might be curious about how their own experiences are similar to mine. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about them much and recounted them, so I’ll take you with me on my journey:
My Journey Into a Higher Awareness: The First Experience
First of all, I’ll start by saying…I’ve always been a “spiritual” person. And by that I don’t mean I was ever into church, religion, or even doing anything that represented the typical concept of spirituality. I can just say I have always been introspective, and I’ve always listened to my intuition. Aside from that, I wish I could recall every important detail about what was going on in my mind at the time of my actual spiritual experiences. But there was a lot, and it was a long time ago.
The first one started when I was about 18. I became more withdrawn…preferring to be alone most of the time. As mentioned, I was always introspective and somewhat introverted. But this felt like a strong pull. I really don’t remember what specific things were going on in my head except for a few moments that stuck out to me forever. Like how every night I would go to bed and I would feel like I was somehow getting closer to myself, my essence. I was also a big runner back then, and while running I’d often imagine myself running through a forest path with parrots flying alongside me and being completely and totally free. Attached to nothing…just running, just living, just experiencing.
I then somehow came across 101 Zen Stories from some online forum, and I began reading them. I didn’t know much about Buddhism or Zen Buddhism at the time, but I noticed a particular sense of deep calmness that came over me when I read them. I thought, “hmm, that’s weird…I just feel so at peace from these.” That clued me on to the fact that there was something deep within me that resonated with these stories.
Many times other thoughts, concepts, and images would come to me that felt strong, but I had no idea where they were coming from or even the full picture of what they meant. This was my intuition working for me. I became inspired to write poems at this time that tried to express concepts that were coming to my head…but I didn’t even fully understand their significance at the time.
No Value Judgments
I remember walking around Portland, OR, where I lived, and at this time a feeling overpowered my mind about an idea of a world without value judgments. Where nothing is judged as good or bad by anybody or anything, but is seen completely free of these value judgments. Try to imagine that. A world where people just see things, and don’t apply values to them as one way or another. Things just exist as they are and there is no attachment to things. Complete neutrality. At this time, this theme was really strong during this first spiritual experience. When it came to me strongly at this moment while walking around, it seemed to actually alter my vision of what I was seeing. Everything started to blur together. Everything felt strange. And I knew that what people spent so much time doing, worrying and thinking about was essentially meaningless.
I think what was really happening here that made me feel so strange is that our world is of course based on value judgments. We’ve built up a world based on shoulds and shouldn’ts, on rules, on definitions, on concepts. We interpret the world through concepts that we’ve learned and accumulated over time. What’s behind the concepts? What is our perception made of if we erase the attachment we have about the ideas of what things mean and are? My intuition began to allow me to loosen up this meaning that myself, society, and individuals had attributed to things and my own self.
Fast forward to closer to the night before the actual direct experience. All I remember is that I was telling one of my friends, “I keep thinking of a world that has no value judgments… everything just is as it is…I can’t tell you how weird I feel right now, and I don’t know why.” The feeling I had was the key. I couldn’t put my finger on it. And why was it so strong? But I remember his response really clearly, which was, “Liz, utopia doesn’t exist.” There was more that he said, but that’s the part I really remember. I remember thinking too that his response was irrelevant. That what I felt didn’t have anything to do with trying to change what was existing currently, but rather that it was something more personal to me and what was going on with the framework of my mind.
Attuning My Mind to a Breakthrough
Also important to note during this time, I didn’t have a car so I took the bus to school. It was about a 45 minute ride from my house, through downtown Portland, and into SouthEast Portland where campus was. I would often naturally zone out on the ride there. My mind would automatically become mesmerized by the noises of my surroundings, and tune into something stronger, bigger, more massive than my own thoughts. This was basically meditation, but not only did I not consciously try to meditate, I didn’t even call it anything. It just was. It just happened.
I also had been reading books I had come across ever since the 101 Zen Stories (since that ended up affecting me in a positive way). The most important one I had encountered for me, was “Way of the Peaceful Warrior” by Dan Millman. This book was ridiculously funny (and by the way I’ve read it now 8 times or so and still find it hilarious), and it incorporated eastern philosophical concepts in a practical, easy to digest way. Especially the ever-so-commonly talked about concept of “I” in spiritual literature: when you use the concept of “I” — such as “I’m going to the gym” — who is the “I” in that statement? What ideas do you have about your own identity? It illuminates the fact that we conceptualize ourselves and attach ourselves to this idea of ourselves. And that this idea really just is a mental construct — it isn’t our true selves. Anyway, that whole subject could be a separate one or two blog posts. Or a whole dang book. The point is, I really marinated on these concepts in the book, and they only furthered the progress of what was already going on with me mentally.
The next day after speaking with my friend about a world with no value judgments, I ran on the treadmill at the gym. As mentioned, running was always a mental release for me too. I’d often automatically focus on the repetitive noise of my feet running on the treadmill, and it’d spur me out of my thoughts and focus just on the noise. My thoughts were being given less power, because I wasn’t putting energy into them. I was zoning into something else, a world that my thoughts didn’t dictate. A world where my mental constructs weren’t in the way. Weren’t dominating my perspectives.
The Direct Experience
After a few minutes of running, everything in my vision began to turn white. And, I could no longer feel my physical body while running, AT ALL. It’s almost as though I was dissolving. And I felt something open up in my mind…but it was just a few seconds of this (30 seconds or so) and I began to feel fear. Seriously — what in the hell is going on? What’s happening to me? But at the same time, I had the strongest urge to cry that I had ever had. Not out of sadness, but of pure relief and bliss. The strongest feeling I had at that time was that I felt like I finally found something I had been looking for for a long time. But I didn’t know from when, nor was I fully conscious that I was even looking for it. I’m not even sure I could define “it.” I also felt and saw that my entire life that I had lived felt like an illusion.
I went home and I cried that entire weekend, literally on and off crying nonstop. But I felt pure bliss, and a level of happiness that I hadn’t yet experienced in my life to date. I felt like my personal energy was glowing and overflowing from my physical body. I felt reborn. My mom was out of town that weekend, but when she came home, I tried to explain it to her. How do you explain something like that? What context do you give it?
This is what I said to her, when I could get the words out between tears: “The best way I can explain it is think about living on a planet that has a certain way of operating. It has certain characteristics about it that define it. You come to understand this planet, this world by the laws that you learn and perceive are defining it. You have an idea of what the world is by perception developed from experience and practical knowledge that you gain. It is the world as you know it. It’s life as you know it. Then, imagine suddenly waking up on a new planet (when you didn’t even know a new planet existed in the first place) that contained a whole new set of laws. It had a whole new set of definitions, or maybe a lack thereof, because it caused you to loosen up and dissolve your own definitions about your place in the world and the world itself. A part of your sense of identity dissolved away. You realized the perception you had of yourself and the world was extraordinarily limited and not relevant to the massiveness that it actually is. I directly experienced a glimpse of this massiveness. And it made my definitions, my framework of the world fall away. It shattered my life.”
This is why the tears were streaming down my face. In that short time period on the treadmill, that experience had shattered my boundaries, my perceptions, my framework, what I knew to be life, for good. That’s why my life in that moment up to that day felt like an illusion. Because the concept I had about it and myself was the grand illusion. And it made me realize that the world and myself can’t be defined by me, or they can, but those definitions have to be seen for what they are. Maybe as temporary tools, but nothing with any significant meaning. And they are potentially, and likely, limited. In our true nature, we are boundless, we are infinite, and full of endless potential. So when other people say things like this, they aren’t just spewing empty positive bunk. It’s true. You just have to believe.
Death Isn’t the Only Release
Some people don’t experience a release like this until death. When we are near death, we begin to let go of our attachments to this world — through our senses, and through our mind. I believe this is why so many people feel at peace in the moments before death. Death begins the process of the dissolving of our bodies and minds into the massiveness of the universe. The truth is, we can take our minds there now, while we’re still alive. We just have to be open and learn to let go of our ideas of ourselves and the world.
Why did this all start to unfold and then finish in one single direct experience, in a way that ripped through my mental limits, instead of just loosening them up slowly over time? Partly I can say this is because it wasn’t an intellectual process. It was a direct experience of a higher level of consciousness. But other than that, I’m not entirely sure and that’s something I don’t think I can put in words. How I describe the experience doesn’t even come close to the experience itself.
“After ecstasy, the laundry” –Zen Proverb
Well so that was a fantastic experience, but what now? Back to everyday life. Am I supposed to do anything different now? Experiences like this are ground-breaking, but eventually the potency and feeling of them fade away into a memory. I can say about 13 years later that while my mind’s framework is less limited and more aware, it is still easy to fall into the holds that society, people, and life experiences place on you. It can be really difficult to escape certain situations and circumstances and live closer to your soul (for lack of a better term). Sometimes your soul can get covered back up, a little bit. Some things end up tying you down — financial troubles, or maybe it’s just fear — and they can feel nearly impossible to get out of. But if you have an experience like mine, it’s hard to forget it. It’s hard to forget its importance. It’s hard to put something like that on the backburner and just succumb to a limited life. Yes it’s mostly mental, but when you have so many circumstantial things (such as your job, or other people) constantly controlling your life, people imposing their ideas of how you should live your life on you, I won’t say it’s impossible — but it is very difficult to feel free, and not like a slave.
If you listen to your intuition (or learn to listen to it), you’ll notice when something in your life isn’t aligning with you. But you have to have an understanding of what you truly want, first. It doesn’t have to be an intellectual understanding. Just an inherent feeling. But if you have fashioned your idea of yourself and your life completely after what other people have dictated and aren’t very aware of what’s outside of this (or aware that you have even created your own limits), you may not feel a strong contrast between what you truly want and what you have now. You may need to uncover the bullcrap first, and lean into your potential. It’s up to you to take action and learn what a truly happy life means for you, to understand limitlessness in perception, and how to take the steps to live it. It takes a strong and courage soul to pursue this, because it usually isn’t easy, and it requires patience and a strong belief in yourself.
I feel the best advice I can give to anyone about this — including myself as a constant reminder — is to think about every day what you want out of your life. What you truly want. Don’t let go of it. Don’t doubt it! Doubt will dim your light. I’m guilty of doubt, too. And in this world, it’s so easy to become so covered up and so used to limited feelings of happiness. So many of us don’t know what true bliss or freedom of mind feels like, or that it’s even possible.
Just remember: there are people with different levels of awareness walking around on this earth. Some whose light has been dimmed, some who have discovered their light and are 
following its path. There are a myriad of mental dimensions (maybe physical ones too) and levels of consciousness and no one can know their true limit. You are not truly defined by anything.
Stay tuned for my next blog post on my second spiritual experience in 2005.
“You cannot speak of ocean to a frog living in a well—a creature of a narrow sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect—a creature of a season. You cannot speak of the unvarying way to a pedagogue: his scope is too restricted. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great principles.” -Chuang Tzu
