No drugs, no meditation…really?
Yes, really. Not only did my shift in consciousness occur without any outside influences, but it happened despite my disbelief in God and without any awareness of spirituality.
Full disclosure, I did have an early grounding in the Anglican faith. Every Sunday, Mom took me and my siblings to church, where I felt particularly drawn to the parables - stories of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. Hearing these ancient stories spoken with such reverence filled me with a kind of warmth and light that I didn’t understand (and never mentioned to anyone), but held in my heart like inner sunshine.
By the time I was a teenager, these magical moments of resonance were lost under the pressure to conform. Raised to “behave properly” in order to be loved, and watched over by a judgmental and vengeful God (as taught by the church), I lost my sense of Self and functioned in a state of invisibility. I also lost interest in Sunday services, finding them to be less of an uplifting experience and more of an excuse for the congregation to mill about afterwards, drinking coffee and gossiping about their neighbours. Disenchantment with religion aligned naturally with my mom’s return to work, at which point she became too busy for anything other than the Christmas Eve service. Despite my departure from religion, my inner child never forgot those wonder-filled moments of light.
Decades later, when I tried to tell Mom about my sudden personal transformation, she wanted to call it a miracle, but everything in my body rejected this notion. As soon as someone mentions the word miracle, it shuts the door for everyone else. In my heart of hearts, I knew that the reason I experienced enlightenment was to pave a path for others to follow. I was meant to share my experience in such a way that would be easily understood, to reveal a practical path to personal transformation without the need for religious experience, spiritual expertise, plant medicine, hypnosis, drugs, meditation, yoga retreats, or gurus. Not that I’m disparaging any of these ‘things’ - everyone is different. However, the reason I was SO excited by my shift in consciousness (other than the fact that it saved my life and launched me into inner peace) was that it was so simple.
Difficult, yes, but simple. Instead of believing a lifetime of negative conditioning - that my life was meaningless and that I didn’t matter - I changed my mind. I fought my inner critic with everything I had, knowing with absolute certainty that I was fighting for my life. The instant I chose to defy my ego and defend my inner child was the moment I opened my heart and accessed the energy of Love that had been there all along.
Do I believe in God now? If God is Love, then the answer is a resounding, “Yes!”
Change your mind ~ change your life. It’s really that simple.
D
