My Spiritual Awakening Story, Part II

Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez
11 min readNov 28, 2023

--

Guarding our right to love [Part 2/3]

“In order to bear that love and fulfill our life’s mission, we have to first defend our right to love.”

“If light is in your heart, you will find your way home,” — Rumi

This is the extraordinary account of a profound journey back to my heart, my spiritual awakening. It is my personal tale of a two-year cycle of deep transmutation that I wish to call the Solar Revolution of the Soul. This is no other than a transformative odyssey from heart disconnection to complete unity with the essence of my being. My journey started with an Ayahuasca ceremony in the remote jungles of Peru, in December 2021, and unfolds over the course of two years filled with relentless inner struggle to rediscover my heart’s wisdom and embrace my ultimate life purpose. It presents a transition from an ordinary human existence to a profound cosmic reality. With a deep sense of purpose, I have resolved to recount this story as a labor of love, with the sincere hope of inspiring others to journey back to their hearts. In these spiritually unprecedented times, we are all called upon to wage our own battle for love and soul evolution.

Part III

Part II

It is June 2022. I’ve been back in Oslo for six months. I find it difficult to sleep, and as I’m slowly opening my eyes in the middle of the night, I’m noticing the number 3:33 on my phone. It grabs my attention in a sense of wonder I have not felt before. There is something different about my experience of time today. As the day goes by, it’s like the oven’s clock, my watch, my phone, the TV, and my laptop are broadcasting a few sequences of numbers: 11:11, 12:12, 13:13, and some more. They are called Angel Numbers, and I believe they give me daily spiritual guidance. These numbers are marking the weirdest start of this new chapter of my journey. This recount still feels like fiction in my head. A few days passed, and the frequency of the numbers is going wild. More and more numbers are popping up, everywhere and all the time. I don’t know what to do. I’m distressed.

[Angel numbers = It is believed that these numbers are messages from the spiritual universe that offer insight, wisdom, and directionality.]

Days go by, and as if the numbers were trying to give me the heads-up, my right toe starts to feel on fire. The pain was great. I’m not just the “numbers guy”, I’m now also suffering from a chronic rheumatologic disease. What is this? Is this a coincidence? I don’t know, but I can’t walk anymore and that’s where all my attention is going. I’m crying every day, the daily inflammation and the pain are just unbearable. I’m thinking, why me? Why life is serving me this ugly cocktail? The physical turned suddenly into a battleground and I couldn’t help but to deeply regret my Aya experience. Somehow, I know all these events are connected and yet at that point I could not enter the bigger picture of my experience.

[Life lesson #5 = It is always best to surrender to the lessons that our illnesses or struggles want to show us, as this is the only way to value life as an opportunity for soul growth. Emotional Biodecoding is a great tool to identify the emotional root of our illness. To resist profound change only adds more pain to the process. To accept and to ask for higher guidance to show us how to be wise enough to see the love lesson in the midst of suffering is much more effective. This is not a medical advice, yet I do believe integrative medicine should be used together with regular medical treatments when suitable.]

The physical arena is tough on me, but the mental and the spiritual are like the Armageddon. It was a turn of the wheel, the early time of my very own hero’s journey. This is what some mystics of the West call The Dark Night of the Soul, an extremely difficult and painful period in one’s life in which what dies is the egoic sense of self. My endurance has served me, but it is at a low point right now. I’m terribly tired. I literally fear I won’t be able to overcome this and I’ll end up going crazy. I feel like a permanent actor featured in the film The Story of God with Morgan Freeman (Heaven and Hell). I’m literally experiencing communion with spirit and the realms of light. However, when the night arrives after the sunset, I’m being haunted by dark entities as in a terror movie of the worst kind. This ‘spiritual terrorism’, as I call it, has been going on for 18 months. But I’ve learned to guard my heart and to not live in fear anymore.

[Hero’s Journey = The hero’s spiritual journey represents a reflection of real life, and the journey of the human soul to discover ultimate reality.]

[Dark Night of the Soul = Also known as The Ego Death, a period of spiritual crisis and transformation that one can experience during their spiritual awakening journey.]

[Life lesson #6 = Guard the heart. If we are to master the heart, we must learn to match the rhythm of our living with the natural rhythm of the heart.]

My life has turned into a battleground, or at least that’s how I’m deciding to see it. Everyday feels like the most relentless fight, and I don’t know when this spiritual war will end or if it’d ever do. I am terribly shocked, anxious, and hopeless and yet, I am still alive, powering through with the very little energy I could hold on to. I am holding to whatever Light form is available to me. It’s like my newly found connection with the divine is trying to jumpstart my heart, but this takes time and a lot of resistance is being encountered. Psychic phenomena and sensitivity are becoming a bit more normal, although paranormal activity is everyday’s bread at this point. Regardless, there is a more profound experience to acknowledge here. Every single day, I’m letting go of another aspect of my ego-self. I’m transmuting. This is good, right? But it pains, especially for a dude who before all this considered himself ego-free and it is resisting to let go of his old identity. This process of shedding skin ****continues even today as I’m writing this article. I’m still coming to terms with my new me, my true self.

An entire year has passed since my Aya ceremony. I have found out that what I’ve been experiencing was an induced psychosis produced by the brew ingestion, and of course, other factors that I rather not to reveal. My nervous system feels broken and my body aches because of all the cortisol I am releasing. I can’t see the way out, but one day something extraordinary happened. I’m thinking I have to rehearse something different. This “different” is called faith. I decided to believe in my own power and the power of the Divine, both working in unison to help me see things in a higher light. So that I can learn my lessons and move on with my life. Surprisingly, this is working. I’m remembering that before this whole life-changing transformation, I was just a “regular” dude who self-identified as an artist, agnostic, non-spiritual, and mostly living inside his ‘precious’ intellectual brain.

[Cortisol = Think of cortisol as nature’s built-in alarm system. It’s your body’s main stress hormone.]

But the days go by and my faith is down again. I’m feeling desperate, so I close my eyes and I ask with all my being that human help arrives. I’m not sure I can hold the bastion of my being anymore, and as if I had a magic wand, a beautiful-heart human from the other side of the world knocks at my life’s door. She is my fairy godmother, a human like you and me, however, a truly special being. A divine healer, a lightworker. She appears in my life in a way I can only describe as divine synchronicity. She is a brilliant light healer who has unconditionally served me for months, holding my hand until I was able to stand up for myself, both physically and spiritually. She has done beyond-amazing deep healing on me, a kind of alchemy of the self that I didn’t know it was possible to effect. I am alive and well thanks to her, but also thanks to the support of my partner and my family, lots of meditation and prayer, my resilience capacity, my willingness to be alive, and the power of my heart.

[Life lesson #7 = We all need a helping hand in times of despair. Do not be afraid to ask for the right-heart people to enter your life as allies in your own journey back to your heart.]

[Lightworker = A lightworker is a person who has chosen to come to Earth, especially at these times, to help transmute the darkness into the light.]

Except for one or two people, nobody knows what is going on with me. You have probably figured this out already, but I have good days and bad days. The good ones are like the sun shining on my face, bright and high-spirited. During the bad ones, I am shit scared, anxious and depressed. I’m failing to see myself in the mirror as I truly look. I have lost 10 kg in less than two months. That’s a lot for a short Peruvian like me. I am losing my appetite every day a little more. It’s hard to breathe, but I keep going. I’m diligently doing my Shadow Work, as I’m just starting to comprehend that I am awakening to a higher truth and nature of being. It’s almost like this whole journey is a spiritual accelerator for my soul’s evolution, so that I can sooner be who I am meant to be. After all, this is what I asked for back in the jungle. To be the best version of myself. To become my true self and to live from the heart.

[Shadow work = Working with your unconscious mind to uncover the parts of yourself that you repress and hide from yourself. This can include trauma or parts of your personality that you subconsciously consider undesirable.]

It’s November 2022, and my physical and mental is too deteriorated despite the significant efforts I’ve made and the help I’ve received. I have to do something quick. My light is dimming. So I’ve booked a ticket a few weeks ago and now I’m on my way to the Oslo airport. I’m seeing the great drama of life unfold before my eyes. I’m leaving the country to get medical attention in Peru after Norway’s medical system failed to get my chronic disease under control. I’m feeling a huge sadness, like deep inside I know I am not going to return. I guess I was right; I have not been back since. I’m in Lima, back to where all started. I’m finally starting to heal in a holistic way. Being home close to family is speeding up my recovery. Even if for a short minute, I’m feeling off the hook. Some days I wake up with the feeling that I’m “normal” again, but the feeling never really sinks in entirely. As I’m creating a new version of my life, I can’t help but miss my old life. This is a fresh version of me that I feel is becoming ready to step up in these times of radical change and spiritual transition. A new man for a new age of heart-based living.

[Life lesson #8 = Transitions are difficult, this kind in particular, both for our individual selves and our planetary community. Yet a new definition of love and a new revolutionary paradigm for existence may emerge as we experiment in our own inner laboratories for self-transformation. Some of us are shifting gears into the meeting of our real selves.]

Many months after and I’m feeling different about God, about myself, about life, and about others. I can’t explain how. I’m just different. It’s like I’m merging with someone else, that someone else is my real identity. I am moving through life with more self-love and compassion for myself and others, more authentically, and yet I am still facing un-describable experiences where I have to fight for my right to become more light. These are moments where spiritual stamina plays a big role, so I get to face the inner and outer forces that are trying to hold my progress back. Psychic attacks, witchery, mental games, anxiety attacks, ego tricks, and many more symptoms of a spiritual battle can intensify anytime, in the blink of an eye. I am facing them as they come. Sometimes I win, others I lose, but I’m determined to free myself completely. Here, I’m not saying that my experience is transferable to yours and yet you too are being called to enter your own hearts. The heart is the place of great encounters.

[Life lesson #9 = We have to be the warrior of peace who stands fast against the forces of anti-love from within or without, that try to separate us from those we love. The only way to deal with “anti-love” is to generate more love within ourselves. Darkness is but an illusion, and yet it is as real as it gets. Lao Tzu once said, “One who is good in battle doesn’t get angry; one who is good at defeating the enemy doesn’t engage him.”]

[Psychic attacks = A conscious or unconscious sending of negative energy from either a person or a negative spirit entity in order to drain your life force. This can manifest as anger, emotional outbursts, violence, panic attacks, and so many other symptoms.]

I keep finding strength and many more benefits as a natural relationship with the Divine. I feel my heart now, and I can call myself a happy man. It doesn’t mean I’m happy 24/7 or that I’m “perfect”, it means that I know my birth right is always been to become the wisdom of the heart. Every time I can’t self-regulate and an emotional outburst happens, it feels like going back to ground zero. But that’s not quite true. I have gained access to my heart, and every experience in my life — even the most difficult ones — is an opportunity for me to learn something new about love. Life is an experiment on love; on how much love we can become. I have come to realize that human power alone is not enough, unless human power is combined with God’s power, love, and wisdom. These qualities do not reside outside ourselves, but deep within. I believe a new alchemy of love and life is increasingly becoming available to us, but we have to listen and we have to work on un-dusting our souls so that we can feel, think, see and speak clearly who we really are at a soul level. It is time for Earth to be free and to embrace the universal spirit of love that it may have felt just as a mere dream in the epitome of life for way too long.

[Alchemy = It is the process through which the base nature of the lesser self is transformed into the permanent values of the Higher Self.]

There’s many more I could say about my journey to the heart, but even with a three-part article is not enough for unpacking it all. Some things are staying with me, close to my heart. However, I invite you to keep reading the final chapter (III) of this transformative journey. Where I’m going to talk about Solar Presence and what is this that I’ve called The Solar Revolution of the Soul.

keep reading…
Part III

*Go back to Part I

--

--

Rodrigo Ghattas-Pérez

#HeartElectrician. "I hold the light, you do the work!" My life's mission is to help awaken the heart of humanity, one❤️at the time www.linktr.ee/rodrigoghattas