Slippery Slope on a Spiritual Path
Spiritually aware ≠ emotionally supported?
this is the second story from the emotional support series.
previous story: Empath, Who?
i had the knowing that i am an empath, an energetically sensitive soul, who feels what others feel. who, for decades, has translated someone else’s feelings into what i thought they thought of me, not knowing, it’s how they thought of themselves when they were in my presence.
the shift in awareness (i am an empath) got me busy tackling life. i began to gobble up spiritual wisdom by the clock. i only read, and spoke all things perceived mystic to me.
from peru to columbia by a boat, from columbia to panama by a ferry, from central america to europe on a bicycle. i touched the water, air, and land.
two-years swept by in a flash.
i drunk books my friends loved. i dove topics my friends shared. and i dug stories of my friends.
but my ultimate favorite, one i worshipped beyond all, was dr. joe dispenza’s book breaking the habit of being yourself which exploded my mind with all things new.
he’s a scientist guy whose simple human-readable words touch the topic of mind over matter. apparently, he had a formula on how to lose my mind and create a new one.
hell yeah, i screamed with joy when i took his medicine in twenty-fourteen.
okay, i thought and then i wrote the following words on a paper, if my thoughts are super powerful i have to choose them wisely. i can not let any negative and self-limiting thought slip through my mind as they are holding me back from being and feeling fulfilled.
next line read in purple ink, create a new mind to feel joy, happiness, gratitude and compassion.
my plan was:
- meditate daily — vision on how you want your life to be; break through your limiting automatic emotions in your body which act like a mind.
- replace negative thoughts with the opposite, positive thoughts.
- do things that empower and inspire you.
- surround yourself with an environment that supports and challenges (in a good way) your new state of being (the person you want to be/become).
my scribbled limits were:
- i am not good enough
- i am insecure — about my body + personality, lack of knowledge
- i am emotionless — i don’t feel much or anything
- i have problems with concentration; learning new things; not remembering things.
- i am lost. i don’t know what to do in life.
- i live with “disabilities” (right knee, lower back, left shoulder). i am not able to do activities i love.
my meditation guideline was:
think a thought that creates a highly elevated emotion which is greater than the conditioned emotion in your body, and allow yourself to be reborn as a new person.
before, for the very first time, i closed my eyes to meditate, i understood nothing why we meditate. why its good. how it works. but once my intellect got a hit, my soul was sold to meditate.
it all began here…
dr. joe dispenza instructed me to take my awareness into my inner world of thoughts and feelings. to bypass my critical mind. to move my focus into my subconscious programs that run my life.
he said…
the whole purpose of meditation is to move our consciousness beyond the analytical mind and into deeper levels of consciousness.
— by dr. joe dispenza
i get it now, i remember thinking. this makes sense.
once wisdom soaked in, my habits turned like waves in a storm. in unnumbered days, my skeptic-self dropped dead at sea whilst my practician-self ascend from an ocean floor to change my ways.
on that day, mind over matter became the captain of my life.
i learned fast — in meditation, i move from conscious to subconscious. and also, from selfish to selfless. from materialist to immaterialist. from body to no body. from some place to no place. from time to no time. from outer reality to inner reality.
fancy, hey?
also, here are words from the book…
meditation takes us from survival to creation. from separation to connection. from imbalance to balance. from emergency mode to growth and repair mode. and from limiting emotions of fear, anger, and sadness to the expansive emotions of joy, freedom, and love. basically, we go from clinging to the known to embracing the unknown.
— from breaking the habit of being yourself
maybe, i thought, more like hoped. this might be my way out of suffering.
meditation was new to my innocent spirit. i had not yet dug in n’ through my analytical waters. my critical mind. one thicker than the mass of the world.
but eagerly, i stepped into brainwash.
okay, silence your mind, i repeated in self. and added a mantra of awakened beings, go from head to heart.
i then shut my lids to send the daylight to extinct, but only to meet the light in pitch-dark space. to format my disk, and to rewrite anew. to go where i’d never been in my adult body. to go beyond my analytical-self.
to go to…
no body. no time. no space.
days, weeks, months went by. thoughts rushed in. they intruded the party to silence my mind.
don’t think. silence your mind. go from head to heart. i advised myself.
between my meditation breaks (99% of the time), i spread plague.
i said to hundreds, “your thoughts create your reality.”
i spurt all i had read, heard, understood, and remembered from dr. joe dispenza and from people i had met. i rarely paused in public space.
i flew high with words. i never land. i had no roots.
years went by.
stocked with wisdom i parcelled my days.
when not alone, i talked nonstop.
at people’s homes. at random places.
the only moments that silenced my speech in the presence of people were these holy things — fatigue, lack of language skills, a closed mind. or another extreme, at some days i had to take a break from my intense self.
when alone, i bathed in silence.
i had thoughts but simple thoughts.
the silence was easy whenever i wheeled. six, or eight, or ten hours a day, i rolled in the silence of myself. this was heaven. my meditation.
on two-wheels, i never felt a need to silence my mind. or to go from head to heart.
with opened eyes, when either pushing up another rise or rolling down another fall, the hills of change and potholes on flattened roads gave me the gift of a relaxed mind, body and heart.
with closed eyes, when off from the bike, i tried to meditate. either mornings or nights, fresh or tired, nothing mattered, my thoughts of color rushed on stage before my body knocked me out.
i bypassed my analytical mind, but i went further than instructed to go, deep into sleep. my friends joked that elsa sleeps like a bear in a winter-bed.
a bit embarrassed, i fought resistance to meditate…
think a thought that creates a highly elevated emotion which is greater than the conditioned emotion in your body.
— by dr. joe dispenza
in no time, i noticed, i ran tests on myself. i had become my own lab-rat.
can i stay awake? can i create an elevated emotion? can i change my state of being? i tried it all through trial n’ error. easy. hard. easier. harder. but not much changed. i was like an immovable rock.
so i made a conclusion, my visualization skills had gone on a vacation to recuperate. but not for a year. for a lifetime instead.
in the beginning of twenty-sixteen, at my 10-day vipassana, i heard goenka say, sleep is your enemy when you meditate.
(meaning, buddhist think sleep is evil)
shoot, i had no tools to win the battle with sleep and i.
during vipassana, roughly forty percent of the time i snored in a dhamma hall with another hundred comrades clearing their karma by farting vegan. put in numbers, from 100-hours in 10-days i slept 40-hours or more in total.
no surprise, after the event, i gave up the traditional way of forceful approach to meditate.
my body spoke, this approach is not for me.
my job was to listen, and act according.
hence, i faced new options:
- to welcome or shun my busy mind
- to embrace or reject my numbness being
- to allow or deny my thoughts n’ feelings
- to chill or force meditation practice
for an unknown time, i slid on a slippery slope.
all-day n’ night, i used spiritual teachings against myself.
at the end of twenty-sixteen, outcomes threw a rescue rope when my life back then flipped upside down.
i met a dark night of the soul wherein nothing worked to get out from the infinite low.
speechless, i stood at the crossroad of permission.
what if it’s okay to dislike all that comes and goes?
what if it’s okay to dislike…
- my busy mind
- my numbness being
- my thoughts n’ feelings
- my inability to meditation
i ignored the message. instead, i jumped into fixing myself. i sat down. i pressed play on dr. joe dispenza’s meditation to break free from the habit of being myself. to hack my genetics to find peace within.
for over an hour, for two times a day, for three weeks a row, i forced myself to meditate. but space explorations felt heavy on me.
flying in no body, no time, no space became off-limits. in that pattern, i began to feel how i rejected my emotional body 24/7. i had no roots. i needed grounding. not flying in space.
on one day in isolation, i heard a whisper, “you need more love. not less.”
i recalled, a month before i had heard emotional oneness by matt kahn, and i had started reading his book whatever arises love that.
the root of his teachings invited me to explore an unknown path. in discomfort, i said i love you to my heart. suddenly, tears gushed down. i then said it again. and then again. no matter if i felt the words or not, i never stopped.
i love youse to my innocent heart became my medicine to breathe in pain. to feel more relaxed in life’s play.
as time went by, i welcomed a new mantra…
life you’re only here to make me better. lead the way. i will rip up my map. please show me the plan you have for me. and thank you for choosing me for this mission.
i heard, please be an ally to yourself not an enemy to your own consciousness.
the atomic bomb that shattered my life invited me to love myself every step of the way. to judge less. to blame less. to love more. not less.
life said, please stop using spiritual teachings against yourself.
- you don’t need to quiet your mind
- you don’t need to force your emotional freedom
- you don’t need to hide from your thoughts n’ feelings
- you don’t need to meditate with closed eyes to fly in space
life added:
- your mind is okay
- your emotional body is okay
- your thoughts n’ feelings are okay
- your open-eye meditation is okay
life continued, elsa let’s slow down. your mind knows a lot. your heart is confused, it knows a little. integration is needed.
i then learned, since the moment of revelation “you’re an empath” up until my darkest hours, i had been spiritually aware but emotionally unsupported by myself.
life had to collapse. it came to rescue. its song brought hope. it said, knowing is great, it’s the fruit of the mind. but integration is needed, it’s the fruit of the body, and salvation of heart.
life continued to say, flying is great. but you have no roots. you’re asked to ground your wisdom into your body. and this takes time. patience is needed with faith and trust that guide your way.
my new guidelines became to be:
- please slow down
- please forget all you’ve learned
- please love yourself through it all
shocked to digest, apparently, understanding doesn’t get me where i need to be, but faith does.
i then put all my eggs in a single basket — i welcomed the unknown of the unexpected.
also, matt kahn’s words changed the captain of my life…
it doesn’t matter what you think. it matters what you say to yourself when life falls apart.
— by matt kahn
he referred to a parent-child relationship within myself.
i had never conversed with myself. especially in a parent-child dynamic. the idea felt alien to me. but i grabbed the opportunity, and since then, from twenty-sixteen, the parent in me talks with the child in me as if i am a 5-year old child in need.
we do simplicity. pure honesty. pure truth. less judging. less blame. more love.
three years of practice has given me roots. i am grounded. i am more relaxed. and my mind feels loved.
i see now, once wisdom is there, and integration dawns, my heart and mind come closer together as one in the gut.
it’s become my path to emotional freedom.
oh, and the beauty of it all…
when my hunger went, meditation came.
i have no troubles to meditate. either closed-eye or opened-eye. but i prefer an open-eye meditation.
in the open-eye approach, i feel more heard and seen and supported by myself in the reality i once survived in.
i still fall asleep which i don’t mind. no doubt, my body knows better how to integrate. sleep is my medicine.
and visualization skills. it’s not my path. i am better without hacking my genetics.
and my mind is hyperactive and calm as well. breath and creativity help me to relax.
here’s today’s question to your heart.
what if i feel unworthy only when i am spiritually aware but emotionally unsupported by myself?
next story: Second Chances Never Die
lets open up,
— elsa
want more stories? visit LOVE OR FEAR →
