The Hot Mess of Awakening

I thought peering down the rabbit hole was a great idea. What I didn’t anticipate is how I would end up a hot mess with fewer friends and no savior.

Photo by Mr Xerty on Unsplash

I had been told what to believe, who to trust, how to get to heaven, etc, etc, etc, AND to NEVER question any of it because authority knows best and is not to be questioned whether that authority is my parents, God, the government, teachers, or doctors. Do NOT question! Just trust, albeit blindly!

That’s when one of my dearest friends died. She was my person (remember Grey’s Anatomy, Christina & Meredith? Yes, that kind of friend).

It’s not like it all fell apart upon her death. In fact, leading up to her death, she and I had started to quietly question everything.

Do doctors really have healing in mind with all these diagnoses?

If Jesus said religion needed to be DE-centralized, why were we attending a mega church? (That’s where she and I met, at a mega church service.)

If we are sovereign beings, why are we not allowed to do and say certain things that are certainly lawful, and have been deemed illegal?

We had started down some interesting rabbit holes together, and then one day she collapsed of a massive heart attack at age 42. WTF?!

And when she died, that mega church that she had served faithfully at for years as a volunteer that everyone knew and loved, that mega church wanted to give her a canned funeral service. I am not kidding! They literally gave her family 4 options of services to choose from.

That’s when I lost it and I have never looked back.

I joined her family at the meeting with church staff to plan her funeral and the church staff were not only surprised by my presence, they soon knew they were not going to be having one of four options for a service for my dear friend. She had devoted years to the people in this church. She deserved a funeral that was personal and reflected how she lived her life. I Mama Beared my way through that meeting, never wavering, and she was honored with her favorite people speaking about her, her mom showing photos of her, her students sharing memories of how she changed their lives, and her favorite worship team to top it all off.

I stood my ground and it unexpectedly taught me how to walk forward from that point on in my life.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

How does this all come back to rabbit hole diving?

The day my friend died is the day I decided I was going to keep asking the questions and I was going to rock the boat and I was no longer going to play small for anyone else’s comfort.

My awakening had begun and I share it here now because this is what ALIGNMENT is all about for me. It’s how I live my life and it is what I will be writing about moving forward because I am in another layer of awakening.

I have been hiding because what I discovered in all those rabbit holes started to upset a lot of people in my life.

People who fear I am now going to hell.

People who fear asking questions themselves and see me as a problem.

People who fear what will happen if they start to ask questions themselves.

So I kept it all to myself and only shared with a few close, trusted friends and I am seeing how while I needed that sheltered time, I now need to be bigger and louder and bolder with what I am learning because my courage gives others courage, and together, our courage changes the world.

I am NOT here to evangelize you.

Let me say that again, because this is a huge piece of my own awakening. I AM NOT HERE TO EVANGELIZE YOU!!!

To me, evangelizing is getting you to believe what I believe to save you from some sort of threat or danger.

And, I am not here to give you some rose-colored, happy vision of awakening because it is one of the most difficult journeys I have embarked upon in life. I have lost friends because my questioning is upsetting and they would rather cut me out of their lives than face their own questions. I have family that now tiptoes around me, not because they need to, but because their own discomfort with this authentic version of me causes them to fear. I also broke up with Jesus, which is the story I will begin to tell in my next article, so hit that follow button as you don’t want to miss that one!

**Here’s what I know to be true: **You are more than capable of saving yourself from threats and danger when you fully align to your own power, sovereignty, and inner guidance system through personal responsibility and awareness. This is what I mean by alignment.

YOU Aligned is YOU remembering and reclaiming who you are as a way of healing WHILE YOU ALSO BUILD the relationship skills needed to navigate the world as your healed self.

I went to years of therapy, and I needed those years of therapy. I needed to dissect and pick apart the tangled mess trauma had left upon my life. And, then I reached a point where it felt like I was circling back into my pain with every therapy session and re-traumatizing myself. I needed a way to rise out of the pain and live from the healed place therapy had gifted me, otherwise all that therapy was kind of a waste.

That’s when I started to see how I slipped back into old patterns of giving up parts of myself and compromising and twisting into a more pleasing version of myself every time I entered back into situations and relationships that were connected to the trauma.

The patterns are what matters most to me. I want you to see your own patterns like I have seen mine. And, that pattern recognition was blindingly visible when I started to question everything in my life.

So, my goal here is to simply share my awakening with you so that you have a safe space to reflect upon the systems in your life that might hold your power and who you are hostage so that the system can feel stable. Yes, it begins with the family system, and that is the system people avoid facing. It’s easier to question systems of governance and medicine and education because it isn’t so personal involving your heart deeply. It’s painful to examine and question systems of relationship like family, friendship circles, and religion-based communities because these systems are the core of your identity and belonging.

I invite your stories, your thoughts, your questions. I want to hear how my writing brings awareness and transformation to your life.

I will begin with my awakening around religion, God, and Jesus because it is foundational to every other piece of my awakening. Watch for “The Jesus Series, Part 1” coming soon, and follow to be notified of new content.

As a life coach, I specialize in helping women navigate the frustrating to the most challenging of relationships with a parent/in-law, sibling, or adult child while exploring how divinity and humanity meet within each human, and every relationship we have with one another and the systems of this world.

To explore options for working with me, click here.

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