Experiences, dreams and intuitive moments that are spiritual in nature have given me validations of the link between this human existence and spirit. I have always felt that God had a purpose for me being here — and not just purpose, but a very important, powerful purpose. I had a thought/feeling that I was going to die somewhere around my mid-thirties. I later realized that I wasn’t going to actually physically die, but I was going to have a spiritual death and awakening. God’s purpose for me would take shape.
Acceptance and surrender would be a major factor in my awakening. The signs were always put before me, but I didn’t listen. The synchronicities that played out before me — even a dream on an Easter Sunday of my son telling me, “Dad, you need to let Jesus back into your life” — had little effect on my eagerness or acceptance of an awakening. I was too caught up in the circumstances of everyday life, that the moments of those in spirit crying out to me were given little regard.
Understanding is the groundwork, the knowledge, the daily practice, that helps us, as individuals, come to a point of acceptance. In my heart I thought I was ready to accept the gifts God has given me, yet there was fear — a fear of not understanding why and how I could see and hear those in spirit. I began to have more questions than I did an understanding, which left me farther from acceptance than I was in the beginning.
Surrendering shed the fear and unfamiliarity. It didn’t come easy, because surrendering required me to relinquish myself to the unknown. The surrender was in understanding that those in spirit were waiting for me to surrender to my higher purpose and connect with them.
What leads us to acceptance? How can a person accept another if they don’t understand them, don’t develop a relationship with them, don’t look at the core of who they are? When I teach, and when I manage people at work, I have always tried to explain “why” I want people to do something, and it’s importance. Through their own struggle, and by asking their own questions, they came to an understanding and acceptance of my intention for a specific outcome or process.
I later realized that all of the things that were taking place in my house were signs, they were signaling for me to wake up, to start paying attention — now, not later. People would tell me time and time again, “Accept these gifts, accept what is happening to you because it’s a very special gift you possess.” No matter how much I heard this, I couldn’t accept the awakening until I surrendered and understood it.
My own spiritual awakening could not have happened without a self-reflecting comprehension, and a surrendering acceptance to “The Gift from Heaven.”
Why, do you think, it is so hard for us to pay attention?
Well, I feel, there are a lot of reasons it is hard for us to pay attention. Most people are just consumed with living life and their own struggles. More often than not, the ‘signs’ spirit shows us are very subtle. It takes an awareness and an observation of those subtleties and then a recognition and acceptance. Once a person becomes aware of what the signs are and how they show up in their life they begin to recognize them. Then, the recognition follows. All of the observance and recognition is useless unless a person accepts that the seemingly insignificant numbers, words, phone calls, or ‘gut feelings’ are our own intuition or spirit telling us something.
I can relate it to being a chiropractor… your hands are sensing and feeling the subtleties of a persons skeletal and musculature system (the observance). Your experience and education of those systems are the recognition of a person’s current state of health. You are observing and recognizing those signs and accepting what their posture, movement, and words are telling you. And, in turn, create a plan to improve their current state.
Spirit does the same thing. So, to answer your questions I believe and feel it comes down to acceptance of those subtle signs. And, very often people are just not actively observing or recognizing them. People more often than not, just need to be educated and have the experience of recognition. And, for most people I feel it comes down to acceptance or belief.
For me, and most people, it comes down to ‘daily life’ just getting in the way. It’s interference or static in the communication process.
It’s true, life is the teacher, and the teachings are always there, all around us, all we have to do is notice them. Nice article!