It’s the 31st of December, the last day of the year. I felt like I spent the whole month of December contemplating life and its meaning, much more than I ever had. The truth is that I just experienced the biggest emotional breakdown I’ve ever had. I never thought I would ever say that I was someone who had a mental breakdown. I’m not sure why, but I can now put into words what that felt like for me: emotionally, physically and spiritually.
One way to sum up my experience is to call it a spiritual awakening. I thought I had been through it once before and that I was done with it. Turns out, there are many phases of spiritual awakening and I am in the third phase of my awakening journey. It began about eight years ago.
A spiritual awakening is no joke. It really brings all of the events in your life that need attention into the forefront so that healing can take place. Before healing can take place, you have to confront all the pain in your life — and that’s just what I was faced with.
For months, I had a nagging feeling that I was not answering the calling of my life purpose: to dive into the path of healing through spiritual life coaching and embrace my psychic gifts. My full-time job as a coach for a Fortune 500 company became less rewarding and more stressful, because it was more about the company’s agenda versus doing what was right for the team members. Waking up and going to work became something I dreaded.
My angels spoke to me through series of synchronicities that it was time to answer the calling of what the universe has in store for me and to get out of the environment around me, because it was getting more toxic by the day. I wasn’t ready to leave my corporate job due to my family responsibilities, and I told myself that I would wean myself out of it. But the Universe has its own mind and timing. Nothing could have prepared me for what the Universe had in store for me.
I’ve always been a strong individual, determined to reach my next breakthrough, one after another, and regardless of setbacks I’ve always been able to pick myself up, brush myself off and head forward unapologetically to the next endeavor. But life has its own way of catching up to you and making you learn the lessons you are meant to learn.
The Universe put me on the spiritual path of answering my calling with the resurfacing of an unhealed wound. The trigger was an individual who brought up a lot of post-traumatic stress related to abuse and hurts throughout my life that was too painful to look at, and I was too busy to do it. Now, it caught up to me. It seemed like I needed to learn to heal so I could teach healing. But before I could do that, I experienced a series of anxiety attacks, sadness and uncontrollable tears. I could no longer hold it together at work and had to take a leave of absence.
These experiences challenged my ego, my faith and what I believed was true to me. It challenged me to take a deep look at the core of who I really am as an authentic soul and human being. It forced me to look at the negative lenses through which I look at the world, the words I speak, the thoughts I think, the shame I feel, what I deserve and what being worthy of love means to me.
I learned that there is no right or wrong, black and white , this or that. We are taught that a code or restriction governs everything we do, and if we are outside of that box, we’re judged as wrong and are considered outcasts of society for not fitting into the norm. What is normal anyway? We are so caught up by what others say about how things should be that we forget to rationalize if what we’re being told is even true. Why do we judge when we don’t understand? Why must there be a right or wrong way?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned during my journey of awakening is self-love. Look in the mirror and into your own eyes and tell yourself, “I love you.” Tell yourself when you make a mistake that it’s okay, that when you feel you failed that it’s not your fault, that you are perfect in your own way. Be kind to yourself if you don’t know the answer, and forgive yourself for the past and allow yourself to love yourself for the present and the future unapologetically.
We cannot heal others if we cannot heal ourselves, and we cannot love others if we cannot love ourselves. What I learned is that you have to embrace who you are just as you are. Do not criticize or scold yourself when you do not meet the expectations of society. Have the courage to be you and embrace the unique self that you are created to be — and the calling that is waiting for you.
