Fully Awake

I have been noticing a general awakening around me; and I believe that light attracts light… like attracts like… and the women and men that are experiencing some sort of awakening are somehow drawn to each other. We find each other. It’s like a recognition that happens with a glance… in an elevator…a Publix line… even crossing each other on the street. I know it happens to me all the time; and when it does, it feels like we are from the same tribe and speak the same dialect.

I feel that I have somehow transcended from being dormant to being fully awake. This process has been gradual and has probably taken taken all my life… but definitely the last ten years have been cataclysmic.

I find I repel negativity in any form. I refuse to be placed in any sort of box and resent it when the “expectation card” or “guilt card” is played, indecision kills me, I live fearlessly, I know there is nothing I cannot accomplish … I feel nothing can stop me from growing more and more.

There came a time a few years ago, when I radically changed my life. I had had enough of living a life that wasn’t for me. It shocked everyone; it shocked my now exhusband, it shocked my two grown boys, it shocked my family, my friends, however, most of all, it shocked me. I believe that I was simply saving my life… I was my own hero.

Joseph Campbell, an American philosopher, describes it as The Hero’s Journey. I remember that moment about seven years ago when I first read his explanation on the awakenings we go through as spiritual beings. Up to that moment, I had been so confused as to what the heck had happened to me…I didn’t understand the changes that were happening within me.

He explains that most people go through life in a dormant state. However, they may experience something in their life that forces an awakening… it is usually some kind of triggering event… like a death, a sickness, a divorce, a near death experience, an accident, a natural disaster… something that forces you to wake up and smell the roses. I believe that once that happens and you wake up, you must live in alignment with yourself or you will be a tortured soul. However, some people wake up slowly… he explains that it’s like a ringing telephone in the background that you are refusing to answer… so it keeps on ringing and ringing until you can’t ignore it anymore or you’ll go crazy. You must answer your calling. This is what happened to me.

I recall crying like a baby that night. I finally had an explanation. I finally understood myself. Up to that moment I had had no understanding of why I had done such radical changes in my life …and with the urgency in which I did. It explained so much. I had awakened completely and I just couldn’t stay in bed any longer. He explains it as a journey that goes full circle. You answer the call… you are called to adventure, you take up arms, you fight the dragons, you save yourself and others. According to Campbell, you somehow return to life in community but you emerge as a different person.

I feel I’m still in my adventure and I did fight the dragons and saved myself. In the process, I feel I’ve also help save others that have come in my path. I do still have to slay dragons once in a while but I am a different person now. I’m stronger and I own myself completely. I defy conventional thoughts and I am constantly reinventing my life and growing as a woman and spiritual being.