In 2013, the belief that I was a separate self shattered, thanks to working with an online guide using direct pointing techniques. I truly realised there was no ‘me’ in control. I experienced bliss and felt in love with everything. This experience of bliss lasted a couple of months. Then I started to ‘flip-flop’ in and out of it. One moment I was on the stage believing the unfolding tragic tale I was acting in, and the next I was back in bliss, watching from stage left, wondering why I’d been drawn back into believing the story.
While I never believed in a separate self again, I certainly seemed to act as if I did! With the help of a friend, and instruction from an erudite scholar of Buddhist texts, further explorations took place and under their guidance craving and aversion dropped, and with the help of another mentor the other delusions keeping me from peace and contentment fell away. By 2017, to all intents and purposes, suffering stopped. Seeking had stopped. Resistance to how things are had stopped. Negative judgement of others stopped. Contentment was my general experience.
Around 2020 a load of unintegrated trauma came to the fore, which I guess until that point I’d been ‘spiritually bypassing’, not wanting to engage with old stories….until I couldn’t ignore the physical sensations any longer. So I’ve spent the last 3 years working on unintegrated trauma, releasing/integrating that. I’ve been working on letting go or understanding how to work with habitual responses – such as my tendency to ‘freeze’ . I have used various forms of emotion/body processing. e.g. Root Cause Therapy, Living Inquiries, Embodied Processing, Emotion Code etc, I’m not suggesting all these different types are needed, I just accepted help from different friends who kindly offered their help at different times. Every now and then more arises, but I now know how to be with, and work with, ‘stuff’ when it arises. I am okay with feeling vulnerable, and allowing emotions to just flow through without being attached to or identified with them.
Let’s make things clear: This doesn’t mean that life is always satisfactory, nor that I am always well and pain-free. Nor am I the perfect person with perfect speech – in fact old habits still seem to get me into trouble speech wise, and sometimes there are conversations where oddly people think I’m taking things personally, when actually I’m just trying to understand my habitual traits, or caring about my effect on others. What I can say though, is that contentment is my general experience, I am at peace and have found self-acceptance.
I do live in peace, usually with compassion and self-acceptance. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am not special. This awakening and freedom from suffering is open to anyone – is open to you.
Peace & love, Lake
