I am going back to the start.
So, what am I, who am I. Growing up, I was a free spirit that loved to bike (oh the feeling of the wind on my face as I coasted down the streets) and to read. My head was always in a book. I was taught that the heart was `silly`, and it was better to follow the intellectual mind. Although I had a strong creative side, I was trained to analyze, calculate and problem-solve. I was taught that it was desirable to think with your head, not your foolish heart.
Discovering that the complete opposite was true, literally turned my world around 180 degrees. Truth is found in the heart, while the mind can create erratic thoughts.
In the book, "The Power of Now", author Eckhart Tolle says that the moment you realize you are not the "thinker", your consciousness elevates and you start to awaken. When I first read this book several years ago, I was a little overwhelmed with the normal stress and anxiety of being a mom with young children and studying or working part-time. Learning that "I", my spirit, was separate from "I", my mind, left me with a profound sense of relief and peace. The chance to separate from my intellectual mind was an opportunity to experience pure freedom and awaken to my divine spirit.
What does it mean to awaken? One of the dictionary definitions of awaken is "to spring into being". In other words, to be alive and fully present. When we awaken we are fully aware of the beauty and gifts that are present within and all around us.
I clearly recall the following events in my life where I experienced full presence and felt awakened spiritually:
When I was 13 years old, I put on my first pair of glasses and stepped out for a walk. As I turned my gaze upwards towards the tops of the trees above, I experienced an awakening. For the first time in my life, I was seeing the crisp outlines and colours of the leaves and branches, rather than just a green blur. Can you imagine how I felt? I walked 3 blocks to school, gazing upward as if I was seeing the trees for the first time in a life. Actually, I was really seeing the trees for the first time in my life.To awaken is also to separate ourselves from the illusion of suffering that our mind has created, and to accept the present moment exactly as it is. The expansive mind can create so many things, negative thoughts and scenarios that create suffering if we choose to believe them. Letting go of the negative thoughts and voices in our heads leaves us open to connect with the Divine and fully experience the love that is waiting to be embraced.
After my first child (now a teenager, sigh) was born, as I lay in the hospital bed looking at the tiny miracle in the incubator next to me, I was overwhelmed with feelings of love: A huge bright glow inside of me -- no doubt my Heart Chakra was spinning in overdrive; Star-struck --- at the beautiful, angelic face of my newborn son. Exhilaration -- I had created this miracle of life. Fully present -- there was no past or future, only the perfection and beauty of that moment, the new life. No doubt the fact that the anesthetic had not worn off helped a great deal --- my intellectual mind was down, allowing me to fully experience my spirit :). Today (much to the chagrin of my Warrior I teenager who asks why I am staring at him), I still find myself star-struck when I take the time to really look at my children and marvel at there transformations from infants to tweens and teens.
Several years ago when I turned 30 (okay, more like 10), I decided it was time to stop working around my "borderline" hearing loss, and get fitted for a hearing aid. In the audiologist's office the first time I tried one on, I asked her if the ceiling ventilation system had just turned on. She replied, "No, that's the computer". I was dumbfounded, to say the least. I had been using a computer practically full-time, between university studies, jobs, facebook and online shopping for the previous 10 years, and, with the exception of the large mainframe computers in the university computer lab or at work, had never heard the buzzing of a fan in a desktop computer. As I left the office, again my world had changed. Every step I took as I descended the concrete stairs outside the office building sounded like a scene from King Kong. How could it be that I had spent my life perceiving sounds dramatically different from everyone else?
A quote from "The Power of Now": All you ever need to do is accept this moment fully.
Embracing that truth creates a beautiful warmness in my heart and a liberating stillness in my mind. With so many responsibilities to balance, the reminder that I am allowed to stop and breathe fully in the present moment (to the dismay of my Warriors who sometimes demand answers and actions in warp time) is very healing.
May we awaken from suffering and allow our hearts to be open to give and receive.
Pure light and love :), Kathryn