Day 181: My Story With New Age Spirituality

I was born in 1971 in a Catholic family. My mother was not married nor in a relationship with my father so the family priest would not Baptize me. My grandfather would bring me to church on Sundays where I would participate in all parts of Mass with the exception of Communion. I grew up being told that our family priest said that I was a 'bastard child' and from this I determined that I was tainted and that I would never be worthy enough to be a part of the Catholic community. I also believed that God, most likely, saw me in the same way as the priests and the Catholic community did because when I prayed to God to relieve some of my suffering, nothing ever changed – in-fact, my existence continued to progressively worsen throughout time.

From the get-go, I saw in my external world that I was not supposed to be here and yet, I was here. This didn't make sense to me so I attempted to accept that my existence was an accident and within this this suppress myself which created mental, emotional, and behavioral instability. As I entered my teens, I was hungry to understand why I am here, why there is suffering, abuse, and pain, and what I wanted to know most of all was: How do I control this? How can I create a better existence for myself? And if I can't control or change this, how do I get out of here?

Given my age, that I depended on my parents, where I lived in the world and the time that I grew up in, there were very little resources available to me for research. I would devour any metaphysical material that I could find. I remember visiting my grandmother and finding an encyclopedia that contained a section on psychic studies and phenomena – I would study the pictures and read the text over-and-over again. I also found a book about witches, vampires, and demons at my school library that I studied and found that even though I feared the beings that I was reading about, I wanted to align myself with them because these beings represented me and the potential of me – they were here and they had the ability to change what was here - in-spite of the church, God, and all of the others around me that I saw as having normal, happy lives.

For the next 25 years I continued to expand my understanding of existence – I had my own little library and could give perspective on many topics in regards to New Age material and Spirituality. I have put into practice many of the topics that have been placed beneath the heading of New Age and Spirituality – some of these applications aligned with me and some of them did not – I would let go of what did not work for me and keep what did work for me until I'd essentially created my own religion which was an accumulation of my beliefs and practices that attempted to explain why I am here, allowed for an illusion of control and change, and gave me something to do, distract, and entertain myself with.

Regardless of the amount of information, knowledge, and experience that I had accumulated and integrated, I was never satisfied with what I found and I was always on the look-out for something more or a detail that I may have missed. Which, interestingly enough, is how I found Desteni and where my search for self, understanding, and purpose both ends and begins.



Over the next few weeks, I will be going into more detail and specificity in regards to who I was as a New Age Spiritualist, sharing some perspective and self-forgiveness, and showing what's changed as a result of my participation with Desteni. I may even share a few reeeeeeally creepy Ghost Stories – so stay tuned and let's see what comes up!

Day 180: My Own Worst Enemy

In this blog I am concluding with self-correction and self-commitment statements from self-forgiveness on Day 177: Addicted To Stress? Whaaat?  Part 1 of this process is here and Part 2 is here.

When and as I see that I am going into speeding thoughts, reactions, excitement, and fear and within this not being present within stopping my pattern/habit of going into an energetic high and winding myself up, I stop and breath.  I see and realize that when I allow myself to go into this high energetic state that I start moving too fast to sort through and direct the thoughts, reactions, excitements, and fears that are coming up and when I do this that I am accepting and allowing waaaaaay too many points to continue to influence me and exist within and as me.  I have also come to see and realize that I like going into this energetic high - I like being 'up', being fast, being wound up, and being distracted by internal and external stimulus which is why I have not changed even though I have the awareness and the ability to change in-fact.

I commit myself to stop going into my energetic high pattern/habit by when and as I see my thoughts, reactions, excitements, and fears begin to build, accumulate and/or escalate - and within this, not actually looking at, directing, nor constructively bringing up my thoughts, reactions, excitements, and fears, I STOP, I breath, and I stabilize myself until I am here and clear.  And from here, I allow myself to be alone with myself and will myself to remain grounded as, contrary to my desire to be on an energetic high, the moments that I am here, clear, stable, and quiet within and as me are actually the most enjoyable for me.

When and as I see that I'm going into the belief that Depression as this big scary thing that 'just happens' and that one can lose oneself in, I stop and breath.  Here I realize that I am avoiding my beliefs about Depression and not taking responsibility for Depression with the excuse that Depression is greater than and has power/authority over me.  Further, not only is losing oneself in Depression (or anything else) complete abdication of oneself, it is also giving up on oneself and I do not and will not accept nor allow myself to do this.  So, obviously, my fear of Depression isn't real - it's just some idea of future outcome that is unlikely to happen.

I commit myself to trust myself - trust that I will take responsibility for myself and not allow myself to give up on myself.  Within this, I commit myself to stop threatening myself with my interpretation/definition/belief of Depression and I commit myself to stop imagining myself in it and I use breathing and physical movement to assist and support myself to not repeat and accumulate my patterns of thought that I use to create my own brand of Depression.

Day 179: Stressed or Depressed - Or Is There Another Way?

This blog is the second part of self-correction and self-commitment statements from self-forgiveness within Day 177: Addicted To Stress? Whaaat?  Day 178: How To Stop Being A Stress Junkie is here.

When and as I see that I am going into the thought and/or belief that there's something wrong with me because I'm not experiencing a thrill, excitement, unpredictability, ups-and-downs, feelings and emotions, and other physically energetic sensations, I stop and breath.  I realize that I don't require these high energy experiences to have a well-rounded, balanced, and satisfying life - the belief that I do require these - that's it's normal, that it's life - that I accepted and allowed, is/was a lie.

I commit myself to stop allowing myself to buy into the beLIEf that I must have all of these crazy rollercoaster experiences in order for me to have a normal, well-rounded, balanced, and satisfying life by reMINDING myself that before I accepted and allowed this belief system that I saw this sort of lifestyle as being unstable, untrustworthy, and insane.  So, within this, I commit myself to go back to where I was before the lie - back to questioning and back to looking for solutions - and start over.  Here, instead of being influenced by my external environment, I use common sense, practicality, self/interpersonal/global awareness, and decide who/what I will be.

When and as I see that I am connecting 'quietness', 'emptiness', 'blankness' and/or 'nothingness' to Depression, I stop and breath.  I realize that this is one of the ways that I have accepted and allowed the system / the global mind to determine and define who/what/where I am in any given moment where this particular quietness, emptiness, blankness, and/or nothingness means that there is something wrong and/or undesirable about me as a being.  I realize that I have not questioned this, questioned how this benefits me, and I have not taken responsibility for how I have imposed my definition of Depression on to others and expected that we 'come out of it' rather than getting into understanding and being equal and one with/to/as quietness, emptiness, blankness, and nothingness.

I commit myself to stop attempting to move away from / remove myself from / come out of the experience of quietness, emptiness, blankness, and nothingness - and within this, I commit myself to stop using the threat/fear of the word Depression to trigger my response to move away from / remove myself from / come out of the experience of quietness, emptiness, blankness, and nothingness.  Instead of accepting, allowing, and being influenced by my pre-programmed definitions, I allow myself to explore for myself who/what/where I am as quietness, emptiness, blankness, and nothingness, and within this, stop attempting control/define others as they do this for themselves within their own processes.