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!