Before I share with you the transformative experience that led me to the answer of this question, it’s important that I share a few pieces from the past year that led to it.
For the last two years, I’ve had a calling to God. When I use the word God, I use it synonymous with Spirit, Divine, Source, Ultimate Reality, Universe, etc.
It is not the religious definition of God, but one that encompasses the energy that all of Life stems from. The Unnamable One.
God is the word that most resonates with me at this time, but if it doesn’t for you, fill it in with what does as you read this story.
The calling to God was so strong this last year, that I thought about checking myself into a convent or monastery around Christmas of 2017.
And at the same time, I was asked to serve my mom in helping her clean out her house of in Southern California so she could move and sell the house.
The latter felt right and the calling to answer.
For the last year I have been saying a mantra every day that went something like this: “I give you my mind and my heart O lord. May I be One with God.”
At the turning of the year into 2018, I picked my word of the year, DEVOTION. It felt completely right.
Soon after, I embarked on a 7 month journey of helping my mom go through 52 years of stuff in the house that I grew up in, selling it and moving what was left into storage.
It was a journey filled with love, stress, challenges, rewards, and what I didn’t anticipate or fully understand – the release energetically of the past as I went through each closet, each drawer, each cupboard.
My body felt beyond exhaustion at times spending just 2 hours cleaning out a closet of stuff.
While going through this, I found a spiritual home in Kirtan (call and response chanting from Hinduisim) and Bhakti Yoga.
Bhakti yoga focuses on the heart, and which Kirtan stems from. It means “Union with God through love and devotion.” My whole being wanted to give itself to the Divine, if only little i (ego) would cooperate!
Bhakti yoga has three guiding principles, which are Love, Service and Devotion. When I heard them I knew that was my path.
They became my guiding principles. I said them every day from spring time on along with the mantra I was saying since last fall.
When I was having a hard time mentally, emotionally or energetically, I would remind myself of the words of Ram Dass from his book Paths to God:
Invite God in. We sing to It, we chant to It, we pray to It, we bring It flowers.
We love and we love, and we open and we open.
And then we watch, as slowly, slowly, but surely, surely, we love our way to becoming God.
Fast forward to Big Sur, CA two weeks after moving my mom out of her sold house and into her camper van at the end of July (very cool mom!) and me free to do whatever I wanted.
I landed at the cabin in the redwoods in early August, built and owned by a friend of mine on his property in Big Sur, CA.
(Interestingly enough, it was the same cabin that I was in 2.5 years ago where chronic hip and back pain started and the journey of all that I’ve learned about healing the body through the power of the mind since then began.)
I knew I needed 5 days of silence here after the 7 months I’d been helping my mom and living in S. California with 17 million other people.
What I didn’t know is what would happen on day 5 of the retreat that completely changed how I see and experience the world.
On retreat, I let myself flow from one day to the next feeling and intuiting what I was called to do moment to moment. What felt strongest was to practice loving kindness for myself and others. I repeated loving kindness phrases all week such as “May I be happy, healthy, live with ease, be free. May others be happy, healthy, live with ease, be free.” Over and over and over again.
I let myself feel the stresses and blessings release from the last 7 months through tears. I forgave myself for being mean and reactive to my mom at times through our journey together. I forgave others that I felt resentment toward. I wanted my heart to be totally free to love and knew that resentment was holding me back from that.
Two other pieces of clarity came during this time, that I didn’t want to judge any one any more for anything. And I didn’t want to be in fear of anything any more. I knew to cultivate this I needed to love unconditionally and have total and complete faith in God.
On day 3, little i needed to say a few things. She came up strong that evening while I was cooking dinner and said things like, “I just want to be normal. Why do I have to do this retreat stuff. Why can’t I just be normal and have a husband, 2.5 kids, a regular job with a regular paycheck. Screw all this spiritual stuff. It’s so much work. And I want to be NORMAL. Even being divorced would put me into the normal category. At least I would have been married at some point.”
Anger raged up with the words. It lasted for about 10 minutes and then little i was gone. I laughed and then sat down, and for over an hour, wrote and wrote and wrote everything that I loved. It flowed and flowed. Everything from, “I love wearing sandals and having warm feet. I love community and laughter and joy with them. I love being smart. I love the perfection of nature.”
Gratitude filled me. For my journey. For the path I’d been on. For my whole life AS IT WAS and had been.
On day 5, the last day of the retreat in silence. I woke up and sat in my normal meditation position on the bed. I meditated for about an hour when things suddenly changed.
In a moment, all loving kindness practice stopped, all thoughts stopped. Then what I can only describe as Spaciousness took its place. My body was no longer separate from what was around me, but of it, yet none of it. My mind was not mine, it was vastness beyond space and time.
At this point all earth time dissolved and I was in a timeless time, so I cannot tell you how short/long each of the following experiences lasted.
From this Spaciousness, these words arose, “Give yourself to God. Give yourself to God. Give yourself to God.”
Over and over they repeated. I then felt the ego, “little i” disappear. She was gone and what took it’s place was total surrender to the One.
Suddenly there was the most incredible feeling in my heart/chest. It was one of love, bliss, gratitude, joy and more all rolled into one. The feeling quickly then traveled down to 2 inches below my belly button to the middle of my sacrum (second chakra area).
From here it intensified to a power so great, so ecstatic, so blissful, so euphoric, so joyful, so incredible that it traveled beyond the tips of my toes, up my core, through the top of my head and out through my fingertips. My body felt electrified with Divine love – in a way that I’d never experienced or could fathom before this.
It was like the sun had entered my body with the energy of God.
In many ways it’s difficult to use words for this experience as it is beyond all words that could capture it.
Again, I don’t know how long this lasted. And what followed continued to bring me into new realms.
All the muscles in my body began to contract. Super tight, like muscle cramps but without the pain. My hands curled in, my head lowered, like I was in a fetal position with my upper body. Next my back straightened, my shoulder muscles moved up toward my ears and then I became very nauseous. With the nauseous came what I now call “energetic vomiting.”
By body began to vomit out what was inside, but it wasn’t anything in my stomach, it was energy being vomited. There were a lot of gutteral and vomiting sounds coming from my mouth.
Then the energetic vomiting stopped, my shoulders relaxed, all my muscles relaxed and what followed was intense shaking of my whole body. It shook and shook and shook. Head, core, legs, arms, hands. Everything.
At this point, little i came in with absolute terror and said, “What the hell is happening?!”
Then there was a surrender yet again and a knowing that the body was doing exactly what it needed to do with Divine Intelligence and all was well.
The shaking eventually stopped and lots of tears came. A huge release of tears from what had just unfolded.
Then Spaciousness returned. The body and mind were completely still. Only Oneness with the One.
Then it started again – a second wave. Intense loving energy in my heart, down to my sacrum and what I describe as Divine Ecstasy traveling up my core from the base of my body through the top of my head, then the muscle contractions, less vomiting, intense shaking, and Spaciousness.
Then a third wave (wild right!?). Divine Ecstasy, muscle contractions (no more energetic vomiting), shaking and then Spaciousness.
After the third wave I sat in the Spaciousness for some time (again, I don’t know what amount of time). My mind then began to perk up and say, “What WAS that? What just happened?”
Here’s what arose from the Knowing place within.
While I was experiencing the energetic vomiting, beliefs came from the darkness of my subconscious mind that I didn’t know existed. Beliefs that had been there since I was a child around sexuality. Beliefs such as, “Sex is bad. My sexual organs are bad. My body is an object for sex. I’m not a sexual being. Sex and Sexuality are separate from God. My body is separate from God.” I watched these beliefs completely dissolve as I vomited them out. The cells of my muscles said, “get out beliefs, your not true.”
I had been opening to sensuality, but up until now, I had put my sexuality into a small box in the corner of my life, not to be opened. It was too scary. Now the box was fully open and jumping around in absolute joy.
I said to myself, “Was that one of those kundalini experiences? Did my second chakra just clear?” (I knew a tiny bit about chakras and energetic clearing, but honestly very little.)
YES was a big reply from the Knowing.
Little i had to come in and say, “Are you kidding me? This is soooo weird. This stuff doesn’t happen.”
The next Knowing that came was, “It does and I’m sexually FREE!!!!!!!”
WOW, I said to myself. I had no idea I was blocked, but now that I’m free, HOLY WOW!!! What a difference.
I also had the realization and knowing that the clearing wasn’t just for me, it was for generations of people. I saw the witches of the witch trials and the women of oppression and violence. For those that had been raped or self dignity taken away. I was stunned.
I got up from the bed and was in a daze for the rest of day. I sat down to meditate that evening, my last night in the cabin, when it happened AGAIN.
And again the next morning when I sat in meditation. HOLY WOW.
What happened next was again, unforeseen and showed me how much God was guiding all of this.
I left the cabin on a Saturday and drove straight to a friend’s in Carmel (north of Big Sur). She had recently moved into a beautiful cottage a few miles inland from the ocean. Having not talked for a few days and having just had this experience I had much to share.
She was as much in awe as I was with what had unfolded. She was leaving the next day for a week and offered me her place to stay in for that time. I knew it was right. I wasn’t ready to enter the world. I felt like a new born baby with skin that was paper thin to the energies of the world. I tearfully accepted and then began a week that was unlike any other week of my life.
I spent 2 to 3 hours at a time in a state of Divine Ecstasy pulsating up the entirety of my core and through the top of my head. It was a like a river who’s damn had broke and the energy wanted to flow and flow. 8 to 9 hours a day.
I had to tell myself to get up a eat something, or shower, or go for a walk because the state of bliss and love was so great, I felt no need to do anything else but be with God.
I woke up each night with the energy pulsating up my core through the top of my head.
The muscle contractions began to have less and less intensity, which I knew were experiences of the cells continuing to clear smaller and smaller blockages in my energetic system.
The shaking also became less and less intense. At one point I thought, “What if I stopped the shaking. What might happen?” So I did, and the Divine Ecstasy doubled – yes doubled, to the point where it was almost too much. I felt the top of my head would just come right off and start floating into space.
I learned from my inner wisdom that the shaking was a way for the body to disseminate the Divine Energy that was moving through it so I wouldn’t implode. Thank you body. You’re so wise.
Presence was almost all I knew. I had a hard time being responsible, reliable, and committed to others. All I knew at that point was my experience with God and that’s where I felt called to be. Moment to moment.
The week in Carmel was a week in which I fell in love with the Divine and fell in love with my body as a manifestation of the Divine. I would weep looking at the miracle and beauty of my arm – the skin, the hair, the freckles, all of it. It’s a miracle!
It was the most intimate, loving, ecstatic, blissful, humbling, awe filled, WOW experience I’d ever known.
I left my friends cottage in Carmel a week later and reentered the world to slowly make my way back to Montana, but couldn’t and didn’t energetically reenter the world for several more weeks to come.
I was in presence. I was in love. I am in presence. I am in love. I am in bliss. I am in ecstasy. I am in gratitude.
I experience a Oneness with God, yet there’s no I in that statement. It’s simply Oneness.
The Divine Ecstasy continues to flow – every day. I become present to it in my body and it’s right there, pulsating from the bottom of my core through the top of my head.
I am learning to “train” it so I can function in the world, and these past few days, for the first time since the cabin in Big Sur, feel equally grounded with one foot in earth world and one foot in Divine world, and I can move between the two or move with both together.
Up until now it’s been a concerted effort to take care of responsibilities and make plans. My mind didn’t want to go there. My whole body was in ecstasy, why would it need to? it often asked.
Its reminded me of neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylors book and Ted Talk of when she witnesses herself having a stroke and the entire left side of her brain fills with blood, stopping all “everyday planning and responsibility function” and leaving her in a state of total bliss and connection with God.
I don’t know where my story goes from here – only into the Great Mystery of Life and moment to moment unfolding.
What I do know is what has shifted within me and my interactions with the world. I also know it’s total joy to be in my home in Montana.
I feel so loving toward every one and every thing. I feel blissful and joyful in each moment. I feel deep faith and knowing that all is well. I have deep gratitude for all of life and the miracle that all IS. Life and Nature are more vibrant and alive than ever.
Here are some Knowings/Truths that have unfolded from the experience that I’ve been guided to pass on to you:
- You are deeply and profoundly loved and guided by God
- Knowing God has infinite depth
- Love is the Path to God
- The greater your faith and love, the less you fear and have judgment of
- Your body contains the Universe
- God is an experience, not a goal or destination
- All has been and Is Created from unconditional love
- God sees Its Creation through your eyes. God hears Its Creation through your ears. God feels Its creation through your heart.
- Unconditional love transforms the giver and the receiver
- You are that which you are seeking
- Gods energy flows through you in every moment
- Sexuality IS Divine and every part of your body is Divine, including your sexual organs
- All creatures are Divine and are a manifestation of God
- Divine Union is the experience of flesh and God coming together
- You can experience God through love making (with yourself or a partner)
- Your body, mind and heart are a miracle
The words that fill my days now are, “Thank you God. I love You. I love You. I love You.”
I want to leave you with a prayer from Marianne Williamson that so speaks to me at this time:
Dear God,
I surrender to You who I am, what I have and what I do.
May my life and talents be used in whatever way serves You best.
I surrender to You my failures and any pain still in my heart.
I surrender to You my successes and the hope that they contain.
May the Light of Your Love shine deep within my heart and extend through me to bless the world.
Amen
I love you my dear friend. Thank you for reading.
Categories: Feminine Power, Gratitude, Heart Centered Living, Inner Wisdom & Intuition, Relationships