I don’t really know what happened. I was trying to follow the rules.
I finished high school, went to college, got a degree, did a few odd jobs and travelled before I settled into a desk job.
I met my husband at my job, we moved to Minnesota for a promotion he took, and I got another desk job. We bought a house. We worried about money. We got married. We stressed about work and family and our health.
It was all so normal. And through it all, I was constantly tormented by my mind.
I started, just trying to find some peace. I guess it all began with the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. It was the first time I’d ever considered that my thoughts and emotions were important. That they actually influenced the world I experienced. That maybe I could have some say in what I was thinking about. Be more positive, and therefore have more positive experiences.
But, it was so hard trying to “control” my thoughts from inside my mind. I visualized it like a stampede of horses thundering down a valley, and my attempts to wrangle them was like one horse shouldering another horse. Maybe it would change the direction for a few seconds, but then the other horses (or thoughts) would push back, and I’d lose control of the direction again. Like Einstein said, you can’t solve a problem from the same level that created it. You can’t fix your mind… with your mind.
So, I started to read Eckhart Tolle, and at first, the words were just that… words. I understood what he was saying about the importance of the present moment, but I couldn’t figure out how to apply it to my life. How could I simply just stop thinking about the past or worrying about the future? I had bills to pay. I had regrets to atone for. It seemed impossible to only exist in the present. But I kept reading and re-reading his work, because I could recognize the truth in it, I think. I suspect we always can, on some level, detect the truth when it’s there. Even when our minds are in chaos.
Then, one day, in 2015, I was driving on the interstate with my sister and my mind was racing with stressful things and I thought the words that I had been repeating to myself quite often after reading Tolle: “I am not my thoughts.” This time, suddenly, my mind went completely blank.
It was quite scary, as I was driving 70 miles per hour and had my sister in the car, and I worried that something bad was happening. A stroke, or something. But physically, I was fine. I could move all my parts, I was in no pain. In fact, it seemed like I was vibrating with this wonderful peace, that parts of my brain were turning on that I’d never used before. It was such a relief. My thoughts came back in, though, and I was left wondering what it was I’d just experienced. I didn’t say anything to my sister.
A few months after this moment in the car, I was sitting at my dining table in my house, writing in my journal about what had happened, trying to make sense of things, reviewing the lessons that Tolle taught, when it happened again. My mind went blank, but this time it lasted longer. It was the most beautiful feeling I’d ever felt. Like every worry was suddenly erased. Every regret taken off my shoulders. And I’ve never quite been the same since.
Because now, I know. I know that my thoughts are not who I am. That I am the observer, the one who notices my thoughts.
Once I saw this to be true, a whole new world opened up. Somehow, though, the idea of awakening became a sort of obsession for me. My mind was attempting to reassert itself, take back the power, trying to “understand” what is impossible for it to know. It’s like I escaped the cage of my mind, and now I’m hanging around, trying to figure out how I did it, measuring the bars, examining the locks. Sometimes I look around to see if anyone else got out of their cages, and when I see they haven’t, I consider climbing back inside and closing the door and pretending nothing happened, so as to fit in.
I have not been actually, you know, flying free.
I sense that there’s more magic to discover, in the relatively unknown places of this world. That there’s much more that we are capable of, and that this getting free part is just the beginning. Many great teachers have given us tools like visualization, gratitude, and manifestation as ways to play with the magic. And tools like shadow work and questioning our thoughts to help us expand our freedom.
Anyway, it seems a lot of people are going through some sort of experience like this, and I have been helped by others sharing their stories. So, here’s mine.
I’ve been reluctant to write about this, because it does sound woo woo and may strike people as nonsensical. I spent most of my life as a very cynical, serious person. I get it.
But the more I try to write about other things, the more this topic keeps asserting itself. The truth wants to come out, I suppose.
So now, here we are.
design + surrender 