Finding a deeper meaning

Here I am only talking about myself, my personal experiences, and the way I took the information in and processed it through what I knew at that moment, so this comes with no judgment, but to maybe stir questions inside yourself so that you too may look deeper and find your own truths.

For quite a while now, I've been following this new-age spirituality movement. It is new, exciting, and can be really interesting. It has a lot of beautiful ways to open yourself up and start to love and respect, even accept yourself for the way you are. These are some key things I found myself interested in because of deeply rooted self-beliefs and traumas I had been through in my life. I have suffered for many years with depression, self-harm, no self-confidence whatsoever, or even self-respect, and feeling like a failure carrying my burdens and traumas on my shoulders. There were so many influencers out there to follow that knew the way. I became obsessed with tarot card decks, crystals, being psychic and having "magical powers," and energy healing, but there was something missing. I kept feeling empty and lost still. And the more I followed what they said, the more I started to realize that there must be more out there. I got sucked in so deep with all the "self-healing" meditations and energy work I was doing, it felt inauthentic and strange. I started to become very vain with my thoughts and I was focused on gaining these abilities and gifts so I could go brag to others. I realized this by going inside of myself and really asking myself why I was doing what I was doing. I thought I was spreading love and powerful spiritual messages. I was not humble and honest and this work wasn't coming from a place of authenticity but a place of needing to feed an egoic hunger. I was still searching for something I wasn't even sure what it was. I had a lot of things going on in my physical life creating all kinds of struggles and I found myself turning away from spirituality again. So I decided it was time to go inside myself and actually figure out what was going on with me. I needed to find "my truth." Who am I? What is my relationship in regard to what I see around me? Who is God? What was he? What was the relationship like to be with God?

None of the stuff that was taught or focused upon had really anything to do with growing myself as a person or actually helping me to feel I had a connection with God. Everything I was doing was just completely wrong for me. I found a lot of the teaching to be very egoic-based and missing the mark somewhere along the lines, though I don't think most of them are doing this on purpose but more subconsciously. You can't just do meditations with the intention to heal your mind and soul if you don't do any actual work. I was brainwashing myself into thinking I was a perfect person by being spiritual and telling myself I was perfect just the way I was. This leaves no room for growth, no room for learning or expansion. I was shutting myself off to other ways of seeing, without knowing. I couldn't see that what I was doing was essentially trying to cheat my way into being spiritual by embodying what I thought a spiritual person does. I could start seeing a lot of what I was learning was not going to bring me any closer to the person I thought I was becoming. I am so glad to have had this realization! Amazing! Now I realized I had to do the work.

Now how do you begin to do that? Observation. Self-awareness. Observing yourself, being aware of not only your actions and thoughts that arise but how you are influenced and how you respond to others. I started noticing when feelings arose inside me like anger, greed, envy, guilt, and such. I started to understand and learn more about this world and God and what other truths are out there by simply taking the time to start to try to understand myself and how we are all connected. I dove deeper into the feelings and tried to understand why these were coming up, and what the root of the problem was. Meditation, contemplation, coming with love and understanding for whatever came up and however I felt. I took responsibility for each time I made a choice that created a change I didn't like in my life. I followed the path to the past and began to uncover why I was the way I was. And then I had another realization. I am none of these things. The past no longer exists. I found myself constantly living in a state in the past of worry and resentment for the things that had gone wrong in my life, putting the blame always on others because it's just so much easier that way to "move on. and "put it behind us." Or I was living into the future, constantly in fear and anxiety about what could happen. These things were like seeds deeply engrained into my subconscious controlling my every move and thought. Once I understood I was pretty much functioning on "zombie mode" or "auto-pilot" I began to

understand just how important it was for me to awaken to the life that is in front of me and be fully aware of myself. I started to realize I was none of the things I thought I was and I could be so much more if I chose to be. Another great understanding I came to. I am the only one holding myself back from doing anything and anything that didn't work out because of me and my subconscious thinking mind. I started taking the time to learn other religions and spiritual teachings, marrying them together to form exactly what has felt true for me all along. This has brought me a lot of peace and comfort.

I uncovered my true intentions for why I started all around love and it hurt. I thought I would be the person to spread love and joy around and make all the people who found me feel better, make myself feel better. The only person that can make you feel better is you. All I can do is provide support and information and what helped me so you can take it in and come to your own conclusions. Now my views on spirituality and life are changing drastically, for the better. I am now on a journey to uncovering what is true for myself and I am so excited to watch how this unfolds. I look forward to sharing what I am learning in hopes you all go in search of your own truths and never stop questioning what is in front of you. Connect with yourself and get to know yourself, and God on a deeper level. Get to the roots of religion and spirituality to find what is real for you. As I began my path to finding myself, I was led directly to God. There is no separation.

"To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom." -Socrates

"Know thyself you will know the universe and God." -Pythagoras

Live in the now, Love in the now!

-Blake