Awesome Stories 384

/ November 4, 2018

This week Awesome Stories brings you reflections on awakening.

Awakening has been a very elusive idea and experience for me.

This is a big part of why I declined to participate in Barbara’s collection of awakening experiences from bloggers on WordPress. If I’m being honest, I don’t feel worthy of being a model of awakening. Awakening for me has been a long, arduous process with nebulous results. I’m not even sure it’s a worthy goal for me anymore. You can find snippets of awakening experiences in this post on Barbara’s site.

I did some research on awakening and found some background information on a site called manataka.org. On their site, awakening is described as an altered perception, a knowing beyond knowledge. For most people, it is a gradual process, filled with ups and downs. For others, it is a profound shift that happens in a moment. The hit-and-miss style of awakening that most people experience (including myself) is partly due to our harried modern lives that cause waves of distraction and confusion. They believe all beings are awakened and brought back home to the creator.

From the awakening experiences I’ve read, these two struck a deep chord with me.

1- Aleya starts her post on awakening with the declaration “I’d actually felt turned off by the concepts of ‘awakening’ and ‘ascension’.” This also describes me very well. I’ve begun to feel that chasing awakening is about as fruitful as chasing happiness. And if you’ve been following me for a while, then you might remember that I no longer choose to pursue happiness. A more worthy goal for me is pursuing contribution or connection.

Regardless of my bias against pursuing happiness or awakening, Aleya bravely shares her recent sense of disconnection from the divine and most things spiritual. Aleya writes about feeling generally disconnected and disgruntled, along with a sense of relief for letting go of expectations around “knowing”. Again, her reflections strike a deep chord with me. Ultimately, Aleya found a ray of hope and purpose in simply wanting to believe and connect with the divine. I’m not sure that I can even muster those. I’m more focused on simply surviving and learning to love.

Aleya wisely concludes that “Awakening allows us to doubt, question, and disconnect. Awakening is patient.”

2- The second one is from Michael of Embracing Forever. Michael has a unique voice and poetic way of describing life. His article on awakening is a classic example of his unique perspective. Rather than catalog the experiences that led to or prove his awakening, Michael takes us on a direct experience with his words. This journey is filled with love, dissatisfaction, whimsey, and mystery, wonderfully reflecting the journey of awakening. If awakening is our goal, then I’m ready to crack open to love, laugh, and play in fields with Michael and the other mystic poets.

May we awaken more love in our hearts and actions. 

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22 thoughts on “Awesome Stories 384”

  1. well, i love your share and resonate with things you, aleya, and michael expressed. your share is profound even if you don’t feel it to be “worthy” as you said. i feel that in your embrace of releasing ideas and pursuits of “awakening” and other “ideals” you already are. i don’t align with the words awakening and ascension either, therefore shared for me it’s more about a remembrance that liberates from these definitions and ideas to what is and always has been that is all-encompassing. it does, to me, include the spirals into all levels of experience and feeling and releases any need to do, know, or understand, while freeing from the judgments around how anything needs to look. living, sharing, expressing, and creating from love no matter what our experience looks like, feels to me to be peace and grace – things that are more resonant to me as “awakening” in action. thank you brad ❤

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  4. Thankyou so much Brad for writing about our Awakening challenge. Back in 2014 I was inspired to ask my friends to join me in verbalizing the experience of great change a lot of us were going through. To create awareness about how our lives were changing… or not for that matter. Awakening and Ascension are mere words I chose to use… to help us focus our feelings… and write about who we truly are and what life is all about?There are no right answers, only experiences about life and maybe others will resonate with some of the stories that shake their heart awake and help them understand what is naturally happening to all Humanity.

    Once you allow your heart to open you will know that it is all about remembering the truth of who you are… a fully awakened and enlightened being of light who is coming out of a long human experience of duality.

    It is only the Human journey that labels us unworthy… that we truly have to forgive and move to the truth.

    AND there’s still time to write about all your experience Brad… much love, Barbara x

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  5. Thank you for your honesty which clarifies my subtle discomfort with the term awakening. For me it feels like a gradual, ongoing process. A glimpse of possibilities, a leap forward and a step backward into the waves of distraction, wondering, was that something I dreamed? But I believe we are making progress.

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  7. I came back to read this when I had more time to digest your excellent post and give it the attention it deserves Brad.. And I totally agree awakening is for many a slow process, and some do not even realise that this is an awakening process as they try to gather and make sense of seeing this world from a different perspective from one which has always been taught.
    I have no idea how this so called Ascension will pan out.. And I have read many interpretations upon how certain individuals ‘Think’ its done..
    To me ascending means being within our hearts, learning not to judge and trying to live from our highest good intentions, ( not always easy and I can find my own self slipping often when we see the atrocities in this world ) , But I tell my self I don’t know everything or the reasons behind such events occurring.
    So I learn to accept, and in acceptance, I have come to a place of seeing all things have purpose no matter how good or bad they seem to be.
    I have learnt to SLOW down my life, As I was once one of those headless chickens rushing around trying to please bosses .. So we learn to meditate and say the word NO more often. 🙂

    I think at times we all of us get to feel disconnected and disgruntled like Aleya says, but it drives us to keep seeking and searching and yes we have to be patient, for if all were revealed at once, I doubt we would comprehend it all…

    A magnificent post Brad..
    And I am pleased I waited and took the time to read in depth your inspiring words of wisdom..

    Wishing you a Perfect and Awesome.. Weekend.. ❤

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    • I like your definition of awakening Sue. And thank you for the kind and heartfelt response. Learning to be accepting of ourself and others seems at the top of the list for me too. I certainly don’t know how it will all play out and as you mentioned, maybe it’s revealed slowly for our own benefit. Hugs and blessings. ❤

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  8. Beautiful post, Brad. Thank you for sharing my thoughts and words on your blog. I very much related to your expression of your journey. The image of a spiral kept coming to me when I was writing my post, and Tania Marie also mentions that in her comment above. To me awakening is not linear, not a ‘progression’; it’s moving, circular, subtle, weaving in and out…

    Thank you again, and also to Barbara for initiating this series. ❤ Aleya

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  9. Brad, I think many of us do this the hard way. Ha! I think realizing that who you are is a good thing, a thing you maybe can’t define, a thing that surprises you, and most importantly, not a thing you make on your own or something you need to perfect or improve for it to be what it is, then you’ve got wakefulness. It’s the recognition of the beauty that you are. However you come to that, whether through spirituality, common sense, poetry, connection–whatever the path–I don’t think it matters. What matters is only that you grasp the completeness of who you are. And what’s beautiful is we can’t change who we truly are. There’s no task to master. No secret handshake. No one way of being awake. I know it can seem elusive–there’s lots of people working hard at this!–but you’re amazing Brad. Full of passion for humanity and the world we share. I’d say that’s pretty wakeful…

    Peace
    Michael

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