As I sit here writing this post in April 2015, I’ve now been writing this blog for five years (although I say that I really started it in earnest in August 2010). That’s a long time, and I’ve written a lot of stuff. Many of you had no idea that I or this blog even existed, and that means there’s probably a whole bunch of great spiritual awakening posts you’ve missed.
Plus, some of my creatively titled posts don’t catch peoples’ eyes because you may not immediately know what they’re about. Additionally, search engines tend to be even more literal-minded. So a blog post titled “How to Build Your Sandcastle” is assumed by Google and other search tools to be about building actual sandcastles and doing stuff at the beach rather than a metaphor for the ephemeral ego.
With all that said, I’ve delved down into this here bag o’ blog posts and dug up a bunch of these lost gems. I’ve added a short synopsis of what they’re about so that you can find the ones that interest you most. I hope you enjoy them. Please let me know what ones are your favorites in the comments. Thanks!
1. Breaking the Glass
This is a spiritual blog post about where most of humanity is in terms of awareness, and it encourages you to have the courage to break through your first illusions. It really is a post aimed for someone early on their spiritual path, so feel free to share it with anyone you know who needs help understanding what the spiritual path is, how to get started, and what it means to break illusions (the glass that encases and restricts our spiritual growth).
2. Growing Into Your Greatness
Most of humanity is confused about what greatness is. They think it’s awards, great feats of strength, war, stupendous acts of kindness such as ending hunger, and so on. But truly, greatness is much more present and simple than all of that. In this spirituality blog post, I talk about what it is like to know what real greatness is and how we often grow into our greatness a little at a time.
3. A Pebble in the Pond
A pebble in the pond honors how small things and small changes can ripple out into bigger changes in our life. I also offer a brief insight into my life in this post, which I rarely do on this spiritual awakening blog.
4. How to Grow Your Garden
I’m not talking about what you’re doing with your petunias in this post. Nope, this is about how you cultivate space for spiritual growth as well as awakening. But regardless of if you awaken or not, every one of us has the innate potential to become more aware and to let go of issues. A spiritual awakening is more like the enforced march out to the garden of your life to clear out the debris with something like a combined firehouse and flame-thrower. Not everyone wants that kind of intensity anyway, so this post offers some encouragement to start your “weeding” and digging out of issues on your own.
5. How to Build Your Sandcastle
A spiritual awakening can feel like a large ocean wave crushed the sandcastle of your life. When we hold onto the last grains of our ego self and the life we’d created, we feel miserable. When we let them go and realize that we now have the freedom to make any sandcastle (i.e. ego) we want, we feel joy. But any ego-self we create will always be temporary, and we must remember that.
So grab your metaphorical beach blanket and swim gear while I talk about these points and more in this beach-themed spiritual awakening blog post.
6. Piercing the Wound
A lot of people focus on spiritual feel-good moments. This spiritual post is an encouragement to get serious in dealing with issues. You cannot escape yourself, and in this blog, I outline why avoidance doesn’t work as well as the amazing benefits of healing.
7. Breaking a Culture of Silence
Part of what keeps us stuck in suffering is our inability to express what we need to share. When something traumatic happens, we really need to say something. But too often we are scared and/or ashamed to say what we need to. Because of that, we get trapped in suffering.
In this post, I offer some words of encouragement to all of you to speak your truth and break this toxic culture of silence.
8. Cycles of Pain and Suffering
In this spirituality blog post, I offer short stories about how we get caught in cycles of pain and suffering. I show how people pass on their pain to others, and then at the end, I offer some ideas about how we can break these painful cycles to the benefit of all beings everywhere.
9. All the Dark Corners of Your Soul
The first light and the first realization we have about ourselves is only the beginning. The further we progress on our spiritual journey, the more we have to root out every last inch of darkness within ourselves. In this way, we become our best inner investigators, journeying into all the dark corners of our souls. Nothing is allowed to hide from the intensity and clarity of our light. In this way, we can know ourselves and move more easily from a space of love and truth in our lives.
10. The Return Home
The return home is a metaphor for going back to the beginning of your life to where your issues first started to take root. It is a metaphor for returning to the truth and love inside of us. It can also be the literal return home for many people. A spiritual awakening can incapacitate someone, which forces them to find a caretaker. This is often someone in their family, and along with that, this return home forces someone to face many of their family issues. It can be an intense return, but with dedication to your own healing and to releasing of issues, it can also be a time of immense spiritual transformation.
11. The Spaces in Between
This spiritual blog post is about those places of rest in between moments. In our fast paced society, it’s easy to feel swept away by things we think we need to do. Finding spaces in between the things we are working on is a way to find greater relaxation and greater clarity about ourselves.
In the awakened sense, you can also feel like you’re in between phases of your life as you let go of the old ego self and drop more into your awakened consciousness. This, however, is a slightly different “in between” feeling than simply pausing to breathe. If you feel caught between two things, my encouragement is to embrace the Truth of yourself and to let go of the illusory ego.
12. Meet Me on the Playground
Once again, this isn’t a literal invite to hang out on a playground with me. I mean, sure, that would be fun. I’m always looking forward to playing on a great set of swings. But in this case, it’s a metaphor for the freedom and joy of the awakened space. So much of the time, the ego is lost in its attempts to get something–some feeling, situation, or something else. On the playground of life, we see everything as an opportunity for curiosity, exploration, and joy.
Additionally, all those inner gifts that have been masked or manipulated by the ego become available to us. On this playground, we can embrace our gifts as well as help them to mature.
