A Short Story
My Spiritual Awakening
If there is a place between Heaven and Hell then that is where I was. Some call it Purgatory I call it being in the depth of the mind, so deep in fact that one’s heart which I like to refer to as one’s spirit, can’t find its way back from the prison the mind has put it in. This prison however, doesn’t have steel bars, it has iron rod columns, infused with fear. This prison has no view of other inmates, there is no one else to taunt you into a brawl or throw hateful words at you. It is a feeling of being nor here nor there, I was nowhere and if I was nowhere then, where was I? My body was here but I had no recollection of where I was. Where was I, better yet, who was I? Was I lost? And if so, could I be found.
May of 1999, was the month and year I would forever remember as the day I died. Yes, I was still alive, indeed I was but I’m talking of a different ending than a physical one. I am speaking of the death of one’s soul for what was to come was unexpected because I was not awake. I had experienced a physical, mental, emotional and, spiritual unravelling of my whole existence. No words can describe the torture I felt within. The best I can do to give you a glimpse of what was happening to me, is to say that with every action I took, whether it was to try and eat, walk, sit or stand, I was in excruciating pain, not the kind of pain one feels with their body, but one that is felt from within. This detachment of oneself could not have been brought upon life’s trials and tribulations as one would say but rather I had a deep sense that what I had experienced went far beyond what the eye and body experiences in this physical plane. Now before I go into further detail of what I experienced I will take you through the journey that lead up to the darkest moment of my life thus leading me to my awakening .
We all have memories of our childhood be it good or bad and these memories if bad must be healed first in order to move forward. Only after having succeeded in doing so can one begin to really heal the self. In an ideal world a child’s upbringing should be safe, fun, pure and if lucky just some minor bumps along the way. However for some it is not so seamless. I clearly remember being seven years of age and yearning to be older, actually I couldn’t wait to be thirty, for some inexplainable reason, at that time my heart and mind were set on this number. Of course only later on in life did I fully understand why I had chosen that specific time frame.
As an early teen I spent many nights wondering about the subject of death, why it had to happen, where we went after, was there a heaven was there a hell or was there some other parallel place we go to of our own choosing. I obsessed over it to the point that I would make myself sick. Fear of the unknown would send me into a panic, constantly questioning the existence of the universe, the stars, mortality and beyond. It was almost like a frenzy of thoughts that would haunt me to no avail. This was a sure way of exhausting my mind to the point of no return. This pattern would happen quite often, more than I would have wanted it to. The only thing that kept me sane during these moments of complete insanity were my pets and a few friends that were able to free my mind and soul for a while. They were the only thing that kept me connected to earth. Because throughout my young years I was in my own world experiencing great emotions within the matrix of my mind. I did pretty well to hide all this, not only from my family and friends but from myself as well. In my world everyone felt this way, all children all teens must have felt as detached as I was. Everyone must have been in this same reality for I believed we were all part of the same collective. Aside from the physical realties of life’s experiences I was also dealing with other more complexed situations. These were what we all know and heard of as inter dimensional experiences. Of course some would diagnose this as a mental disability and deem it crazy in their standards but in my opinion I was sane living in an insane society. I was extremely sensitive all the way up to that dreadful day and had I known then that I was in fact an empath, it could have solved a lot of my internal questions and battles. But how can a child or teen who didn’t have many like minded individuals around make any sense of what was happening to them. I would get ill just by entering a neighbours house or become paralyzed for a day or two when the energy around me was very heavy. Growing up with this sort of extreme sensitivity wasn’t questioned or analyzed instead I just went with the motions and felt utterly alone.
All this deep feeling of everything I encountered at such a young age harboured an enormous amount of fear inside me which later turned into self hate. I had become a live version of Anakin Skywalker, so to speak. So I continued on my unawakened path completely unaware of what my future held. Had I known what was just around the corner I would have taken the steps needed to prevent it from happening. But we all know that’s not the way life works. So here I now was, a non dating teen who become a non dating young adult, only focusing on outings, school and dreaming big dreams that was experienced only on the surface. Depression though, wasn’t far behind, as it would sneak its head in every so often, to remind me that I wasn’t really happy and could never be because life wasn’t easy, life wasn’t like the way it was portrayed in the movies. And so, movies would become my escape, that and historical romance novels, for modern tales were a reminder of my reality but I craved to be elsewhere to be in the past, in a place that no longer existed. It was easier this way than to face what was going on in the here and now. The here and now was too painful until the day I saw him. The day I met my first infatuation, my muse.
At 24 I was without experience never having had a relationship let alone with a 27 year old young man who stood before me like a Scottish warrior from one of my guilty pleasure seeking books. He was everything I dreamed of and more. He was the light at the end of the tunnel, the place where one would call home. His essence, his touch his look was perfectly energetically matched to mine. This connection not only thrilled me but scared me at the same time. I had become consumed, actually, obsessed with this infatuation that had sparked a flame inside me. Being with this individual whether physical or not was like jumping into another parallel universe where past present and future met making one question their very own existence. It was the high I was looking for and like with any drug the high will eventually turn into the biggest low one can ever imagine. And so after reaping the rewards of an obsessive love my downfall came without any warning, knowing no time no age no remorse.
Soon after the initial breakdown which I noted earlier, it was later followed by a state of depression and this is when I went in search of an explanation to all of this madness and was lead to a very highly esteemed psychologist who gave me some insight on the reasons behind my almost catatonic state. As she had explained it I was near inches to becoming that and it was actually a miracle that I hadn’t . She made me aware that I was in depression for most of my life and that no matter who I met or where I was, the breakdown was in fact inevitable. I was also prescribed an anti depressant as I needed to get back into the normal ways of life such as, eating, working, going out and so on. Those sessions only lasted a few times as I couldn’t help but shake this strange feeling that something deeper was at work, something far more complex than the mind could describe or ever understand. I kept telling the doctor that I felt this burning sensation deep within my chest that I described as poisonous in nature. She labeled it as heart burn and ruled it as part of my anxiety but I knew there was more going on. I just knew it. I didn’t take the meds as long as she had prescribed them and I am very proud to say that I took my own measures to try and heal myself. But at the time my idea of healing was to ignore my issues and continue as if nothing ever happened so, the next 6 years were about trying to get stronger healthier and happier, or so I thought.
I was now 30 and my depression was back with a vengeance. I was now having urges to end my life, a strong pull that would often come during a metro ride. I no longer wanted to be a part of this life if it meant having no purpose or having to go through so much unwanted pain. I could no longer ignore that I was not fully healed. As there are no coincidences I ended up meeting a woman I worked with by chance who took one look at me and knew I needed help but not the kind of help that most seek as I had in the past. What she was referring to was a spiritual kind of intervention where one gets to release energetic toxins and old cellular wounds. At this point I was willing to try anything, I was desperate for a way through this on going pain I had carried for so long.
I will never forget the first healings I received under the hands of a master healer. It’s as if she was healing someone else from another time and space inside me. And that burning poisonous feeling I would experience was now being removed form my physical and energetic body. We worked on clearing old memories and opening my chakras in order to finally create balance in my life. I had never imagined that we can feel all these powerful emotions to be released from within and experience such esoteric sensations. It was out of this world, beyond what the eye sees or what the mind can comprehend. It was now revealed that the trigger that took me down this darkness was my romantic involvement with whom I believe till this very day was a higher level soulmate. Because only such a connection can bring up all wounds in order to face the shadows we all battle within us. This should have been a happy time in one’s life yet for me it was what was going to drive me into the abyss . But after three years of intense work to get rid of my inner demons I had also learned the art of energy healing and was beginning to slowly embark on the spiritual path that opened me up to finally understanding and accepting who I was and still am. I was able to see glimpses of peace and happiness in my life.
My family had also noticed a huge change in my disposition. My soul was now free and my heart content for this is what I was waiting for so anxiously as a child, this is what I had a knowing of without yet being awakened to the true meaning of my yearning to be free. The energetic bars surrounding me all those years had now dissipated unlocking that which I had built on my very own. I had finally gotten a glimpse of who I truly was and this could only have ever been done by losing the old me . The me that was trapped in a third dimensional prison. I was now free, I was now here. So did I really find myself by losing myself, yes I did. However the journey does not end there. We are constantly thrown curve balls, twists, and turns. It’s a never ending process of experiencing, triggering and accumulating energetic toxins in order to eject it all and start all over again. This is what I had to accept, this is what was the truth behind my everyday living. As humans we will never stop growing, learning, hurting and loving. We will never cease to shed our old skin in order to renew ourselves. We will never stop encountering those soulmates that help bring forth all the wounds we carry. This is the cycle of life and no one leaves here without battle scars but all of us have the ability to leave this earth with the love we were meant to give to ourselves, thus giving it to all.
-Julia kross