I’ve been truly enjoying life lately because I’ve been going through an amazing spiritual awakening. It has completely transformed my life more than I EVER thought was possible. As a result, I’ve been thirsting for knowledge with an intensity that I’ve always admired and envied in others, but have never experienced firsthand. Along the way, I have been learning so much about myself, my purpose, and what it means to be alive. I feel like as a person, I am finally blooming. I say finally because even though I am only in my twenties, I have already been through so much, especially when it comes to my health. During that dark period, I only felt a murky sense of self that hardly felt worth fighting for. But now, I am inspired to become the best version of myself, and to live with an appreciation for the present yet also the ability to view life with a much wider perspective. By that I mean I want to fully soak in every wonderful moment, and I want to learn to recognize the inevitable suffering for the lessons that it is designed to teach, especially in terms of “the bigger picture.”
I don’t claim to know everything. I can’t even pretend to know anything, really. My only agenda here is to record the ideas that resonate with me and my thoughts on these ideas. I have more questions than I have answers, but that’s actually a good thing because my curiosity is what fuels my enthusiasm. I never want to stop learning about the universe and what it means to be a soul.
Just to provide some context, I want to share some information about myself. I grew up in a Christian (Protestant, specifically Baptist) home. My parents were very strict, and like so many people they cared more about the confines of organized religion rather than the freedom of spirituality. I want to be clear in that I have nothing but respect for people who practice the religion of their choice out of pure intentions. The people who don’t follow a list of rules, no questions asked, simply because they’ve been taught to value obedience over inquisitiveness. The people who don’t behave hatefully over differences in personal theologies, but who interact with others with love because they understand that we are each our own crucial, unique fragment of the universe. If you fit that definition, then I honestly do not care what religion you identify with, and I hope you can extend me the same courtesy. Unfortunately, my parents were not those type of people, and as a result my introduction to spirituality (in this life, at least) was very negative. I attended church with my family every week up until my teens, when I finally put my foot down. I’ve distanced myself from Christianity ever since, and it has taken me a very long time to work through the bitterness that has accompanied that decision. Even though I had managed to escape the isolation of fundamentalism that poisoned my childhood and early teens, I still carried a lot of guilt and fear that I would end up "wrong" and spend an eternity in hell. Oh, was I ever terrified of hell. Looking back, I shudder to think about how much fear I was living in as a consequence of abandoning the only religion I had ever known, without the cushion of a replacement set of beliefs. It is only recently that I have started to realize that growing up Baptist has actually had positive effects on my life, too. Slowly, I have been able to set aside the hurt long enough to think about Christianity with more objectivity. Now that I am focusing on spirituality rather than getting distracted by the ways that people have distorted the core truths of the world’s religions, I am beginning to understand how everything fits together. Actually, scratch that. I may be able to draw clear comparisons between certain beliefs, which has helped soothe my hostility towards organized religion, but I have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding HOW it all relates. Yet now that I have started to wonder, I know that I will spend the rest of this life, and many more, trying to learn as much as I possibly can.
So what DO I believe? In a nutshell- since the whole point of this blog is to figure that out- right now I am tentatively identifying as Buddhist. I know next to nothing about Buddhism compared to what I know about Christianity, but from what I’ve learned so far, the Buddhist teachings are what resonate with me the most. I think my interest right now primarily lies in the phenomenon of past lives. Growing up, the most I was taught about reincarnation was what I learned in church- basically, that it didn’t happen- and what I learned in school- a carefully tailored blurb about Buddhism and Hinduism that I needed to know in order to pass my world history classes. I didn’t ask any questions for myself because I didn’t realize that I could.
Another thing that you should know about me is that I suffer from severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (commonly referred to as OCD). I have exhibited symptoms since childhood, but it wasn’t until my teens that these “quirks” started to significantly affect my life. Ironically, it has been my battle with this illness that has led me here. When it comes to therapy, I’ve been through the wringer. I’ve had both inpatient and outpatient treatment, undergone extensive Exposure-Response therapy, taken medication, and despite some incredibly trying times, I would consider myself “stable” for the time being. Yet the ability to function is hardly the same as a fulfilling life, so over the past six months or so I’ve been working really hard on uncovering the root of my OCD so that I can heal even further. My first thought was to pursue hypnosis therapy, because I know that I have a lot of repressed trauma that I need to work through. But as I started to research hypnosis, I began to notice mentions of past-life regression. This really piqued my interest, and I knew I had to learn more. Ever since, I have been reading as much as I can about reincarnation and the information has been absolutely mind-boggling. Just ask my husband- I haven’t been able to stop talking about it! And so here I am now, to share what I’ve learned so far in the hope that I can encourage others to ask questions for themselves, as well. I want to examine religious history (because let’s be honest, I’m a nerd) and separate the truths from the edited, polished versions of the facts that we are sold today. At the same time, I also want to learn more about myself and my purpose, not only in this life, but overall, as a soul. So settle in and pause Netflix for a few minutes, because I’m going to challenge you to think in ways you may have never considered before. And if that sounds pretentious, it’s not meant to be. In a spiritual sense, I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going! But if you’re reading this, then I am hope you are as eager as I am to figure it out.
-L
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