I haven’t had any relationship with anything even closely resembling “religious” for a very long time. In fact, when I’d read one of Brené’s book about research showing that we need some form of faith to embrace the inherent messiness of being human? I was like… there just HAS to be another way. And yet, there’s now this story of spirit and the atheist.
Fast forward about eight years, I still wouldn’t call myself religious – but that may well be semantics. I attach “religion” to the big Abrahamic religions, and this will never be me. Turned out my spirit has boobs (not negotiable). And I still have to *choose* spirituality, set my rational mind aside, who likes to tell me about hard facts and science – anytime.
On the other side, I have begun to find acces to something larger-than-I-comprehend, and it enables such wonder in my life. Allows trauma to heal, my relationships and career to flourish. I share, even if I’m terrified to alienate my former self and some of my current friends.
Embracing something bigger: My path to spirit
I slowly began to develop a certain trust in spirit through working with my coach. The entrance point was about beginning to see how much not being able to have faith had limited me. I mean… If I had bone-crushing evidence why something wouldn’t work, ever, from how stuff went in the past. Why, oh why would it go any different this time? And yet, there were all those people around me now who HAD this weird faith and kept going beyond where I’d ever go myself.
So, I started to exercise that muscle with a very active choice: I would literally tell myself out loud that I decided to trust something bigger today. And of course it did pay off some – it’s even rationally explicable ? – because if you try more, statistically, it’ll work more. So my smart mind was onboard with this sorta-let’s-trust-it-a-little. Unsurprisingly, I still struggled quite a bit.
Enter Mother Ayahuasca
I only very recently deepened that trust way beyond what had been predictable for me by sitting in Ayahuasca ceremony. I was basically forced into surrender by nature of the medicine. So I did, and that was when spirit came to see the atheist. On the other end, I had this taste of what becomes possible if I fully embrace spirit as a part of life. (Still gives me all the feels just thinking of it!)
I haven’t “converted”. Rather I feel reconnected with Mother Earth, with my own Feminine and my wonderful, juicy body enabling me to live a life on this planet. Even my rational mind is fully onboard, because I experienced literally first-hand how much suffering gets taken away by surrendering to spirit. To the fact that the human mind just isn’t construed to pick everything apart rationally (and this includes the most intellectually gifted ones) – it’s exhausting and so, so limiting.
I still choose spirit, every day. Only now it’s a much more intimate connection than before and I see what She provides in every moment, even (especially) when in pain, fear and discomfort.
I am ready to die every day, because I have truly lived.