I’ve scooted around talking about this for far too long because I still find it all a bit awkward because it’s a bit of a divisive subject. BUT I’ve had too many experiences recently with people around me wondering if they are losing it, that I felt like it was probably time for me to share.
In my very limited experience, there is a fine line between thinking we are losing it and recognising we’re having some kind of awakening.
The types of things I was thinking when I was going through my period of awakening, could, in many circles, be deemed to be signs of some kind of breakdown.
I was looking back at my whatsapps the other day and found one I’d sent to a teacher of mine in Feb 2020: ‘I’m starting to wonder if I’ve gone crazy’, ‘I have this real fear that I’ve actually gone insane and am having a complete existential crisis rather than some kind of awakening’ ‘It feels like there is a constant murmur of nothing is real, what is the point of everything, which is freaking me out’
I remember this space very well. It was intense. Really intense. I had this really deep sense that nothing made sense anymore, that the life I was previously living made no sense whatsoever, but I also had no idea where I was meant to be or what I was meant to be doing next.
I know that it sounds far fetched, but it felt as if I’d taken the red pill in the matrix and I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t see the world in the same way that I’d seen it before. I couldn’t connect with people in the same way that I did before. Everything felt so….empty.
You see what I mean? If I’d spoken to some people during this period, I’m pretty sure they would have told me I was in need of help and should go to therapy.
Yes, some people should go to therapy if they are in this space, but for me, that wasn’t what this called for.
For me, what I can now see what was happening, was a complete crumbling of the identity of the person I thought I was. It was a crumbling of an identity that didn’t fit me anymore. A crumbling of faulty beliefs. Of old paradigm ways of living.
This crumbling wasn’t a crumbling that needed help to be stitched back together.
It was a crumbling that, for me, actually needed encouragement. It was a crumbling that was making space for a different version of myself to emerge. A version of myself which was actually more closely in line with the ‘real’ (if that’s even a thing) version of me. It was a healing kind of crumbling.
Now, I have absolutely no idea why some people have these experiences and some people don’t. I have no idea why it happened to me when it did. I have no idea why it happened to lots of my friends at the same time. I also have no idea why some people go through their lives without it ever happening.
But if it’s happening to you, and deep down you know that you aren’t really losing the plot, but that this is some form of required shift, I want you to know that you’re not alone.
It’s a fricking terrifying place to be in, but I can also tell you that the most incredible magic awaits on the other side.
Magic like you’ve never experienced. A connection to purpose. To life. To beauty. To everything. A childlike wonder that you thought you’d never experience again but then find yourself squealing with joy as you look at the majesty of a sunset. That kind of wonder.
But it is a jooooourney. It’s a stretchy journey. And a journey that, in hindsight, I am SO GRATEFUL to have had people around to support me with.
I share this, because I get the sense that this is happening for a lot of people at the moment, so if it is, I wanted to let you know that you’re not alone.
The magic awaits.
If you’re ready to dive in.
L x
Everything felt infused with irritation. I was doing all the things for everyone else that I thought I should be doing. I was doing all the acts of service. I was, technically, loving those people. And yet. It felt like every act I did, rather than being infused with love, was infused with a shards of glass shooting out of every plate I stacked.
It was a Thursday back in February 2018. The rain hadn’t stopped for months and London was right in the depths of what felt like the longest winter we’d ever had. The dark, damp days had started to getting to me so I’d taken refuge in a hot yoga class to warm up. The scent of palo santo blended with the sweat of 50 people pervaded the room. It was bonus day at work. They’d told us it had been a bad year and not to expect much. I peaked into the envelope, hopeful, as soon as they slid it across the table: £130k. But there I lay, in savasana, with hot, salty tears streaming down my face: I’d never felt emptier.
I always thought it was down to my mildly intense anxious attachment stuff playing out... that and just low key hating dating apps. But then as I started to date a little bit more than I usually do... I was faced with some of the real reasons I'd been avoiding it for so long... and here they are..
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