From overwhelm to spirituality (part 4/4): loneliness and lessons

Loneliness

During this initial phase of my journey, there was the urge to read and also the awe and wonder about the miracles and synchronicities. Okay, that was wonderful.

But there was also an enhanced feeling loneliness!

My head was bursting with all the new insights I had discovered in books and through real life experience. But there was nobody with whom I could share it. My whole wordview had just been turned upside-down, the world was not what it seemed to be just a few months before.

I was full of new knowledge and awe, but also full of doubt and confusion. Did these synchronicities really mean something? Or did I make these things up? Was I going crazy? After all, I came from a materialistic and scientific worldview. All this new stuff was totally opposed to what I had believed to be true.

Had anyone in my family or among my colleagues ever experienced all this weird stuff and could relate to what I saw?

I made a few attempts to share in my family what I was experiencing. They did not send me to a mental ward, but they reacted slightly astonished and amused, and also with  disbelief and belittlement.

No escape from stress and lessons in reciprocity

It would be nice to be able to tell you that I just needed to read a few books, changed a few of my beliefs, experienced a couple of miracles, and -poof!- all my problems in life evaporated and I lived happily ever after.

But unfortunately, it did not work like that.

Even though it was awe-inspiring to discover the unseen realm by reading and with little miracles, it did not solve all my problems. Even though I had the theoretical (and partially experiential) understanding that God was in all things, that I could ask and would receive, and that all was well, I still felt overwhelmed by competing demands of the outside world (children, family, kindergarten teachers). Often, I was helpless with decisions: What should I do now? No matter how I decided, someone was always going to be pissed off.

Therefore, I had the strong impulse to just flee from everything because the outside world seemed to be the problem. I imagined how peaceful life could be without quarreling children, demanding relatives and neighbors, and obnoxious pre-school teachers.

How nice it would be to live in a cave!

But I stayed and tried to learn my lessons. This was where the rubber hit the road. Spirituality didn’t allow me to escape everyday problems. But somehow I needed to integrate the theoretical book knowledge into life in the marketplace as a working mom.

The lessons of the universe at that point (2009) were mainly about reciprocity.

For example, my husband was upset about the fact that our car was dirty.

‘How can someone be angry about an unimportant issue like this? To me, a car is fine as long as it gets me safely from A to B, ’ I thought.

But the next day, I felt upset because our new kitchen towels had brown stains.

Oops!

Okay, thank you, universe. I got the message. Why do I think that kitchen towels are more important than a car?

Everything seemed to say:
‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?‘ (Matt. 7:3)

Further topics in the curriculum included lessons about the fact that we are all connected in consciousness and that we are safe and guided.

Over and over again, the topic occurred that thought is creative.

The importance of inner peace was stressed extensively.
In Germany, the cardboard game Parcheesi is called Mensch-Ärgere-Dich-Nicht, which means ‘Man, don’t get angry’. The benefit of inner peace became so clear to me that I got the impression that life in duality is a ‘Man-don’t-get-mad-game’.

In retrospect, I had to learn to find my inner peace, and to find my wise inner voice. I had to learn to say ‘no’, even if someone else would be upset. My former strategy of being obedient to the voices of others didn’t work anymore. Instead, I had to be obedient to my inner voice.

***

Using the metaphor of the hike, the road had become rocky again. The feeling of overwhelm and the subsequent seeking for inner peace had first led me to try several side roads which turned out to be dead-end streets.

But then this led to the discovery of spirituality. Even though, the stress and overwhelm did not vanish immediately afterwards, I regard this definitely as another important turning point on my path.

And this time, I was slowly starting to walk up the mountain.

I had started to read A Course in Miracles (ACIM) which is about forgiveness and finding the inner peace and inner teacher.

And life had something in store for me regarding the challenge of finding my inner peace.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

Prev
Next