Contemplation
Before you ever conceived of bringing new consciousness into this world there was a seed. This seed lay dormant in the deep well of your soul, carrying great possibility and potential.
Only when this seed found the right conditions did the journey truly begin.
You said yes. A process was initiated. Its embryonic form started to take shape.
Preparation began.
Preparation
You are now pregnant with something very important. There is a sense that the journey you have said yes to will change you in meaningful ways.
A new consciousness is on the way. Yesterday’s ordinary activities are suddenly imbued with meaning.
You are buying carrots. You are petting the cat. You are sitting in your car before a meeting. All these ordinary things, but with an undercurrent of impending risk and reward.
The world feels italicized, rich with possibility.
Feelings arise.
You see excitement in your eyes while brushing your teeth before bed. You wake at 4am and clutch the sheets, imagining all the ways this could go wrong.
There is a potency to your dreams.
You tell the most important people in your life about the process that has been initiated–the consciousness that will soon emerge, not yet with distinguishable features, but on the way nonetheless.
You seek guidance for the journey ahead.
You are discerning here. You find a guide who feels like a shoe that fits right away, not one that needs breaking in over time.
You sense that this person has a reverence for your body’s innate wisdom.
Books are delivered to your doorstep. Friends text you articles. You go for walks and listen to podcasts. People tell you about their own transformational journey, assuming yours will be similar.
You read the very best scientific research as well as mystical accounts of radical transformation. Some stories accordion your brow. Some widen your eyes with the promise of spiritual ecstasy.
(You are secretly hoping for spiritual ecstasy.)
The media you consume seems to promise a sense of completion. A journey with a destination. A finish line to run through.
You meet with your guides, the ones who know the way. You ask excellent questions. What if? questions. Questions about safety. Questions about the way things could go wrong. Questions about how to prepare. Questions about how people usually feel during the journey.
You want a tidy answer.
Unsatisfyingly, the answer is usually it depends, dear one, it depends.
Your guide prepares you the best they can. They load your travel pack with maps and tools, knowing full well that you are going to a place where compasses spin in circles and the trails have no names.
The three most handy tools they give you: breath, mindfulness, surrender.
While preparing, a few things are encouraged: a drought of drugs and alcohol. A softening of your sweet tooth. A bit of exercise. Plenty of sleep. A reunion with your meditation practice.
You create an intention. You have a plan. Your guide reminds you that intentions can sometimes be confused with expectations so, yes, absolutely have a plan and absolutely be prepared to throw that plan out the window.
You have prepared consciously.
The date approaches.
It feels like you have sipped a strange cocktail of anxiety and excitement. You feel ready. But how could anybody be ready for a journey with question marks for signposts?
Journey
Even with all of your preparation you can be taken by surprise.
In the beginning, you feel rumblings of change in your belly. You might think Oh no. Not now. You might say to yourself I chose this?!
A mood descends on your physical environment. You are ushered into a world that feels mysterious and uncharted. Time speeds up and slows down and disappears entirely.
It is not one thing. It is many things all at once.
If the realm you have entered feels safe, you settle into your body. You stay connected to your breath, a coordinated dance with each shifting moment.
If this realm is overwhelming or uncomfortable, you contemplate escape.
You know intuitively that there is no escape.
You change positions. You go outside to feel the sun on your skin. You try to sleep.
But no matter how you contort, the process continues. Your soul is aware that in the vast ocean of this experience, there will be no swimming ashore.
There will be no lifeboat.
But there will always be a choice.
When you resist, each turbulent wave turns you upside down. You take in mouthfuls of water. It feels like drowning.
Your other choice is to participate with the ocean. To say yes to the rhythm of each swell. To swim toward approaching waves. To become the wave so it can take you where it wants to go.
You are grateful for the unknowable intelligence guiding this rite of passage.
Certain words and phrases become guiding mantras:
Yes
Towards
In and through
Thank you
If you are struggling, encouraging words are not what you need. What you need is to sense that your guides trust the hyper-intelligent wisdom of your body. Rather than hear their encouragement, you want to feel their nervous system whispering all is well.
If you moan. If you are nauseated. If you yell. If you thrash. If you are stoic. If you curse. If you cry. If your laughter is maniacal. If you need to pee six times in one hour. If things are absolutely not going as planned and a change needs to happen…
You want your guide’s inner stillness to radiate.
You want this stillness to be contagious.
When you find your stillness you become the cowboy in rhythm with the bull. You are the marathon runner who has hit her stride. Through the turbulence of take off, you are soaring at cruising altitude and the seatbelt sign is off. Creativity, inner wisdom and gratitude take the wheel.
And then, after many hours…
A release.
A subsiding.
A return to familiar territory that also feels brand new.
A new consciousness has been born.
Return
There is a liminal space that few have told you about. You have questions.
Am I transformed?
What now?
Is this how I’m supposed to feel?
You examine the consciousness that was born from you.
It might be the most beautiful thing in the world. It might inspire awe. Or perhaps it’s more mysterious than you had imagined and its foreignness makes you wonder if something has gone wrong.
This experience that cannot be explained with words. This rite of passage with such profound layers of complexity and meaning. People casually ask you: how was it? as if you only need one bullet point to convey the magnitude.
You tell the story using words. These words feel like taking a thimble to a waterfall–not the proper vessel.
Some will be surprisingly indifferent to the journey you have traveled. Some will place a hand on their heart and their eyes will tell you that they already know.
Integration
This thing you are holding–whether intimidating or inspiring, familiar or foreign–it is yours. It came from you. It is you.
The product of your journey is here and it wants your care and attention. Nobody has taught you how to attend to something as multidimensional as this.
Sometimes the consciousness you birthed will kick and scream. Sometimes it will lay quietly in a bed of pillows as your heart swells to a size that feels unsafe. In either case, it is yours to nurture and love the best you know how.
While preparing for this wild event, there was an illusion of an ending point, a moment when the journey would be over.
You realize that this is far from over.
The seed from the deep well of your soul has sprouted. It is up to you how you will fertilize its soil, provide water and bring this consciousness into the light where it can grow and produce flowers—where its tendrils can reach and evolve in ways you could have never anticipated.
What you thought was a finish line is actually a doorway, the place where you begin.