Your life is your path, stop needing a better past. Many of us think of our lives in terms of “after awakening” and “before awakening.” Often after awakening we look back at the decisions we made before our spiritual awakening with regret and spend years after our awakening digging ourselves out of the karmic morass of our pre-awakening decisions.
As I’ve shared previously, I had my spiritual awakening six months after passing the bar and beginning my legal career. Before my awakening my heart was completely shut off and all I cared about was money, power and prestige. After awakening it flew wide open and all I wanted to do was run off to a monastery or ashram and praise god. Yet student loans and other karmic obligations made that difficult to do. So I ended up continuing on in the karmic pattern set in motion by my sleeping state of consciousness.
I have often been in resistance to my fate. I have often resented it and felt trapped by the decisions of my prior self. I have often wished for a better past. However, I have come to see the path I have walked as a gift.
My life is my path. I have transformed it from the inside out, starting with my own state of consciousness. In order to transform my life and bring it ever more in alignment with my awakening soul I have had to confront and heal every aspect of my consciousness that created the life circumstances I awakened into.
I was often selfish, loveless and overly ambitious before my awakening. I didn’t do anything without thinking about how it benefited me. In order to transform my life I have had to cultivate the qualities of selflessness, unconditional love, humility, and an attitude of service to others. In so doing I have alchemically transformed my life and life circumstances to serve others.
One of the first things I did after passing the bar was run for a position on the young lawyers division executive committee for my state bar association. I was motivated purely by ambition and self-interest. I thought it would look good on my resume.
Ten years later I just finished my tenure as chair of that organization. During my time as chair we were able to raise around $60,000.00 for our state’s foodbanks, and I was able to be a part of forming a committee within the larger bar association dedicated to lawyer wellness and mindfulness. Because of my position with the bar association I’ve had an opportunity to give presentations to thousands of attorneys about mindfulness and meditation practices that I otherwise would not have had.
After my awakening I wanted nothing more than to dedicate myself to teaching people about spirituality and sharing my experience. But when I look back at my state of consciousness at that time I was not ready. Many enlightenment traditions say that one should wait ten years after their first enlightenment experience before teaching others. As I look back over my transformation over the last decade I can see the wisdom in that. My first enlightenment experience was just the beginning of a process of profound psychological transformation that is ongoing.
I received the undeniable call to begin my spiritual service and public teaching at the beginning of this year, after a decade of dedicated spiritual practice and study amidst a busy life. This call came after becoming managing partner of my own law firm. So I can speak without fear of being fired, and can serve others on a donation basis in my free time.
As I begin helping others on their spiritual and ascension journeys I have a renewed sense of gratitude for my past, difficult though it has been at times. I can identify with the struggle of awakening in a life that no longer fits. I can identify with trying to balance transcendent experiences with worldly obligations. This perspective is probably more useful to others than that of a cloistered monk.
So if things are feeling hopeless or you feel stuck in an old life that no longer fits, keep looking at your life circumstances until you see the grace in them. Keep looking until you see the gift that is yours to give others.
If you find yourself mentally wishing for a better past stop. You cannot change your past, but you can transcend it. You can become so vibrationally incompatible with it that you barely remember it. As long as there is something within you that resonates with the past those memories and regrets will keep bubbling up into your conscious mind. When the wounds are healed and the lessons learned you will barely be able to remember it.
If your present moment feels out of alignment with what you prefer transform that within you that created it, moment by moment, with every intention and decision. Transform yourself and your life from the inside out. Look at your life circumstances until you feel gratitude.
The hardest things are our greatest growth opportunities. Our trauma is also our grace. What we heal for ourselves we heal for the collective. Sometimes our greatest gift is transforming difficult circumstances into a beautiful life that is in alignment with our heart and soul. When we do that for ourselves we make it easier for others to follow us.
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