Since Thursday night, I've been fighting the flu, and pretty much failing. I've had Friday and today off work, and the way I'm still feeling, I'll probably have tomorrow off as well. It's horrible. This is probably the worst cold/flu I've had in a long time.
I was writing to someone today, who asked me to describe my spirituality. I surprised myself with the following:
Up until 1991, I was an atheist. Then I went out with a girl called Katie. She was a Wiccan, and one of the most wonderful people I've ever met, even to this day. She was a very powerful Wiccan, and it was through my involvement with her that I was forced to change my attitude from one of being a 'sceptical atheist' to one of a 'believing spiritualist'. Things happened that I couldn't explain, and things were explained by her which made so much sense to me. I only knew her for about 3 months before she moved on, but it was enough to change my entire life around. She had wanted me to become a Wiccan, a Warlock, saying that I was very powerful and had all this untapped energy. I, however, wasn't interested in following a religion. After she left, I researched Wicca and psychic abilities and spirituality, and I realised that in many ways, Wicca was a religion which taught psychic abilities. I chose to follow the path of spirituality though, which was more about freedom and individuality, rather than the rules and traditions of Wicca. I wanted to be me, rather than just another Warlock following just another religion.
By 1993, my journey into spirituality had brought me into contact with my spirit guides, and a lot of helpful information. I decided to use my knowledge and help others, so I started a spiritual development group which went well for about 6 months, before I realised that the people within the group were having trouble applying many concepts of spirituality to their lives, in ways that could be of benefit to them. I changed it to a personal development group, as I realised it was more important to teach them how to handle their physical reality before I could teach them how to handle their spiritual reality.
It was around this time that I also realised that my ego was really enjoying this position. Once I realised I was becoming all egotistical about my role, I took a severe step backwards, and stopped running the group. Then, my partner at the time left me, and this was a devastating blow to me, emotionally and spiritually. I'd been with her for nearly 2 years, and everything I had felt, learnt and understood had convinced me we were to be together forever. I spent almost a year and a half waiting for her to change her mind, but it didn't happen. By 1996, I was forced to move on from my feelings for her. This experience really damaged my faith in everything that I had taken for granted, in terms of my spirituality, and what my guides had related to me. I stopped listening to them. I lost faith in my ability to hear them, read their words (that I wrote), and believe what they had to say. I stopped all spiritual activity.
Instead, I moved on into personal development, but with a spiritual foundation. I still believe in everything I had been part of, and everything that I experienced, but I have no contact any more with my guides or the angel who had been working with me. No conscious contact, at least. I focused on personal development, reading books, talking to people, learning from my life rather than from spirit guides.
Where am I now? I've been aware for a couple years now that I really should restore the contact. But I've just never gotten around to it. There's that matter of faith always lingering in the back of my mind. What if I'm fooling myself? What if everything that I learnt from my guides was just the delusions of a misguided egotistical fool? I know that the psychic experiences I had were real, because they were confirmed by third parties, but what about everything that my guides told me, that couldn't be confirmed by others? It was all mine. And the most important thing they told me was wrong. I know I'm still not over that. The problem is, if they were wrong on that, they could have been wrong on everything – everything I 'heard' could have just been made up by me.
It's been something I haven't dealt with yet.
I know all about choice, and how choice creates different paths and realities. I know that no future is set in stone, and that what is real now could be different tomorrow. That's why I stopped telling people's futures, 'cause I didn't want to be thought of as a fake if what I saw turned out different or never happened. (Experiences with that proved it real for me, where I saw something in people's future and it either never happened or turned out slightly differently.)
But regardless of what I know about choice, I think I would have felt better if I'd have had some sort of warning from them.
You're the first person I've actually talked with about this since it all happened. I've just tried moving on in a different way, and you're the first person in 8 years to know how much my faith had been damaged.
So you want to know about my spiritual side? Basically, I know all about spirituality. I've been part of it, I've helped others learn about it. But I've avoided it for 8 years now. I call myself a spiritualist, but I don't practice it. Instead, I practice being a good person, and doing the best I can with what I do in this life. Spirituality in my life is my beliefs, and how I live my life.
When I started this letter, I never thought that it would be about what I've written above.
I also believe everything happens for a reason, including the things we write when we never planned it, the people that we meet, and the things that happen to us.
What was interesting about all that is that for the past 8 years, it's been something that I was aware of, but never talked about or really thought about. Believing in the words of spirit guides and then losing what they had confirmed would last forever just made me lose faith in the concept. It made me feel betrayed by the reassurance they had provided. You see, suddenly there became the possibility that I hadn't heard them telling me it would be forever. It was possible – and likely – that I had clouded my perceptions by what I really wanted to hear, and so their confirmations were just my own deluded mind helping me believe what I wanted to believe. It's that which has caused me the greatest loss of faith in myself.
I wonder if I'll ever talk to them again.
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