What brought me back to earth was being on a Rosen bodywork course. I met someone who had been involved with a cult previously and from what I said she suggested being very careful. She was interestingly also someone who had experienced an early rising of kundalini, and some difficulties with integration and grounding. It’s great to be open, but one can be too open I was beginning to recognise as I saw myself reflected in her experiences. Also on the Rosen course I contacted some emotion and low self worth that was driving the constant need to know myself, to surrender completely to God, to awaken. In a way it was like trying to be perfect in an unbalanced way, indeed the only way seemed to be to annihilate me and take off to high states of consciousness. I was very touched by the heartfelt, real and lovely people on the course, seemingly less spiritual, but then I began to question what being spiritual really is? Moving towards a sense of it being very down to earth, ordinary and practical; a sense of coming at life from the heart and love, in a peaceful and ordinary way.

When I was back from the Rosen week I ordered a copy of Ian Hamilton’s book ‘Awake Among the Sleeping’, a former member of Endeavour and teacher for 10 years. I found it very enlightening and sobering, a true wake up call, and a sense of coming back into my heart and the wonderful community in Sheffield that I’d alienated myself from somewhat. It was emotional to realise what had happened, and how difficult it had been for friends and family. It was also very moving how supportive and loving people were about it. I am so grateful to have had such an amazing community around me. I wrote to others who had also got involved in it through me with a heartfelt email of my change of feelings.

Soon after my departure from Endeavour Academy I went to Buddahfield festival to work in the healing area which was wonderful as always. Was a joy to see dear friend Sophie again and recognise we were at similar places about things, having both got heavily in groups we now considered to have very cult-ish elements to them. It was beneficial in many ways for me to be involved temporarily, and I am grateful for that. It seems I needed some escapism following some difficult experiences in my personal life in terms of another difficult relationship coming to an end and a friend’s decline in mental health. My time with EA also helped me to heal my food intolerances through releasing my ideas and fears around food. I needed to make a break from it though, and find the strength within me, and come back to what I now see as a more grounded and hearty spirituality that extends into the world and all of life. That’s what is absolutely right for me and I know it to my core, and can’t unlearn the process I have been through.

‘On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself-on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not mortal danger’ Simone de Beauvoir

I want to start by questioning the notion that one’s heart can really be broken, even in a metaphorical sense, however it may feel like that. We are all really whole and complete as individuals. Although sometimes in an intimate relationship I have found myself so completely submerged in the other person, to the extent of losing my own sense of identity. When this latest relationship was severed it felt as if the other person had died, the grief was so intense. It’s been 6 months now since a break up that left me feeling ‘heart-broken’ and I finally feel free of overwhelming and extreme emotions surrounding this. For me this was been the hardest break-up of all, and yet at times I have experienced the most freedom and strength in myself I have ever known. This is in part due to my commitment to fully acknowledging and moving through the vulnerability which has come up, however painful and debilitating the feelings associated with it were. By meeting these feelings head on and accepting them as a part of me, I was able to become more fully aware of all parts of my being; to thus feel more whole in myself and not reliant on the person who I’d become so dependant on, without even realising it. Indeed to feel more independent and happy in my own self than I’ve ever known.

The utter freedom and ease I experienced at times was also in part from reading a website called ‘Actual Freedom’ (http://actualfreedom.com.au/), about freeing oneself from the human condition – the prevalence of malice and sorrow, to become a completely harmless and happy individual. A lot ties in with learning’s from Buddhism and Buddhist practice, having considered myself a ‘Buddhist’ for several years.  For me, ‘Actual Freedom’ cuts through the new layers of conditioning/dogma that can come along with a spiritual path, for me this would including Buddhism as it is often practiced, and the delusions that one can experience if ‘I’ think ‘I’ am becoming ‘enlightened’, a big Self, in touch with God, or whatever framework I put  around experiences gleaned from spiritual practice. Actual freedom is about a real down to earth freedom, of ‘what I am’ emerging as ‘who I think and feel I am’ gradually diminishes. Maybe my heart won’t really be free from the ‘heartbreak’ of dependency and relationships until I get to the point of being fully free and living in the actual wondrous world, and only being capable of being a vehicle for peace on this earth. Fully alive, in my senses and fully free of conditioning and the instinctual survival self, just in a pure consciousness experience in every moment.

My experience as yet is to experience this for periods, then the mind or emotions seem to cloud it. For instance, on the first draft of this blog I was aware of a tightening up in my shoulders. I had just cried a bit, which I felt a bit lighter from, and from starting to get my thoughts onto paper. I was aware of some frustration present, frustration with my ex and frustration with myself for having all this going on, when I know what is possible.

My sense is that intimate relationships meet such basic human needs, in particular those needs related to being a child and relating to ones parents, that when they fall apart, the pain and loss experienced can be immense. For me this particular time was the worse, although in the past I’ve had ex boyfriends who have been suicidal, close to a breakdown or actually ended up mentally unwell. In some ways I felt it was my karma to experience this level of pain, and that it was good and necessary for me to go through this.

A part of me so longed for stability and settling down though; I got together with him soon after my involvement with the cult, and I didn’t realise how much I was relying on him for a sense of ordinariness and groundedness. I think also being 28 at the time, a biological and psychological drive to settle down with someone, buy a house and possibly have children was present.

Yes I wanted to move out and part of me wanted to break up, yet I later realised I was willing to give it a go with more space between us, and when this wasn’t accepted as a possibility, I felt the rug pulled out from under me, and completely and utterly heartbroken to my core. I felt at times like I was completely falling apart. The waves of emotion were intense. I had moments of feeling in ‘spiritual emergency’ again. However, once the waves past, I was just left, in stillness, freedom and peace, and getting on with my life and work with a new found sense of joy and ease, stability and groundedness. Discovering more my love of exercise, running long distances in the countryside, doing some climbing. Enjoying discovering ‘Actual Freedom’ and how the approach resonated with me. I felt cracked open to my core by the experience, but out of it there was a certain beauty in the vulnerability, and then the sense of my own strength and stability, which I have been so grateful to discover resided in me all along. I don’t want to have to rely on anyone else for that, indeed I only now want to start a serious relationship when I know I am infinitely more strong, stable and whole within myself (no pressure or anything!…). From that place, to meet someone who also has these qualities, is self-aware, kind, open, happy and hopefully also keen on exercise to share my new found passion (is that too much to ask??!!). Yes to joy, ease and freedom, and yes to life – even if it also means yes to pain and vulnerability, if it’s there!

I’ll end with a poem my friend Jenny shared with me:

Ernst Stadler’s “The Saying”

“The Saying”

In an old book
I stumbled across a saying.
It was like a stranger
punching me in the face,

it won’t stop
gnawing at me.
When I walk around at night,
looking for a beautiful girl,

when a lie or a description
of life or somebody’s fake
way of being with people
occurs instead of reality,

when I betray myself with
an easy explanation
as if what’s dark is clear,
as if life doesn’t have thousands

of locked, burning gates,
when I use words without really
having known their strict openness
and put my hands around things

that don’t excite me,
when a dream hides my face with soft hands
and the day avoids me,
cut off from the world,

cut off from who I am deeply,
I freeze where I am
and see hanging in the air in front of me
STOP BEING A GHOST!