and financial challenges that lay ahead. The combination of financial distress, parental responsibilities, health crises, unexamined emotional wounds, blame, resentment, fear, and anger unearthed elements of our psyches that nearly destroyed us and our marriage. The loss of his ability to work propelled us into the beginning stage of what became the most prolonged and difficult period of our lives. For the next several years, we experienced the devastating loss of our home through foreclosure, ruptured familial relationships, job loss, and the steady decline of our marriage.
Throughout this period, there were repeated times when I thought I would not be able to go on; when I simply could not endure another minute of the mental and emotional despair in which I lived. For so long I believed myself to be the victim of these unwanted circumstances; that I was somehow being punished for past behaviors. It never occurred to me that the abysmal circumstances provided an invitation to move toward growth that can be garnered through challenge. It wasn’t until I began sincere self-examination and contemplation, meditation, and prayer, all of which were encouraged in the self-help books I read, that I was ready to understand my role in creating crisis. You might be thinking, “It doesn’t take a genius to realize the role one plays in creating problems in life.” And you’re right, it doesn’t take a genius to identify where some problems stem from. However, there is a deeper side to perpetual problems, chaos, and crisis. There is a deeper, unconscious part of ourselves that heavily influences our choices, behaviors, beliefs, and feelings. The unexamined and unresolved aspects of the subconscious influence who we are and what we do. Meditation helped to clear the mental pathway for the issues to come into my awareness, into my conscious mind. As I sank deeper into prayer, meditation, surrender, and seeking clarity through asking for guidance, the light within the darkness slowly began to emerge.
“When the heart is ready for a fresh beginning, unforeseen things can emerge. And in a sense, this is exactly what a beginning does. It is an opening for surprises. Surrounding the intention and the act of beginning, there are always exciting possibilities. Such beginnings have their own mind, and they invite and unveil new gifts and arrivals in one’s life. Beginnings are new horizons that want to be seen; they are not regressions or repetitions. Somehow they win clearance and become fiercely free of the grip of the past. What is the new horizon in you that wants to be seen?”
—John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
When I was a child, my mother and I attended a Baptist church. I spent many Sunday afternoons sitting on an uncomfortable wooden pew, listening to sermons about the strong possibility of my going to hell. At twelve years old, I even had a traditional water baptism. However, despite a religious background, at some point during the trying times of my adult life, I moved away from faith into fear and scarcity. I recall having made some major decisions rooted in fear, poverty mentality, and heavily disguised self-doubt, and, because of this, I did not always honor what was in my heart. The more I let fear take the lead in how to direct my life, the closer I moved toward crisis.
After years of prolonged financial problems, I had to accept that I could no longer ignore the repetition of these problems in my life. The crises in my life eventually served as catalysts to understand that I needed to make different choices to engage higher perspectives. In reading self-help and personal growth books, I began to understand that, when there is a recurring problem, such as the financial hardship we experienced, the underlying messages want to be revealed. They will make a continuous, unyielding effort to get our attention. The opportunity that lies within crisis is for you to be willing to look closely and identify the underlying patterns and messages in what is happening around you.
In the prolonged crisis, reading the books I read and listening to inspirational talks encouraged me to be still and quiet in order to allow the deeper messages to make themselves known. It was from this humble beginning that I actively began to participate in what would become my saving grace: going within to seek clarity through meditation and prayer.
Throughout the turmoil, it wasn’t easy. With continual highs and lows, I began to tire of listening to myself whine and complain. Although I was scared and I wanted answers, I didn’t want to continue to discuss our situation with family and friends. With no money to pay for therapy or counseling, it seemed the only place left for me to go was within. So I did.
During my meditations, in addition to periods of silence after prayer, I began to ask questions to solicit clarity and guidance into my awareness. As I posed questions during a meditative state, I began to notice answers would indeed come into my awareness. However, as soon as the meditation session was over, I forgot the guidance which came into my awareness. The only way to remember would be to write it down. It was at that time that I decided to bring a large pad and pen to my meditation and prayer sessions. At the start of the meditation, I would first pray, then move into a period of sustained silence. After getting comfortable for several minutes of complete silence, I was more relaxed, and thoughts that continued to hover would begin to fade. With my eyes closed, I would then say the following:
“I call upon my Higher Self to join me in my meditation. During this meditation, I ask that you protect me from any and all vibrations, energies, frequencies and communications in all directions of time past, present, and future, that are not of love, light, and the highest good. Please let this communication be clear. Let the answers be communicated to me in a way that is easy for me to understand. Please let me feel your loving energy when you are ready to begin. I thank you in advance for your presence.”
For more than a year, I sat down in a meditative state to ask questions to help me mentally and emotionally navigate the difficult and uncertain times I faced. The guidance I recorded helped me to move through difficult and unsettling times with comforting reassurance that I am deeply loved, there is no need to be afraid, and I am not alone. The guidance I received, however, did not provide the answers I wanted. My posed questions and concerns were continual attempts to address the immediate unfavorable conditions which surrounded me. The guidance, however, provided the larger context of what was happening in my life and the higher messages that sought to make themselves known.
In the beginning, when I felt anxiety surrounding the outcome of a situation, I utilized my spiritual practice for a “save me please” answer. I wanted someone, something, anything to tell me what to do, to whom I should speak and what I should say. For a long period of time, I wanted to be rescued. I didn’t want to do the “heavy lifting” of looking at what was underneath. In the beginning, when I began to ask for guidance, those times were no different. I didn’t want anything vague. I wanted the final answer in the form of a deeply fulfilling (and immediate) job. However, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
What is important to understand is that, for years, fear dominated my responses, choices, reactions, conversation, and movement throughout my life. I was consistently afraid that some event would occur that we would not be able to financially handle. Eventually it did. For a prolonged period of time, we could to not afford to live anywhere. We could not pay our bills. It was an unyielding struggle which took a toll on every aspect of our life. Before establishing a consistent meditation practice, I constantly felt threatened by a looming financial disaster. My nerves “lived” in fight-or-flight mode from the endless anxiety I created.
In the midst of this silent struggle, I turned within to be able to make it through each day. I knew I could either continue to do things as I always have, or take a chance of trusting my intuition and absorbing what the moment was trying to teach me. Life is not always linear, pretty, and clear. Sometimes you have to step outside of the box, especially when you’re being pulled out of the box. With this in mind, I continued to meditate. Meditation grew to become the most practical, accessible, and effective way I found to calm myself of the anxiety-ridden thoughts that propelled me.
Let’s be clear, meditation did not immediately remove any situation from my life. That’s not what it does. Although mediation can be a powerful tool for personal growth, it is not a quick fix. What it did was help me establish, and strengthen, my practice
