For the last ten years or so (since about 2012), I’ve sought mainly to solve my own inner suffering. It was front and center for me when, at the age of 12 or so, I started suffering from suicidal depression, and then bipolar disorder. But really, it starts in a womb that holds you in this kind of world. My approach to thriving in this system is in becoming aware of my inner conditioning, in whatever shape that may show up as, whether from this lifetime or any previous one, and alchemizing it in order to increasingly provide inner space for light to manifest.
In this process, we may travel the whole gamut of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (ie. the tree of life), for I believe that to fully know yourself is to know your darkness, to paraphrase Socrates, so that your light is a given... or more to the point... a full-fledged gift. Essentially, healing is a process of subtraction, of processing... of letting go, letting in and, letting grow. Namely, we let go by processing our darkness in any healing coming up for us, and, we let in the grace of Great Spirit in the name of rebirth. In spiritual alchemy, this process is known as the negrido stage. One of the rewards (the greatest one, in my view) is how you then grow in your unique light, with a new lease and view on life.
Starting out of the gate of heaven, suffering began imperviously and lasted non-stop until my early thirties, which is when I decided I wanted to love more deeply, and not suffer blindly anymore from deep-seated illusions. At this point, I was teaching in a public school, taking various pills and palliatives, and suffering from a plethora of disorders. In the summer of 2017, after quitting my public school teaching job, after burning out the previous year and heeding a spark in Peru from just one ayahuasca session, I embarked on a quest to become a healer by moving to Montreal.
In the process, I didn't become a healer per say, but I started learning how to heal myself, picking up tools and tricks along the way for healing my body and mind, my heart and my soul. Much of it has come from Spirit, but I’ve also been influenced by several systems, notably IFS (Richard Schwartz), the Psychology of Vision (Charles Spezzano), various inner alchemy modalities, among others. Following a dozen or so soul retrievals, I can easily say that not only is healing a spiritual affair, but, something like a soul retrieval is a deep necessity in order to flourish in this matrix, what many call a slave planet, a prison planet, or a teaching planet. I now see it as a healing planet, or, a prison in need of liberation.
All in all, it's taken many initiatic struggles since 2012 to discover that it all comes down to alchemizing the soul. For me, this included undertaking about a year to heal all of my karma with weekly "hero-dose" psilocybin sessions (grueling to say the least, but most rewarding), in 2018 and 2019. I would prepare my ceremony, then I'd lay under the blankets and face whatever had to come up. All in all, it's been the most powerful healing catalyst in my life. It's now the summer of 2023 (at the time of this writing), and I'm glad to be called by Spirit to now share my healing journey.
Some souls eventually discover that we are not here on a holiday or to become “well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society” (Jiddu Krishnamurti). One knows that the gig is to heal all suffering, all of the past, all of your conditioning, everything that triggers you into a fear-based state, and alchemize it into gold. So, as the illustrious Jesus puts it, in what many dub as the most deceitfully plagiarized masterpiece of all time, in Luke 17:6,8, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea... afterwards, you may eat and drink."
For me, this means that you are “thrown” into this life (Heidegger's term) and, as an old soul, your job is to not only land on your two feet and become a solid tree in the process, but, to also teach others to do as much while, from time to time, guiding them along their own unique and highly personal, healing journey.
When one returns to the world, one may encounter this kind of blessèd banquet, physically and spiritually, through freedom. For we are always stuck with how we feel, and the gift of fearlessness, as far as I’m concerned, is the richest one. By definition, that’s what love is. This means you’re stationed whole-heartedly in your body and flourishing with your direct connection to Spirit, rather than occasionally (or permanently) driven by the lower self in fear. In the process of healing, all of it is faced. Although it may seem as though you’re sometimes taking a step backwards, that’s only so that you can return more grounded in a more structured inner sovereignty.
And so, one may survive any ordeal that Spirit throws at us and become wiser for it, more powerful and focused enough along the way, thus moving beyond coming full circle so as to share the fruits of the quest. Returning with just a bit more mettle in the gut, magnanimity in the heart... coming at life with more modesty in your intentions, with more mercy for yourself and others, including the world... these are some of the "side effects of healing".
At the end of one's initiatic suffering, inner freedom becomes a badge of honor worth earning, rather than the various certificates hung on the wall or diamond-encrusted attachments one may earn from climbing the artificial mountain of external success and conditioning. For internal success implies showing up in the world without your conditioning, through the sovereignty of your wizened heart and a purified mind, and witnessing a wild adventure unravel in the world before you wherever Spirit leads you, step by mindful step.
May love, power, and wisdom radiate throughout your days.
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