Waking Up When Others Are Not
THE LONER
Going through incredible inner change can leave you feeling like an outsider, a loner, or an introvert with no desire to interact with people. The inner movement within speaks so loudly it is all you can put your attention toward. The mere thought of mingling with those around you feels torturous. Just opening your mouth to say anything seems odd. You don’t feel like the same person anymore and you’re doubting if you can still delight in conversation. What will you say? What is there to talk about? Can you still relate to what the majority of people are doing? These are questions that may float in and out of your mind during your own spiritual path. At some point you may question if you can still live a normal life in the world.
What is a normal life in the world anyway? What does that mean? If you are lured into the collective’s conditioning you may believe you must work non-stop, find a solid career path, get married, have kids, provide them a perfect life, enroll them in every activity you get solicited, live the same life as the neighbors, save X amount of dollars in order to retire at a certain age, and participate in social events to stay mentally well. The truth is you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. And normal is just an opinion, not a fact. It’s completely subjective. What is normal for you may be completely nuts for someone else and vice versa.
Spending time away from your circle of friends or your family may be what you need right now. A time to go within and contemplate is always a precious time. However, disconnecting from everyone forever is most likely unreasonable. Is the point of awakening to detach from the world completely or is it to sink into your humanness and see others from a deeper spiritual perspective. You may find it difficult to resonate with your friends and family and there is a tendency to think you can’t be around people who are not experiencing what you are. This can be a grave error, and a place the ego slips back into thinking it has spiritual superiority over others. How can you go through profound change and still stay part of the world, your friends, and your family?
STAYING CONNECTED OR DISCONNECTED
The deeper you sink into the evolution of your consciousness the more you will recognize we are all the same spiritual essence. Even though people behave in different ways, have differing beliefs and opinions of the world, vastly different personalities and preferences, underneath all of these layers lie our true nature. When you are in the throws of transformation it can be difficult to know who you are anymore. Because you don’t feel the same, nor do you feel connected to the people around you, the tendency is to disconnect and seek solitude. Or you might not be ready for solitude yet and you seek companionship from others going through a similar process, or those who are interested in the deeper meaning and purpose of life. You might label others small minded because they don’t see beyond the tunnel vision they choose to see.
Be cautious during this time. You have no idea how long you will feel this way, or what the future holds for your undoing process. To cut your loved ones out of your life and the people who care about you may be a step too far. Unless there is a legitimate reason for doing so, simply thinking you can’t be around people who are not on a spiritual path gives off a sense of superiority. Just because you may be going through a significant change in perception, does not mean you can’t still be part of your family. Most families have members who think differently and live differently. If you are being criticized and harmed because you are different that would certainly be a reason to disassociate for a time, however, if you are accepted as you always were, no one has to know what you are experiencing unless it hinders your life in some way.
Being around your family and friends that have different interests, beliefs, and ways of looking at the world can be challenging to say the least. It may be difficult to connect or have much in common. But, families don’t always share the same lifestyles. Just because you came into the world as a unit does not mean you will feel like a unit. Can you respect where other people are in their own life? Whether you think they are actively pursuing a spiritual connection does not matter. Everyone is on a path to discover the spirit within, yet some aren’t aware of it yet. Seeing it in this way will bring you back into your humble self, the spiritual grounding you may be in need of. Avoiding situations can also be a sign of not dealing with something. By staying connected to your circle of friends and family can show you that no matter what life throws at you, you are still here trying to figure it out. Just because you may be actively involved in awakening now, does not mean your family members won’t find themselves in this very position in the future.
WHAT TO DO WHEN LOVED ONES DON’T UNDERSTAND
Having very few, if anyone, that fully understands what you are going through can be stressful. Explaining a shift that you can’t prove or measure, but only can explain through your experience can be met by many with a blank stare. They might ignore what you said entirely by quickly switching the conversation because they truly don’t know what to say. Many people are uncomfortable with topics they have never heard of, don’t know anything about, or quite frankly they think are crazy. Our culture does not welcome this rite of passage into our real self, in fact it would be deemed as mental instability or illness, and possibly tossed off into stress and anxiety. That’s a favorite category to lump people into when they simply don’t know what’s happening.
A few questions to ask yourself are, would you have understood yourself prior to this shift in awareness? Would you have thought it sounded crazy? If you answer yes to either of these, then you can see why someone else may not know what you’re talking about. As much as you might want your loved ones to understand you, you might have to accept that they may not. If they don’t understand, do you need them to? Can you still have a relationship with them without sharing this side of yourself? Can you have relationships with people dear to you without sharing every ounce of yourself? If you are struggling with this, it may be helpful to spend time really questioning what is important to you. Is it more important to you to maintain a relationship with your family, or is it too painful to be around them if they won’t accept you? These are serious questions you can investigate to see what works best for you.
Another point to note is, do you ever really know what someone else is perceiving? Can you ever truly know what it is like to be someone else? Can you expect someone to know what it is like to be you? Given we all have our own subjective awareness, it is impossible to know what someone else is experiencing from the lens they are looking through. Expecting anyone to ever fully know what it’s like to be you is unattainable. When you start recognizing this, not only will it help you in your own relationships during your transformation, but it will allow you to accept other people for where they are in their own lives. We don’t all need to be on the same page all of the time. Most of the world is in constant disagreement. This is completely okay. Respecting yourself, as well as others for where they are on the path can make all the difference for your own inner peace and happiness.
HOW TO INTEGRATE
One helpful tool that may come in handy is to evaluate how comfortable you are in your awakening. If you are in periods of extreme uncertainty, darkness, depression, feeling unsettled and worried about what is happening to you, other people may feel the same way about you. Take a look and see if you are giving off an energy of enormous unease, which may make your friends and family reciprocate. If you are uncomfortable, chances are they are too. If you are searching for answers and are scared to death about what you are going through, then others close to you absolutely pick up on this energy and mirror it back at you. This can be a helpful tool. It may force you to look at where you can accept what is happening to you, to get comfortable with it, and really settle into it. When you are comfortable with your process, comfortable with the unknown, then others will begin to feel this from you. Your relationships can transform simply by you taking ownership over what you are emitting.
Keeping yourself present with others around you can truly help you drop your personal story. Does your personal evolution of consciousness need to be everyone’s business? Does it really matter what anyone thinks of you? If you are still caring about what others think, then look deeper at why you are so concerned if others think you have lost your mind? If you are in a room of twenty people, those twenty people are going to have different perceptions and interpretations of you. You cannot control what someone else thinks of you. The sooner you see this and truly accept it, the more liberated you will feel.
If you don’t have a spiritual connection with your loved ones, what other things do you have in common? If they can’t meet you where you are, where can you meet them? Maybe focus on topics or values you do share and forget the deeper conversations because they are not happening anyway. If you have absolutely nothing pulling you together, then can you accept that you both are where you are in life and it’s okay? Can you still love someone even if on the surface you are on opposite sides of the spectrum? You can always minimize the time you do spend together, and still maintain a respectful loving relationship. The deeper you go into your true essence, the more you will accept others for where they are. You won’t care if they know what you are going through, or what you’ve been through. It’s not important. What is important is seeing through your eyes clearly with spirit. After all, this is where awakening is leading you, toward a love and acceptance for all.