Was my quest for spiritual enlightenment a cop out? My opinion of 'sudden awakenings'. The quest to find new community.

After my exit from Christianity, I made a big move from my hometown to the north to England, first to Leeds in 2007. Looking back, it's actually the Yorkshire Dales, Ilkley and Harrogate and those kind of areas that I miss the most, not Huddersfield or Manchester where I spent the latter half of my time up north. Yorkshire is beautiful once you go north of Leeds. 

I don't regret it, I enjoyed my time up north in the main, and I wouldn't rule out moving back north one day, but I feel now that, even though there was a desire for change, it was probably more of an attempt to escape my past than I realised. Not just to escape my past, but to escape myself. 

I also became more interested in self help and read lots of books. I spent a lot of time at Borders - a shop which I miss more than probably any other. Borders was the coolest store ever. I read books on how to attract women, how to make money, how to have an amazing life, you name it. Fast forward about 3 years and I started to become more interested in new age type spirituality. I read The Power of Now, probably the best known 'spiritual' book on the planet. I started to go along to meditation groups and collect crystals. 

The Power of Now awakened me to the actual concept of living in the now, which was something I never even thought about beforehand. However, I do feel that part of the reason books like this are so popular is because they make the concept of being present sound so simple, and also because of Tolle's story of sudden awakening, where he says that, after years of anxiety and suicidal depression, that he had an 'aha' moment, and woke up the next morning with a sense of peace and joy. 

Image courtesy of creaturedesign

I'm not wishing to make assumptions on what happened to him, but what I do know is this - (a) for most people, such an awakening is surely a virtual impossibility and (b) it is absolutely impossible when it comes to complex childhood trauma and PTSD. Books like The Power of Now completely miss out facing the shadow side, which is what we most want to avoid. 

I latched on to spirituality as the next thing that might resolve my problems. I was unemployed for over a year in the early 2010s and spend a fair bit of time in Waterstones Leeds reading books in an attempt to make me feel better. The absolute worst parts of my trauma were kept at bay for over a decade, but I was constantly dogged by relationship and money issues. I didn't think many people would be able to understand me because I was different to most people; I had never been through abusive relationships which, as I have discovered, is very common for people in spiritual communities. I had never been into drugs or alcohol. My issues were not common, or so it seemed (once you broaden your horizon, you realise that there are more people going through similar things than you think). 

I did have some nice moments, but I was never fully free. I wanted enlightenment as a means of escape, regardless of whether I found love or made lots of money. I just wanted to be free of the nagging voice and difficult energies in my body. 

SPIRITUAL BYPASSING
This term is very popular these days, and justifiably so. My definition of the term is when someone uses spirituality as a means to bypass their trauma - this could be by going to lots of ceremonies, retreats, festivals, meditating a lot, being an upstanding member of the community, but never dealing with the root cause of their issues. And it's easy to think you're doing the 'inner work' when you're barely scratching the surface. Trust me, I know from experience :) 

It's similar to toxic positivity, where people say 'just be positive' to someone who is suffering, or the classic of trying out affirmations of 'I am amazing', 'I am abundant', 'I will attract my perfect partner' when our subconscious believes quite the opposite. 

Having a faith of some sort is great and can save someone's life, however, it's so easy to use it as a means of escape. I remember years ago during my time as a Christian saying that 'I don't know how anyone could live without Jesus, I'd want to commit suicide'. I thought that it was normal to have such a need for faith at the time and saw myself as a sinner. 

Life might not let you get away with this forever ... 

BEING BACK DOWN SOUTH AND STARTING TO SOCIALISE AGAIN
I was part of a community in Manchester which served me really well for a time, and met some amazing people. I do regret my very sudden exit from this community and wish I could have said a proper goodbye, but I was too messed up at the time. 

The well known and beautiful Durdle Door in Dorset

I didn't want to come back to Dorset, because of the bad memories of my past. But I had to come back to my roots - okay, I was born in Manchester, but I spent the vast majority of my childhood down here. It's probably something that is necessary for me to heal as much as I possibly can. 

I didn't socialise at all for a couple of months, but I managed to meet up with a friend who I know from Manchester that is also in Dorset now, and am meeting up with another friend soon. I did probably spread myself a bit too thinly in groups when I was up north, and this time I will only look for one or two groups, one spiritual and one non-spiritual. In terms of spiritual community, I will have to ease myself very slowly back, and limit myself to events that will be safe for me to take part in. 

So this is part of my life as it is now. It's still far from easy, it's hell at times. What I am most grateful for right now is the support of my family and the talks on Youtube on PTSD and trauma. 

Peace.