My Spiritual Quest: a Journey to Greater Insight and Understanding

I recently reconnected with an old friend - one I hadn’t seen in many years. Truth be told we were never particularly close, though he’s been a person I’ve always admired from afar and felt great in his presence. Not knowing him so well, I also had my share of judgments about his life - what I perceived to be true from the outside mixed with stories I heard over the years, some true and some embellished, no doubt.

We came together to celebrate a mutual dear friend’s wedding and in that space found an opportunity to speak in depth. In that time and space which stretched far beyond the limitations of time and place, we talked about our respective spiritual journeys. I have no idea how long we spoke, only that time felt like it had expanded far beyond the constraints of the human mind - allowing a small glimpse of eternity in that short conversation.

As he shared his journey spanning over thirty years - from awakening to healing to consciously closing down, I couldn’t move my attention away. I was captivated and felt a well of emotions and possibilities open before me.

You see, I’ve been on a spiritual quest for many years now. It began in earnest back in 2018 when I began my certification as a Co-Active Coach. The training took me to Singapore where I was introduced to beloved members of my soul family, only I hadn’t fully realized this at the time. My beautiful tribe of powerful women came together in that space and opened new doorways to my heart and spirit that I had previously never known (or understood.) My whole life was spent trying to avoid the esoteric, ethereal realms, as to me they represented a lack of grounding in reality. I always assumed a certain wildness in people who I deemed to be too “out there” or too “woo”, like they weren’t capable of living in both the spiritual and human dimensions.

But when surrounded by complete and total love, I felt a spark of knowing and dropped my protective armor. My heart was cracked open wide, both with a sense of deep inner knowing and a search for true love.

I traveled to Bangkok back in 2018, after my coaching training was completed, with a deep knowing inside…a voice came to me on my flight. It said, “You are a healer.” It was loud and clear. I wrote it down and then pondered what exactly it meant to be a healer. I hardly knew anyone who was in the world of healing, and barely believed (or understood) what was possible in that space.

After landing, I searched for a Reiki teacher in Bangkok who might be able to teach me the beautiful energy arts - knowing only the name and that it had to do with hands, without really understanding what reiki even was.

I found a studio in central Bangkok that offered Reiki Level 1 with a teacher named Emma. I sent an email and the following day heard back that Emma was no longer practicing with them but that another teacher would gladly take me on. I was disappointed and intuitively knew that wasn’t the right path. I said “no” and kept searching for “Emma”. I soon found her, despite her lack of social media presence, and asked if she would have the time and space to take me on. After a few days she wrote back and agreed.

My journey to deeper understanding and awareness began the day I walked into her healing room. I was blissfully unaware and nervous, but ready. With the first attunements I felt Reiki energy flow through my body for the first time. Once complete, Emma stood in front of me and looked in my eyes. I stared up at her as I felt a tidal wave of vibration move throughout my body. I was completely transfixed and unable to move or speak. The vibrations continued and I felt them reverberate in my head, my chest, and my throat.

I began to sob, letting out all of the emotions that had been trapped in my body for so long, unable to find a pathway out. I sat there for a long time, with Emma watching me lovingly, crying out all of the pain and hurt and sorrow I had experienced in my life.

When at last the tears subsided she nodded in acknowledgement. I knew then that something had shifted within me. And while I believed it was a new power I had gained in those two days together, I soon recognized it was really a remembering from before.

My journey continued as I experimented and explored my capabilities - still unsure of what I knew had happened in my time in Bangkok was still available to me even when I returned to “the real world”. A few months later I ran out of cash and needed to return home from Asia to support my father and family on a healing journey as my father would have surgery to remove cancer from his body.

I flew home to New York changed, but still not fully grounded in this new way of being. I still had so many doubts and didn’t know how to take them deeper. I didn’t even have the word “spirituality” on my mind…I only knew that Reiki could bring me into an altered state. I believed at the time that only Emma could help me go deeper - no one else could possibly understand this journey or what it meant to be on it.

While my father recovered from surgery, in the post-op ICU, I gave him Reiki while my sister covered him in healing crystals. Without having spoken about it before, we both realized we were on our own journeys closer to spirit. My father accepted these offerings from us both without resistance.

My father recovered and began to heal and I returned to Berlin - full of new wisdom and even more questions. I was now surrounded by a new fear - how would I support myself with my new skills, and what kind of life would await me on my return.

I continued my training together with Emma and met more mentors and teachers along the way who would leave bread crumbs of insight and information that I would eagerly grasp onto, but still had no greater context to pull it together.

On one such occasion, I was planning to create a leadership program and fill it with exciting clients. I had no idea, however, how I could possibly fill the program. My mentor at the time suggested that I close my eyes and imagine the program’s success with the exact number of participants who would join. I had no idea how to envision something I wasn’t even sure I believed would come to pass. I closed my eyes and “made it up” still feeling incredibly doubtful and blocked. And while I didn’t fully understand back then the power and strength of our mind and our thoughts to truly create the life we experience, I started to see that there was a whole world that existed around me that I had been completely unaware of. A world in which creation and imagination could become reality.

Over the years I had many more moments of awareness that have guided me to where I stand today, and I know that many more will come still. Spirituality isn’t built in a day, or a flash, though for some it might come spontaneously. In my case it has been like laying the foundation of a strong building, layer by layer. With each new experience and each new teacher my eyes open even wider. I take in new information that clicks and the next level of foundation is solidified.

I have experiences I cannot define or even fully understand, and then I meet teachers or friends or consume books or courses that add a new element into the mix, and suddenly so much more makes sense to me. And time marches on.

As I sat in conversation with this friend and heard his story, from his first awakening to his experience closing the channel to the outside world ten years ago, I realized that the people I’m meant to journey with have actually been around me all along - right by my side - only I wasn’t ready to see them. I believed I was alone on a journey with no map and no dictionary to help me understand, but my people have actually been surrounding me everyday. I couldn’t see beyond my prejudice, my judgment, my perfectionism, my need to control the world and circumstances around me. I also felt so much fear and anxiety about expressing the path I was on, not wanting to be judged or seen as “weird”.

Listening to him tell his truth made me realize how valuable it is to share our stories openly, without fear, because so often it is exactly what the person sitting across from us needs to hear in that moment. I felt so touched and so seen when listening to this one person’s journey, that I realized how many times in my own life I’ve shared parts of my story and watched another’s face light up in recognition and wonder. The more I share and the more authentic I am in my journey and what I am working towards, the more I can support and inspire people to start living more authentically themselves. And, naturally, the more interesting the conversations become.

My journey has recently brought me back to Bangkok for additional training with Emma, where I completed my much-anticipated Reiki Master training. I can already feel a new level of awareness and energy flowing through me. Whereas four years ago I felt unsure and alone, today I feel 100% certain that I am on the right path - even while I have no idea how that path will unfold. I continue to explore my connection to the divine, seeking out the like-minded souls who are journeying together with me, and finding the teachers and mentors and guides who can pull back the layers just a little bit more so that I can continue to “see” the world and energy around me as it is, and as I want it to be.

I am eternally grateful that I am on this journey and that despite all logical reasoning I trusted my intuition enough to keep moving forward even when the path has felt hard. I am certain the path ahead is not without its own pitfalls and challenges. In fact, I know how necessary it is to my continued growth to face certain hardships, but I still step forward with full conviction and confidence that whatever it is that awaits me, I am ready for it.

And now I know, more than ever, that I am most definitely not alone on this journey to awakening.

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