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Ahhh … the pool, it was a sanctuary of chlorinated coolness. I loved the feeling of being under water; it was like another world. Do you remember Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin, in the movie The Graduate? How he would be hunkered down, under the water, in the corner of his pool? Benjamin was alone, unbothered, and in his own bubble – at least until Mrs. Robinson came on the scene.

This summer, as much as humanly possible, I want to be underwater, not in the conventional sense of scuba diving, snorkeling, or swimming, but in the detached, free-floating, not-in-this world sense.

I want to be free and unfettered, without constrictions and containers, and allow myself to sense life without the daily pounding of extraneous sensory input and information.

I want to be suspended in space, floating freely and weightlessly in cool, blue-green water that shields me from the breathless heat of summer, the hot tempers that follow, and the call to do anything irritating and enervating. It’s that last piece, the call to sidestep the irksome, the energy zapping, and the superfluous that makes my dive into the water so delicious.

Life does do life, and, obviously, there are moments when I happily participate in the great circus that parades through my life. But this summer, my vacation is to go glub, glub, glub and, metaphorically, dive into the quiet, watery depths.

By taking the plunge, I opt out of the rush, the push-pull, and the never-ending chase of everyday life. I float; I hang out and I hang loose. I can swim and morph into a graceful being, at one with my body, at one with my mind, and at one with the water that holds me tenderly like a long-lost mother.

I am able to look up through the shimmering scrim of undulation and see a blue-blue sky with puffy, white clouds lazily circumnavigating the globe. I can watch open-winged birds use the sky as their tablet to write love poems in some invisible ornithological alphabet. I can witness multi-colored schools of fish drift by in a languid, liquid ballet.

And impossible, but true, is that it is possible for me to perceive the variations of sunlight and moonlight and starlight as the lumination penetrates the layers of blue and green and aqua tinted waters. I can witness the light dancing in waves as it wiggles through the watery prisms. Simply by being present, I, temporarily, bathe in streams of light as if I were a piece of a stained glass treasure found in the sea.

By diving in, I pull the plug.  I can float and dream and simply be.  I can reconnect with my soul that craves quiet, freedom, and a place to be.

There will be no sound of the constant clickety-click of my brain. There will be no rushing to and fro. There will be liquid time and space. There will be communion with the elements. There will be an opportunity to see, sense, know, and feel differently. It sounds like the perfect vacation for me this year.

So, do not be surprised if the phone goes unanswered, the mail piles up, and my computer weeps from lack of contact. I will be deeply under water, taking a very long breath.

The spiritual teacher, in this instance, is Derek O’Neill, an Irishman complete with brogue and a quick laugh. He has also been a psychotherapist; these days, he is a healer and spiritual teacher. O’Neill calls himself “an awakener.” He says he is “like the hospital nurse who wakes you up in the middle of the night to give you a sleeping tablet.” In other words, he is all about consciousness.

O’Neill is a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba. Both men, I am told by eye witnesses, can manifest vibhuti, sacred ash used in Hindu worship, out of thin air, and both men can heal others. Additionally, both men are avatars.

Avatars are associated with the Hindu tradition. Wikipedia tells us that the word avatar “literally means descent and usually implies a deliberate descent from higher spiritual realms to lower realms of existence for special purposes.” These very special beings are “marked with superhuman qualities.”

The way I understand it, avatars are divine beings in human form. They operate at such a high vibration and extraordinary consciousness that they can take actions beyond the normal human range. Further, they have incarnated in their lifetime to be of service to humankind. For example, Jesus and Zoroaster were seen as avatars during their days. Amma and Mother Meera are also considered avatars in today’s world.

During the workshop, Derek O’Neill said, “If you want to find water, dig a deep hole.” He elaborated and told us to find a teacher and become a disciple. With an audience numbering about 800 people, he tells us – and with his finger pointing for emphasis – that we need a spiritual teacher, or we will not get where we want to be on the spiritual path and attain the levels of consciousness that we desire.  He allowed that we need one teacher, one path, one focus. (And O’Neill added that we could study with his group.)

O’Neill’s words irritated me, because I think we are all fractals of the Divine. We carry the spark of the Godhead already. I believe that our journey of consciousness is learning to honor the divine within as well as the divine in others.  

I would guess O’Neill would counter that I am choosing “the path of Buddha which is to continue the path of incarnation as long as sentient beings suffer.” In other words, I would be continuously spinning on the Wheel of Samsara, the Tibetan Buddhist wheel of life, death and rebirth that eventually leads to enlightenment; the focus of O’Neill’s workshop.

Yet, I still struggle with this find-a-teacher idea. I am a person rooted in a country founded on religious freedom. The whole one-teacher, one-path seems so singular and limiting to me. I have tasted the wisdom from a number of sources. O’Neill would likely argue that I have diluted my path with my varied teachings. I would counter that it has been expanded and integrated with all of my interdisciplinary pursuits.

I have worked with people who have lived in ashrams and been betrayed by their guru, and others betrayed by their priests, ministers or rabbis. They were, at one time, one-path, one-teacher people until their experience changed. This makes me think of spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss. She talks about the disciple archetype, whose path is to ultimately experience betrayal from the teacher, which, in turn, requires that the now untethered disciple reclaim their personal power.

I am wary of groups with groupies and their seemingly blind allegiance. I am not someone who drinks the Kool-Aid, but am I in denial? Have I missed the boat to nirvana and enlightenment?

I began emailing and chatting with friends and fellow sojourners on the path. In response to my ruminating emails, one friend wrote:

“That thing about needing a teacher and being a disciple is a very eastern thing. I never understood it until I met Amma and then I understood not only the concept but the way it works. The teacher has already ascended to the divine and so when you’re in his/her presence you are with the divine. It isn’t that you don’t have access to God, but the teacher is the route for ascension. It’s just the way they believe, and I get it. When you’re with Amma you’re definitely in the presence of God – no doubt about it from my point of view.”

Another friend responded:

“Here I am, definitely a devotee and a one teacher person and yet in my thinking I don’t think that everyone must have a teacher in order to reach the next level or whatever it is. In my thinking, there is a wide open way, not a specific way. …

One thing that is distinctive in my experience of having a teacher is the initiation into the practices. It wasn’t just that he taught the practices, it was a live transmission when he initiated me into the practices (kriyas, meditation). I realize now that all the yoga and meditation I did before, everything I cooked up, was so little compared to what this is. It is through him that I have this. Whatever this is, all I know in my experience is that it is really something and, for now, I am compelled to continue on this path.”

These heartfelt responses were helpful and reminded me that all things work.

If you are familiar with my writing, you know that I am an advocate of the “and and” approach to life as opposed to the either/or platform. And, clearly, that holds true here. Unlike O’Neill, I do not feel it is mandatory to find one teacher, the teacher. I think as long as we trust our own good instincts and listen to our hearts, we will know what’s right for us and how to proceed on our spiritual journey.

There are many ways to find God, to find ourselves in God and God in others. I honor them all.

And all is the operative word for me. I remain a rebellious type. And that is one of my styles of learning to question and argue and poke holes until I can make peace with what works for me. I am simply not a one-teacher kind of gal, but, happily, I am not so irritated at the suggestion.

It all began recently. I was having dinner with a friend. We were playing catch-up with our respective comings and goings, sharing our recent discoveries about the inner machinations of life. The conversation flowed; the iced tea flowed. We were swimming in heady depths. And, like the phosphorescence glowing in a night ocean, I became aglow. As if plugged in to a socket, I was lit with inspiration, filled with the glimmer of God. My being was illuminated.

The epiphany popped right out of me. And there it was, in all of its ephemeral glory, standing next to the bread basket – with a lovely assortment of artisan breads, I might add.

“Now what does an epiphany look like?” you might ask. That’s a tricky question, because my epiphany will not look like yours, and yours will not look like mine. Epiphanies are energetic and inspirational flashes. They are holistic in that they involve mind, body and Spirit. And, above all, they are individual and idiosyncratic.

So, there was my epiphany flashing with promise and potential, a few inches away from a killer raisin bread. That was all it took; my epiphany hooked on to my energy field, and after dinner, we headed home.

I was ready to put epiphany into action. I was musing and meandering down Possibility Rd. Everything looked bright and sparkly.

But life started doing life. And I let the daily drill drown out epiphany’s song. And then — poof — it was gone. I wondered if epiphany decided to hide. I looked under the bed, between the couch cushions, on the counter, in the car, in the closet, in my pocketbook and, alas, no epiphany.

Why would it do that? It came so freely. I wasn’t asking for it. It was a gift, pure and simple.

After a thorough search of my place and my belongings, I found myself bereft and yearning for what I once held so lightly and, even, so smugly. Certain, it was mine for the keeping. Yet, it had become a quicksilver flash, a starry moment of satori.

What was I to do?

I opted for the obvious and pulled out the Yellow Pages. There, I found the closest Lost and Found. I hustled downtown and marched very officiously into the office. I filled out forms in triplicate. I was asked to draw an image of my epiphany and to sing its song. I was embarrassed at how little I really knew about my epiphany.

“Could I describe its essence?” the Lost and Found worker asked. It all felt so fleeting and hesitant, like day-old perfume placed on pulse points. If I held my head in just the right way, I could catch a slight, almost-there whiff of its essence.

And for no-known conscious reason, I began to call out, “Epiphany, epiphany, where are you?” No sooner were the words out of my mouth, than there was a loud rumble of falling boxes filled with forgotten umbrellas, boots, books, and what-not, followed by the clatter of hangers heavy with missing sweaters and misplaced jackets. My words awakened all of the lost items bundled away in boxes and hanging unclaimed by their owners. They wanted to be found.

Yet, there was no sound, no sight, no flash of energy. My epiphany was nowhere to be found. I left the Lost and Found crestfallen, and certain I would never find my epiphany again.

A few evenings later, wanting to forget and distract myself, I immersed myself in a police drama on television. As I sat in the glow of lamplight, there was a quick change in the lighting. “Is that a power surge? Is this a precursor to a power failure?” I wondered.

The shift in light turned out to be an advanced greeting, because, there, sitting on my couch munching a piece of killer raisin bread, was my epiphany.  

Needless to say, I am very happy and have promised my epiphany to take the steps so it can stay brightly illuminated.

© Bill Kennedy | Dreamstime.com

Every have one of those seemingly endless stretches of time, when it feels as if all your get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went? You are not sick, per se. You just don’t give a damn anymore. Nothing matters much.

After all of your full-speed-ahead decisions, choices and actions, you feel directionless. You are lost. You motivation is MIA. You are no longer the little engine that could. Why even your dream catcher is collecting dust. Your dreams and visions have been shuttled to the corner, where they remain barely visible. You have no oomph to make them manifest, and have begun to wonder if they really are viable.

It’s as if all of your personal energy, chi as the Chinese would say, has left unannounced and headed to someplace warm and tropical for vacation. I can well imagine my personal chi doing a tango with a swivel-hipped someone, while I am at home, stuck and stalled, like the proverbial lump.

Recently, these particular set of symptoms have surfaced repeatedly in conversation. Many spiritual sojourners are finding themselves smack dab in the middle of stuck. They are experiencing the symptoms of what I call spiritual depression.

What exactly is spiritual depression?

It is not clinical depression; it is not a reaction to a specific grief or loss.

Spiritual depression is a part of the spiritual journey. It is a period of no energetic flow, usually following an earlier infusion of new energy. It often comes amidst transition and change after you have taken new steps, but, then, turn the corner and the path has evaporated before your very eyes.

Spiritual depression is an in-between time that serves as a bridge from the old to the new. You can feel as if you are stuck in a rut. You can feel bored (read: unconsciously fearful). You can even feel as if you are pressing the snooze button on God. And, frequently, when you are just about to emerge out of your darkness, you can feel very panicked and confused.

Think of the caterpillar hanging on the tree bough in its silken pouch. Initially, the caterpillar is content to be snug as a bug in a rug, but the non-movement begins to wear thin. Penned in by silken fibers and stuck in seemingly interminable darkness, the caterpillar reaches a moment of movement. It has outgrown its cocoon, and with considerable energy tears a small rent in the fabric of the chrysalis. Then, the caterpillar begins to pump and pump and pump its wet, folded wings, building momentum and allowing the butterfly to come forth. The tight darkness births movement. 

Spiritual depression is a bit like that. You find yourself hanging in the dark, still and stuck. There is no outer movement; but unbeknownst to you, you are incubating. You are simmering in your own contracted energy with your folded wings still wet and untried.

This incubation offers a calibrating effect. And that calibration is the point of spiritual depression. The stuck darkness and your condensed energies meld, merge and coalesce into a higher vibratory momentum, which is a push into the new you — the soul-refined, alchemical you.

In other words, spiritual depression is a not a bad thing; it serves a purpose. It is a necessary precursor to a big soul leap. Out of the darkness and stillness, you emerge into a higher frequency and vibration. You have reconnected with your own source of energy so that you can pump and pump and pump and, ultimately, take flight. Your consciousness grows in light; your heart glows with the twin flames of courage and compassion. 

That understood, spiritual depression is very dispiriting and mightily uncomfortable. How can you handle this very tender time?

I suggest the basics:

1.  Be patient.

You cannot rush a rebirth as much as you try. You are filled with old ways and new energies; they need to merge and reform into new aspect of you.

2.  Be gentle and loving to yourself.

The kick-in-the-rear tactic does not work here; that only serves to tighten your contractions into the little self. You want to be reconnected with your more expansive, soul-infused Self.

 3.  Trust the timing.

There are always other pieces of the clockworks that are needed to make everything run in sync. 

 4.  Remember the big picture.

The spiritual journey is not about the end point, but about the process of the journey itself.  Undoubtedly, the gods hold you close when you are deep in spiritual darkness.

5.  Maintain your spiritual practices.

Even in the dark, it is important to feed yourself from the divine umbilicus. It will facilitate your process.

And, then, I promise you, there will be a day when you realize you feel a little lighter, and you are ready to take a small step. One small step leads to another and leads to another and this eventually leads to a great gallop across open spaces and new frontiers.

In the meantime, honor the hard work and strong choices that brought you to this place of transition. And please know this: a) you are not alone; b) spiritual depression is a bridge to the high octane you; and c) the gods applaud your fortitude to be of service in this lifetime, during these times and on this planet.

Take precious care. You are loved and guided far more than you realize.

I am in a pensive and reflective mood. The close of another year, a year that has sped by with alarming alacrity, is approaching. Top ten’s, enumerated how-to’s and other comparative, self-help measures abound. There is a common stirring among us to take stock and give some thought to what has transpired. Be it birthdays, holidays, significant anniversary dates, we tend to bookmark the beginnings and ends of passages — remembered moments that are carved totems in the meaning of our existence.

As I sit in the penumbra of candlelight, I realize I’m none too happy with myself. I feel lost and adrift. I feel as if I have been treading water for months. Swimming in the same tight circles, I am weary. I have lost the picture; be is small or big, the screen before me is full of fuzzy static and undulating blobs of gray. There is no cursor to help me find my place, much less take the next step.

Jungian analyst, Marian Woodman, once wrote that metaphor is the instrument of transition. I know this to be true, but, presently, I am without image. There is nothing visible on my inner screen. There is no symbol calling me forward, reminding me of who I am. There is no videotape to reveal frame after frame of my yet to-be-revealed new self.

And the image need not be a literal picture; there are the realms of sound and feeling as well. Yet, on the kinesthetic scale, there are no strong sensations to pull me out of my straitjacketed self. I don’t feel much of anything. There are no archetypal shoes in which to climb or dance or run like fleet-footed Hermes. And audibly, there is nary a whisper to push me forward. There are no resonant tones to realign me into balance.

I am – on every level — floundering. And as the word conjures, I am flipping and flailing on a wooden dock, off the hook and no where to go, save the ultimate frying pan. Clearly, things aren’t going so well.

It dawns on me that I am in the metaphoric dark. Like the caterpillar in the chrysalis, I am entombed in a woven web that contains me. I feel immobile, directionless and clueless.

The cerebral part of me well knows this is all part and parcel of the process. The journey of consciousness has its fits and starts with the ego repeatedly surrendering to the soul. Yet, at this moment, with blank newness before me, there is little comfort in that awareness.

Curiously, these past few weeks, I have also been experiencing vertigo, as a result of some ear problems. Vertigo is about your world becoming a tilt-a-whirl; you spin. It’s as if you are standing on rolling waves. And when I try to put my feet on the floor, I hold on to my mattress as my world goes somersaulting around me. It gives me that oh-whoa kind of unsteady feeling.

The symbolism of this ailment, hand-in-hand with my flat, floundering, unhooked self, grabs my attention. In energy medicine, ears are all about trusting. And vertigo is, obviously, about balance and, perhaps, even staying saddled as I ride the bucking bronco of the vertigo horse.

Ahhh….a few clues to help me find focus — and they are good clues at that. I always appreciate the symbolism of what ails me. I thank my body for teaching me, but I know there is more. I can feel the presence of something else lurking, waiting to surface.

As I sit in the muted light, I begin talking to God. It helps to talk. I allow all my concerns and consternations to come burbling forth. Like a babbling brook. I go on and on. And in that process, I feel myself emptied of all the surface layers, and I reach a still point, as if I have swum to the depths of the pool and discovered clear, illumined water.  In that place, unconsciously, spontaneously, I sputter, “But what about the God in me?”

I feel as I have been clobbered in the solar plexus. I am breathless, stunned at the words that fall from my lips. The words are weighty; they feel like a cloak of God-ness has been placed upon my shoulders. There is a sifting and shifting process within my being, and I hear the words, “the cathedral of my being.” 

The still point has become a flashpoint of knowing. It is up to me to identify with my God within. In doing that, everything changes; all perspectives rotate. A whole new gestalt slides into place.

Yes, my being does become a cathedral, and, therefore, demand the respect and reverence that goes with same. And my thoughts and actions are not only imbued with a generous heart, but unlimited thinking and doing as well. All things are possible.

Like the vertigo, I am dizzy with this newfound ground. It all fits together so perfectly. From my body to my mind to my soul, I am turned upside down, reminded to trust, trust, trust and to walk wearing my God cloak.

I like wearing this God cloak. It feels warm, protective, honoring, serious as well as joyful. The God cloak reminds me that there are answers within, mastery to be tapped, connections with all and service opportunities everywhere.

Thank you, God, for the talk. I no longer feel like a fish out of water.

By sheer force of will and determination coupled with the fact that you have crossed that ultimate threshold: your clothes have shrunk, you get up and go to the gym.

Remember the gym? It’s that place you pay monthly. You have a little tag on your key chain that you generously flash to every supermarket checker you meet when you buy slumber-party snacks and the like.

But, hey, that little key tag is akin to my very own red badge of courage; it is proof-positive that I pay money to have a place to exercise and burn calories. Really, flashing that sucker is almost as good as doing a few dozen crunches. I look at my gym key tag as a kind of EZ Pass to the road of junk-food highs.

However, as we all know all too well, and have yet to fully encode in our memory banks, what goes up must come down. And there I am, rolling around in considerable pain. And it is that pain that gets me to the gym. It takes the pain of my clothes being tight, my body having more jiggle than wiggle, and my stiff and groaning self to reach that oh-my-God-I-have-to-do-something tipping point.

So, there I am, flashing my key tag to the actual front desk receptionist at the gym. I expect trumpets at the very least, I am here; I have showed up for a yoga class. Instead, I get a weak, bored smile and a second glance at my frayed key tag.

By my calculations, given what I have paid in membership fees over the year and the number of times I have actually showed up, this class costs me somewhere in the neighborhood of $145.

I deliberately choose yoga. I want to start slowly and carefully; yoga should do the trick. I will be on a mat on the floor. How hard can this be? It’s about stretching and breathing; I can stretch, I can breathe. This should be doable.

I arrive to the class 10 minutes early. The instructor is there; she is stretching and breathing. I am feeling a kinship already.

There is some kind of calming meditation-type music playing with the word “ohm” being repeated. The class assembles in silence; everyone is stretching and breathing and being oh so quiet. So far, so good.

I am feeling hopeful and confident, after all this isn’t my very first yoga class, where I dissolved in a puddle of giggles; nor my second class where I repeatedly crashed into the wall; nor my third class where I exited nauseous and limping. I am coming into this room with some prior experience.

The class is filled to capacity with bright-eyed, Gumby-like students in form-fitting togs. They are awe-struck and reverential to the instructor, a lean, sleek and uber-serious young woman. The room bows before the altar of her yogic wisdom as she leads us in pose after pose. The teacher’s style is stern. One could well imagine this woman striding about in riding boots complete with crop in hand, rhythmically tapping her palm.

We are on our mats. I am happy; I am close to the floor. We are led through a series of body-pretzeling, animal-named poses. The teacher says we are going to pick up the pace for the aerobic portion of the program. Oh boy. We stretch; we breathe; we hold. The sweat is popping on my brow.

“Kneel on the left knee,” the teacher says. “Owie,” I say to myself. My left knee cap has recently come to a point. I precariously kneel. We, then, move through a series of twists, turns and holds. Up and downward facing dog, swan, cobra, cat, the whole gang as we move through the motions that are to stretch the body, clear the mind and create oneness with Spirit.

I am to use my right elbow for some kind of leverage. I find my legs entangled and coiled; my arms spiral out like snakes in search of a hiding place. I can’t tell left from right anymore. I am confused and overwhelmed; all cognitive systems have shut down. Within in a matter of moments, I have become a human knot, a virtual corkscrew of sweat pants and tee shirt.

And, then, it happens. I am falling through space. Like in the movies, it unfolds in slow motion and ends with a leaden “kaboom” as I thud on the wooden, studio floor – with a wall of mirrors, I might add.

I have fallen off my mat. Clearly, I haven’t fallen far, more like wide as I missed the mark of the mat.

But who does that? Who falls off a yoga mat? This was no flying carpet; this was your standard rubberized black mat. Well, me.

And it is pretty funny, don’t you think? Curiously, no one in the class lost a beat, missed a pose or even noticed.

There I was, all proud and pretty to do my gym thing after a few months of EZ Pass eating, and I fall off the mark.

In Aramaic, the word, “sin” is translated as to “miss the mark.” I think missing my mat is synonymous with missing the mark. I have sinned, via that definition, by disconnecting from myself. I hadn’t slowed down enough to listen and learn, instead I tasted something yummy. I had forgotten to fill the hole with the holy. Not a bad lesson to learn, even in a room filled with mirrors.

© Maksim Shmeljov | Dreamstime.com

Like Oprah, I have spent my life dealing with weight and have recently regained once-lost avoirdupois. I hate that. I end up hating myself and then it’s that all-too-familiar battle of up and down, Monday is a new start, last hoorah Sundays and so forth in a addictive cycle that has its roots in both biochemistry and emotion.

Decades ago, in my college economics class, there was a discussion of the “paradox of saving.” As the name would suggest, the more you tried to save, the more you spent. I think the same holds true for dieting. In other words, the more you try to diet, the more you gain. And these days, science pretty much confirms that thinking given the preponderance of yo-yo dieting.

Once you have made up your mind and really committed to shedding weight, it can be done. Total commitment is the key. Ambivalence is the mother of many a false start.

But the real trick is maintaining the weight loss, because as we all well know, that is the hardest part. It is so easy to slip into the comfy-cozy old ways. And hey, what the hell, one won’t hurt, and even two is no big deal. Or after the weekend, or tomorrow or the next month, I can regroup and restart and all will be fine. Such are the distorted numbers of addiction math, where one more and one more and one more become 27.

Oprah admits that her weight gain is a result of her life being out of balance and forgetting to make herself a priority. I think that makes great sense. Addiction of any sort is a disconnect from the self as well as a way of trying to mend that disconnect in what we psychologists would call a maladaptive way.

Further, old tricks die hard; our brains have become habituated to the comfort of the former ways. The mesolimbic reward system knows those patterns, like the crisscross of railroad tracks, and with every addictive step we deepen the hold of those neural pathways. Thus, creating and maintaining change is downright challenging; we are called by the sirens of our psyche, which blindly yearn to go back to the old ways, the old pathways. Like Odysseus, we are drawn into the lure of Scylla and Charybdis, whose primary purpose is to distract us from the path home (read: the path to Self).

Addiction, first and foremost, is a brain issue. And if you have a history of assorted battles of the bulge, then I would suggest you have an addiction issue.

Psychology suggests that extra weight can indicate a number of things including a need for protection, invisibility, nourishment on other levels, nurturing, compensatory behavior, maladaptive habits, unconscious numbing, fear and substitute gratification.

And, of course, Oprah is right: this is most definitely a balance issue, but how about another paradigm with which to explore this very human phenomenon? What about the energetics of weight loss? If everything is energy, wouldn’t it make sense that weight can also be viewed through this lens?

Energy medicine expert and higher consciousness teacher, Caroline Myss offers the very provocative thought that extra body weight can be translated to mean wait – as in hold up, I am not ready yet. Or stop my life, I need to catch up, or, at least, need time to absorb the life that is racing towards me. Her theory implies that we are not ready to move forward on our path of consciousness. We are weighing ourselves down as it feels safer, and, perchance, less risky than flying into new realms.

Curious thought, isn’t it? Weight = wait. It gives me pause.

Now, weight and metaphysics have a long history. In prior eras, intuitives were often portrayed as large, beefy people. This leads me to think that dealing with all that energy, and particularly the energy of others, the psychics ate more to get back into their bodies after traveling the astral planes.

Further, in today’s world, it is not unusual and a commonly acknowledged phenomena for energetically sensitive types to have moments when they hold extra pounds during periods of transitions and energetic shifts.

The Abraham-Hicks folks advise us to energetically be in the flow, to swim downstream as opposed to pushing to move upstream out of fear and resistance. In other words, do not focus on the “problem,” but live life doing what brings you joy. That makes great sense, too. And this fits with the weight/wait model. If I am waiting, then, on some level I am being resistant. If I am in the flow, then there is no longer any struggle and the weight issue becomes a non-issue.

From my perspective, I think we need to put away the whip. Tell the taskmaster to take a hike. No more yelling and screaming and self-hate. Ram Dass said the answer to everything is love. I think he has a point – and that includes dealing with our weight.

We are beings of many energetic layers. We are more than our bodies. When we can shift into that channel where it all flows, we become ready to take the next steps. And, then, there is no more waiting, and that could translate into no more weighting as well.

Food for thought, my friends.  Have a good week.