I’m sitting, during my morning meditation, witnessing the fog over the lake and realizing how it parallels my spiritual journey. It’s the journey of awakening from the illusion that I am powerlessness over circumstances, to remembering that my power emanates from acknowledging my Oneness with God. I observed the fog dissipating, over a three-hour span, and tracked it alongside my fifteen-year journey. For the sake of this article, I took 3 pictures, each an hour apart, and each represents one of the three five-year phases of my journey.
My mother’s death marked the start of my journey as that was the first time, besides when I was ten and my father left my family, that I felt utterly powerless. In our society, death is an event we have collectively agreed should engender fear, and my grief generated an incredible amount of it. Fear of dying, going to hell, judgment day, and fear of God, were among the many that kept my mind in a floundering fog. Because my life, with three young children at home was still in full swing, I had to learn how to manage my fears.
The first phase of my journey was filled with curiosity about these fears.
Where did they come from? Why were they so intense? Yes, I was grieving the loss of my mother, but why the intense fears about hell and God? This curiosity led me to discover what my ego is. And it boiled down to a very simple answer: the ego is the sum of the beliefs that engender fear by acting as a block/fog, in my mind. This distortion acts as a veil/filter over what is Really happening.
The fog, which blocked visibility over parts of the lake, reminded me of the fears that blocked my ability to experience pure Love, when mom died. In this analogy, fog is to fear what the Sun is to Love.
Although not everyone has to endure a painful experience to become aware of their ego, from my perspective, it is usually the case because pain has a way of bringing our world to a screeching crawl. This slowing down is necessary to our becoming curious about the genesis of the “fog.” Those whose lives seem manageable don’t tend to question life. Why would they?
My fears activated an irrational sense of powerlessness that felt like a dark and dense depression that necessitated I become aware of my ego. The more I saw my ego—my fear-based thoughts, beliefs, ideas and perceptions—the more committed I was to removing the fog from my vision. Looking back, the intensity of my curiosity was satisfied, as if divinely orchestrated, with many guides, teachers, and helpers ready to assist me in becoming aware of my ego fog.
The next five years of my journey, once the “fog” of ego
began to lift, I became re-acquainted with the Reality of the Sun. This is an excellent representation for God, Creator, Consciousness. The Sun, like God, is always present, regardless of how dense the fog/ego appears to be.
With my grief waning, I became more curious about God, past lives, reincarnation, heaven and hell. It amazed me how many books, workshops and YouTubes covered these subjects, each inviting me to stretch my mind beyond the limits of what I had believed to be true.
I became aware that when my mind was clear, I felt peaceful and experienced a Soul-level Love that was filled with joy, even during mundane things such as doing my family’s laundry, or tending to my garden. I also noticed that when my ego was active and my mind became foggy with fear, Love and joy would automatically elude me, and I shifted into a tense unease.
When I began to experience the Reality that during the fog there is always the ever-present Light of Sun/God, I became obsessed with en-LIGHT-ment. I had several transcendental experiences and with each I realized my Oneness with God, which made it clear that the Truth of my Reality is that I Am Loving and joyful…and so is everyone else. Needless to say, I felt blissful basking in the Light of Truth.
I clearly remember the startling moment when I became aware that I could choose which had more power over me: the fog or the Sun, my egoic beliefs or God’s Truth. I could choose to give my power to fear, just as easily as I could shift it to Love!
During that stage, I experienced a spiritual high, which A Course In Miracles, calls the “Happy Dream.” I opened The Center for Awareness and found myself immersed in a community of likeminded seekers of Truth. I discovered I wasn’t the only one in the East Cobb burbs that was transcending fears, and embracing some pretty far-out ideas about God, eternity, energy, multidimensionality, and esoteric Truths.
During this blissful time of alignment with God, everything I desired appeared to be manifesting. I found my life’s purpose, my Woo-Woo tribe, and clients and students who were gladly paying to attend my workshops, classes and coaching sessions. My children were healthy and happy. I even manifested a beloved playmate.
With my Light shining brightly, I was living a Happy Dream!
Then came the next phase of the journey, where I’ve been for the last five years, and A Course In Miracles aptly calls “a period of relinquishment.”
This has been a practice in transformation each time I deliberately choose to Shift from fear/fog, and Lift into the frequency of Love/Sun Light.
This phase has felt like a five-year test, where I clearly see the effect (test results) of my valuing the Sun Light over the fog’s dense darkness. Love over fear, and God over ego. During this stage, the fog has definitely been minimal—thank God—giving me Clear Vision. The choices, however, were an ongoing practice.
As I navigated through my son, Spencer’s, drug adventure, I was grounded in the Truth of our Eternal Light. In this area, I had complete certainty that we are not bodies, and that allowed me to feel powerful, fearless and free. I heard God’s guidance, and I was able to stand as the steady lighthouse, Spencer needed, as he steered his way through his dark and foggy mind. We both discovered that fog vanishes when we choose to see what is happening with the Light of Love.
While fearless, with Spencer, I was also caught in foggy distress as my new marriage to Ken was marred with other fears. How could I be the Light of Love, so clearly with Spencer, and at the same time enter the fog’s darkness with Ken?
Fears, like fog, arise and dissipate. Inherently, they have no power, except what we grant them. When I believe the fog is real, even though I can’t even touch it, I felt powerless, dense, and paralyzed by fear of what I imagine waited for me lurking on the other side of the fog.
Without the fog of ego-made fears, I experience Reality, as it is, pure, innocent, empty of perceptions, labels, roles, or definitions. In Reality, everything just IS. I have proof that, 100% of the times, when I Trust the Light of Love to be what is Real, I feel an indescribable sense of connection, clarity, safety and freedom. I experience melding with God. We flow as One.
During the summer of 2014, Spencer sobered up and Ken and I got divorced. I realized that everything I valued, and held as Truth, was being tested. By now, I welcomed the tests because I trust each offers me an opportunity for expansion, beyond the limits of fog to the freedom I experience in the Sun Light. My work was clear: just focus my Awareness on my alignment with the Light of Love.
By this time, being grounded in the Truth of our eternalness, untouchable by death, I could stand as the solid Presence of Love’s Light for Spencer. But, when it came to my personal security, my ego had placed Ken as the source of it instead of God, where it belongs. Needless to say, each time the fog rolled in, my fears blocked my vision.
The interesting part of this phase, which I call the Wisdom Phase, is that like on the lake, during the third hour, the fog was almost gone. I was simply learning to adjust my vision to navigate with the full power of the Sun/God Lighting the way!
The moral of this analogy is that all three phases are necessary.
- The First Phase allowed me to be curious as to the workings of ego, so I could experience how dense and powerless it makes us feel.
- The Second Phase allowed me to remember that the Light of Truth: God/Love, is the eternal Reality that is ever-present, always available to illuminate our awareness.
- The Third Phase is the aspect of the journey where we gain wisdom as we clearly see that accepting our God given ability to embody the Light of Love, is what makes us free to experience God’s Delicious Reality—The Kingdom of Heaven. The acceptance of our power allows us to not be “fogged” down by fears, but rather, frees us to use them as lessons that show us our imagined edges—our limits.
To Shift our Perception from fear to Love, we must accept our power to create our Reality instead of just reacting to it. The fog will enter life, just as it will move over the lake, but I have the freedom to see through it with the Light of Love.
Just as the Sun’s Light is always on, whether we see it or not, so too God’s Love is always available to Light our path. We can allow our foggy egoic thinking to block Truth, but we can’t deny the Sun exists any more than we can make God disappear. The fog, then, like the ego, is only empowered by our decision to deny our power to shift our perceptions.
Now that I see clearly, my work is to remain compassionate with those who are afraid of the fog. Obviously, they think it real and it engenders great fear. Until they are ready to be curious my purpose is to Love them for that is the only way I can remain a grounded Lighthouse unconditionally emanating the Light of Love.
No one could have made me question my fears of death, safety, or anything else, until I was good and ready. And there is no way Spencer would have trusted me, while his mind was foggy, if I would have allowed my fears to control his behavior.
My relationship with Ken was derailed only because I was not grounded in Unconditional Love. Seeing my shame and guilt around this, since I’m a “spiritual teacher,” has been another valuable opportunity for expanding my awareness. Ken didn’t cause me to fear, I just chose to believe the fog and granted it power over the Light that is Love.
I Am the Presence of Awareness that chooses to shift from fog to freedom!