Awakening’s a bitch.

Gurus and teachers speak of the state of being awakened. We discover that fear becomes irrelevant. Our buttons no longer exist to be pushed. Life simply becomes a beautiful experience, even with the bills and deadlines. Everything is more vibrant. Once someone stops taking their ego seriously, life becomes so much lighter and freer than it was before! And we speak about the process from this open and unattached space.

We forget what a bitch it was to get there.

And because of this, a lot of people get frustrated. Hearing things like “It only hurts because you believe it to be true” becomes an invitation to slug the guru, to help them believe that it hurts. So, to clear things up, let me say that, from my perspective, the process of waking up has been A ROYAL PAIN IN THE ASS.

Here is what I found in my awakening process:

I only started waking up because I was pushed to wake up. For me, I had a partner I felt I could not live without, and I knew that if I didn’t listen to him, he would leave. So when he showed me my dark side (not paying attention, not being honest, etc.) it hurt like a son of a gun, but I “had” to listen because I wanted to keep him with me. For some, it is an experience where we hit bottom. A partner leaves. We lose a job. We contract a life-threatening condition. A loved one dies. Whatever happens, something fundamental occurs that forces us to re-examine our outlook. And we don’t like it.

The cost of examining our assumptions is that we recognize what we lost by making those assumptions. The ego knows that its assumptions, meant to protect and teach us, have hurt us as well.

• It knows that “you need to work hard for the money” obliterated the ability to get paid to do what you love.
• It knows that “you need to repay your debts” obliterated any life-changing gifts you might have received without condition.
• It knows that “I’m not worthy of success” obliterated the multitude of opportunities to thrive.
• It knows that “I need to speak up to be heard” obliterated the ability to listen and share from the heart.
• It knows that “the world is getting worse” obliterated the opportunity to stop and smell the roses.
• It knows that “strangers are dangerous” obliterated the opportunity to know love in this lifetime.

At the beginning of the awakening process, this hurts. A lot. Once we see the cost of one of these assumptions, we grieve the lost chances. We go through a letting-go process, just as if we had lost a loved one. In this case, we are losing the self who believed that assumption. We are discovering a relationship with a new self, the one who no longer needs that assumption.

When we let go of an assumption, and we become acquainted with our new self, everyone else we know needs to become reacquainted with us as well. You may find that people who believed the same assumption no longer make sense to you. More often, people who relied upon you to act based upon that assumption will find that you no longer support them in that way. A lot of anger and pain will occur in them as well.

For example, if we assumed that we needed to save other people (at the expense of never saving ourselves and keeping others from learning self-reliance), the people needing saving will be upset when we no longer see that benefiting either party. They will rant, make you feel guilty, generally make you feel bad for abandoning them.

It sucks. You may find that a lot of relationships will break as you start this process. Friends, families, partners, coworkers, may end up causing a lot of grief during this period. This becomes a very difficult period of identifying who supports your awakening process, versus who supports putting you back to sleep.

At the same time, because we attract relationships that reflect where we are, you may also find that you are creating new relationships at the same time. These relationships will reflect the “new” you that no longer is tied to that earlier assumption. So if you find yourself no longer needing to save people, you may find people coming into your life who are self-empowered. If you find yourself no longer needing to repay debts when no debt was requested, you may find people coming into your life who simply enjoy doing things for others.

You may find that these new relationships are with people who are already in your life. Someone who was at the periphery of your circle of friends may play a larger role in your life. You may even find that someone who was important to you before is drawn to shift with you. They end up losing their assumptions along with you, awakening as you awaken. Awakening does not necessarily mean losing your old relationships, but those relationships will change.

The metaphor I like using is taking an elevator ride. Everyone you were friends and family with was on the ground floor with you. When you get onto the elevator, some people may join you, but many people will stay on the ground floor. As you go to the second floor, you may get off with some of the others who joined you, to meet the people living on the second floor. You may end up getting back on to go to the fourth floor, while others decided to stay on the second. However that goes, not everyone who was on the ground floor will get off on the same floor you get off at, but you will meet a lot of new people on this new floor.

This happens with every assumption that you lose. Grief, letting go, a new self-relationship, breaking of old relationships, creation of new relationships.

As more and more assumptions are lost, however, the balance shifts. Instead of each assumption being treated with grief, we get used to the process of letting go of assumptions. Assumptions are met with less resistance, and less grief. We find that, instead, we lose each assumption with a sense of relief instead of a sense of grief. As we look forward to letting go of our assumptions, we find ourselves surrounded by people who also look forward to this process. We discover relationships based upon the growing process, rather than based upon the assumptions.

At some point we realize that, having let go of so many assumptions and still being here, we must not be our assumptions. If we were, we would be feeling weaker and more helpless, not freer and more empowered. This completely changes the paradigm. The concept of detachment suddenly makes more sense. We begin to understand that our thoughts, like our assumptions, do not define us. We begin to understand that our emotions come from those assumptions and thoughts, and therefore do not have to define us. We begin to give ourselves permission to not be unhappy about being unhappy.

From this space, letting go of assumptions becomes a joyous experience. We may still feel grief, but we are no longer unhappy about feeling that grief. We love the experience, knowing that we are getting a richer life, even if it has more emotion to it (“bad” as well as “good”). And, again, we find our relationships changing, bringing in people who can also appreciate the emotional experiences without attaching to them.

And we have become awakened.

From that space, we may find ourselves reconnecting with people we left on other floors. From a space of nonattachment, we may find that we can love people who were previously in debilitating relationships. From our space of nonattachment, our energy of love may be what they needed to feel safe examining their own assumptions. It may not, and that would be okay as well. If we find ourselves not okay with someone not “advancing,” it is another check to see what assumptions are playing inside of us.

So yes, awakening is a bitch. But it becomes the bitch we love.