Spiritual Awakening and Forgetfulness

Thanks for coming to this web page. It’s a little old, but I’ve updated it with a new video. So be sure to check out the video as it more current with how I discuss spiritual awakening.

Additionally, forgetfulness is often a sign of too much stress. When someone is overwhelmed for too long, the mind does not function well. Proper rest, nutrition, activity, breathing, and drinking lots of water are five fundamentals that are critical in any sustainable transformation.

And dissociation is a whole other animal. If you have trauma, you should seek the appropriate mental health support!

Spiritual awakening brings about many shifts for most people. There is no one way to describe since all of you are so individual and unique. Through that uniqueness, your shifts express themselves differently. As I often like to point out, there are many types of spiritual shifts beyond the spiritual awakening shift that gets talked about most. They are all equally beautiful, and there is certainly a lot of similarities and overlap in experience. The spiritual space doesn’t really have hard dividing lines. In general, it is a space that is erasing those divisions as we all come back to union.

Along the way, we often find ourselves in seemingly unfamiliar territory, and as our minds seem to go through a kind of spiritual mind-wipe, for awhile, many of us become quite forgetful. It can be either really relaxing or really terrifying depending on how you hold onto the old ego identity.

But why does this forgetfulness arise?

Will it stay for ever?

Here are some of my thoughts.

Rebooting the Mental Hard Drive

You have to understand that most of how people think is not natural. It’s a set of trained ego responses and a whole bunch of really unconscious instinctual patterns coming out of god knows how many generations of evolution that just runs on autopilot most of the time. That is part of the nature of unconsciousness; we don’t know what we are doing or why we are doing it.

What’s worse is that we are so afraid to look inwards that we start building reasons why we don’t have to. Then we create criteria to defend our ideas of ourselves and avoid explaining why we do what we do.

“It’s just who I am,” you may hear people say.

Perhaps you’ve even said it, but until you really look at yourself, this is a cop-out. It’s an avoidance mechanism that is born out of fear.

Churning Out Ego

However in awakening, you are squarely faced with yourself, and all kinds of things are churned up. For some of you, the mind seems to go blank. You feel like you can’t think anymore. Remembering things becomes exceedingly difficult.

Why?

Because the old set of programs running you were running you into the ground. They’ve now been removed or at least turned off. Letting these go makes space for you to consciously develop healthy thinking habits. It makes space to learn how to think logically.

It may sound a little funny to consider how you think as a type of habit, but it truly is. How you think defines a lot of how you perceive and interpret your life. In washing away the old unhealthy habits, now you can naturally see life in a new way.

It doesn’t mean that you can see all of life. We are small little beings with small little perspectives in the grand scheme of life. But we can learn to see more of reality than our ego initially allowed.

Spiritual Growth and Discovering New Worlds of Expansion

The Expansiveness of Life

There’s also a way that we become forgetful because we become full of the moment. In the present moment, there is no need for concern with the past or future. Through this presence, we actually can more appropriately engage with the future instead of incessantly worrying about it or trying to guard against some sort of perceived threat.

Being Present but not Lost in the Moment

I can’t over-emphasize how much most of humanity is operating in a survival mode–regardless of social standing.

Who needs billions of dollars?

Only someone in a severely out-of-whack survival mode hoards that much wealth and resources. It may seem rather different to put it in that perspective, but most people have not accumulated that much wealth through the love of it. It tends to come from a deep fear of scarcity and lack of self-love that money appears to address, but ultimately money does not resolve these issues. People stay stuck in endless craving.

Cracking Open Craving and its Hidden Issues

With that said, the scarcity fears and lack of self-love melt away in oneness. You are complete.

So what is there to really think about?

What is there to do or to talk about?

Many awakened people can be very quiet. It’s not because they aren’t smart or able to engage with the world. It’s because they’re simply enjoying the expansiveness of the moment, and they don’t feel called to bring their awareness into a focused set of thoughts and actions.

With that in mind, I encourage many of you newly awakened to make time to sit in this space. Let go of the concerns for what you are forgetting and let yourself acclimate to this awareness–to this fullness of you.

A Renewed Focus and Internal Seeing

Yet, I do recognize that we have certain things we have to deal with in this world (rent, mortgages, children’s soccer practices, etc.). And the awakened space isn’t naturally all spaced out in bliss.

This is a phase.

There are some of you who will try to hide out in this space. While you weren’t scared of it, you are scared of what observing from awareness will show you about yourself as more layers of ego are seen.

As those layer are seen, your focus will be needed, and things that were forgotten inside you will be revealed.

So down you go more deeply inside of you. With that comes the necessity to have courage as you learn to see all of your brightness and darkness.

The Shadow and Dispelling the Darkness Phase

Lists, Email Reminders, and Alarm Clocks

During the forgetfulness phase that some of you will experience, I encourage you to take advantage of technology and life’s many little prompts to remember things, appointments, and so forth so that your mind does not have to concern itself with them as much.

Make it part of your spiritual practice to set up reminders on your email, phone, or sticky notes on the bathroom vanity mirror so that you do remember the absolutely critical stuff in your daily life. After that, you can rest assured that nothing big will be missed.

And if something is missed, this is a practice in non-judgment as well. You may have to ask forgiveness if you let someone down, and you may need to see if there are other reasons you did not remember an appointment.

Is this part of a pattern of self-sabotaging?

Did you not really want to go to do something?

Sometimes I notice that the unconscious ego tries to use elements of the spiritual path to play out other dramas. Here in this light, you have the chance to root out all of its nasty little games. I encourage you to do so, and as you acclimate to your awareness, you will have fewer issues with forgetting things.

Sabotaging the Healing Process and Running When It Gets Tough

The Persistence of Lost Memories

I can’t say that awakening will make you think in the way that you used to. You simply won’t. There are certainly ways of thinking that I have not re-trained myself to do.

For instance, I used to be extremely good at math, but there has been little reason to bring back my calculus knowledge.

Or any of the useless sports information I used to know.

You may also notice that some memories just dissolve away. Part of this is because you have no need to attach your identity so firmly to different things. In some ways, my journaling has been a way to help me remember a lot of what I’ve learned so that I can share it with you. Otherwise, there are a number of lessons and situations that arose and passed away which I simply don’t remember.

Forgetting is a natural part of healthy brain functioning. We don’t need to hold onto the memory of every breakfast we ever ate!

Another reason people feel so forgetful is that they are forgetting (letting go) of their ego selves which define themselves on past experiences. A lot of that just melts away. There are so many things in my past that now truly feel like someone else experienced them. They feel very far away, and while I honor that person’s past, he is not me. And tomorrow’s me won’t be today’s me.

And every day we have a chance to get up and be re-born completely new. That’s the gift of not holding onto the past.

Mental Health Issues

Now let’s take a big step back and a big breath.

Do you have mental health issues?

Do you have past trauma?

Do you think you might have repressed trauma?

There are issues with spiritual bypassing and personal avoidance to consider, and I want you to be properly taken care of. If you answered yest to any or all of the above questions, I encourage you to check in with a trained mental health provider to ensure there aren’t deeper issues of avoidance at play in terms of forgetfulness.

Using a Spiritual Teacher as a Therapist

Nothing to Worry About: Just Be

But if there is no trauma or avoidance, forgetfulness is not much to worry about. Also you aren’t trying to hide in the bliss state (which comes and goes and comes and goes).

If that’s the case, the forgetfulness will melt away as remembrance arises.

Clarity returns with deeper perception.

What you will start to remember about yourself will vary, and invariably, there will be something to learn and to embrace as you go through your individual, unique process of embodying you. Ultimately, this awareness is simply taking you to that space of presence that allows you to be as you are and to live your life in freedom.