Rosie: My Transformation After Awakening part 1 — Finding Joy More Easily

My transformation after awakening Part 1: I started feeling joyful much more easily

There are a few important transformations that have happened after I set foot on this journey. Today I will share the most obvious one that anyone who has known me from before would easily recognize. 

Back then, I was often seen as a very serious person. And by that I mean people rarely saw me smile, joke or look delightful. I was often in a state of looking emotionless, cold, distant and even grumpy. I was once asked why I didn't smile more as he said I looked so beautiful when I smiled. And I told him I didn't find any reason to smile. Nothing fun or happy to smile at.

But, since I started on this journey and living a spiritual community life, that trait in me has changed so much. I can now easily smile, laugh, sing a song, hum to a rhythm randomly throughout a day even when I'm alone by myself. Life feels light, joyful and blessed. 

It is a long process to describe in detail or even to sum up. But if I had to note down some important steps in that process, it would be the following:

1.I experienced the feeling of boredom to its peak and then overcame it in a peaceful and harmonious state

More than often, boredom often pushes people away from their state of solitude and reflection. Whenever I had some time alone and free from any activities, instead of going into a relaxing state, I would start feeling bored. And because I couldn’t handle my boredom back then, I would then quickly find something ‘interesting’ to do, or to distract myself. I would then end up cooking something new or playing some new games or watching something online or finding someone to talk to. 

After some time, with the help of meditation and instruction from my teacher, I started being more receptive to feeling bored and learning how to look at it with an investigator’s eyes, trying to figure out what issues were coming up in the form of unease feeling often labeled by myself as boredom. My resistance towards boredom can now be caught much more easily. And gradually boredom has come back less often, especially now when I have set firm determination on this journey.

More details are in my other article on boredom.

2.I stopped being an unorganized non-selective over-thinker

I used to be a heavy ‘unorganized non-selective overthinker’. And by that I mean I often let random thoughts, issues, problems pop up in my head, stay there and stir up my peace. I was completely controlled by those random thoughts. At the beginning most of the thoughts were unimportant. My brain collected them from the media that I consumed or the things I saw or heard on the street that somehow caught my attention. For example, it could be a shocking video on social media, gossip from a market vendor or some exciting food places suggested by social media. Later on, more relevant random thoughts popped up which were more telling about the many unresolved issues in my operating systems from the things I did in the past or my worries about the future. It could be something rude I said to my friend, some coward choices or some big mistakes for which others had to bear consequences. It could also be something exciting I envisioned myself doing in the future. Or it could be some undone tasks that I had been procrastinating on. Among those pop-ups, some were important than others at a specific phase. But because I just let them flow freely in my head, I ended up losing focus on what should be done first in order to move ahead more effectively.

Practicing meditation and building the habit of instantly recognizing the distraction and becoming an observer instead of a player in that mini show, I have slowly become more skillful at managing my overthinking traits. This has helped me tremendously in freeing my mind and enjoy life more easily on a daily basis.

3.I started knowing how to credit the great things I had in life to divine arrangement by Higher Beings

Being arrogant, self-righteous, and competitive has kept me in a constant state of tension. I constantly try to prove my self worth through finding every little evidence that shows I am capable, special and superior. And so if something good happened, instead of feeling grateful, I would often feel I was special first. And that habit has fed my ego for a long time without me realizing it. But what was even worse was that through that constant praising of my own ego, I lost touch with my divine parts, be it my higher self, my ministering angels or even my inner child.

Finally when I started reminding myself more often of the presence of divine arrangement and Higher Beings, I also started experiencing more often the sense of grace and feeling blessed. To my surprise, the joy that overgrew in those moments of me feeling grateful and blessed was the kind of joy that I rarely experienced before. It was so pure, so free, and so uplifting.

One seemingly simple transformation, from a tensed person to a joyful person, actually took me so many smaller steps, many resolutions to certain issues, and important realizations. Without the guidance from my teacher, and the support from the community, it could have been longer or I could’ve got lost somewhere along the path. And for that, I'm forever thankful.