My Crazy Spiritual Awakening (Part 1): Recovery From Anxiety

What comes to mind when you hear the term “spiritual awakening”?

Up till a year ago, I would’ve been one of those people who sneered at it. Only new-age weirdos, filthy hippies, American religious nuts and con-artist “psychics” would be into all that crap, right?!

But after 12 months that have completely turned almost everything I understood about life upside-down, I can now say that I too, have experienced an awakening! And I found out that millions of people worldwide are going through the same thing in rapidly increasing numbers.

But it wasn’t anything like I’d thought it would be.

My own awakening involved me opening my eyes and “waking up” to a wider source of knowledge and information. Things I’d either never bothered to research, had not been easily available or I’d just been ignorant about.

So although there are elements of spirituality about my awakening (in terms of my beliefs about life, death and “god”), that’s only a small part of the awakening. But what I have learned has honestly blown my mind!

It’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s changed my life forever.

If you’ve taken a peek around the site already, you’ll know about my past living with anxiety. It’s a pretty crucial part of the lead up to my awakening, so if you haven’t done so, please check out my “About This Blog” section and also download my free ebook “How I Crushed Anxiety TWICE!”. That’ll fill in the gaps for you.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Up to a year ago, I would say I was fully recovered mentally from an assault I experienced a few years ago. My confidence was back but my life was in tatters.

I’d not worked for a couple of years due to my anxiety, lost all my friends and had to move from London back home. During the years I was stagnating on anti-anxiety pills, I barely left the house and had almost zero motivation to get up and start building job prospects. I had been made redundant as an English Language teacher (my profession before the assault) and had no intention of getting back into that.

But I needed to find something to earn money, something that I could do without leaving the house (I still wasn’t THAT confident, after several years stuck indoors alone!).

I came up with two things: freelance writing and financial trading.

I knew literally nothing about trading. Writing on the other hand, was a passion of mine. But one I’d never stuck at because I didn’t have the self-belief back when I was younger. I started to write bits and pieces but I never really threw my best at it. Trading on the other hand…….this was new and exciting.

For those who don’t know, trading is really fucking boring so I won’t go into it in detail! All you need to know is it’s what they do on Wall Street and The London Stock Exchange. I normally just say “stocks and shares” as everyone has heard of that.

It took me years of practice to get decent but I was able to make some money. Not enough to kick-start my life though. And it can be very stressful, as you can lose money as well as profit. So after a few years of learning but not really getting to the levels required for the kind of life I want, I started to panic.

THE TURNING POINT

There I was, stuck in a huge rut.

Several years without formal employment. No desire to go back to the rat race. I’d been travelling around the world before my assault and it made me realise what I wanted from life. To have greater freedom, more time to see the planet and not be tied to a 9-5 that I could lose at any moment (I’ve been made redundant 3 times!).

I was no longer living in London (way too expensive!) but desperately wanted to go back there. This was the scene of all my success before the assault and I missed it. When I looked around me at what my life had become, I started to delve a little deeper.

Was I really doing everything within my power to improve my situation?

Had all those years of anti-anxiety pills made me lazy?

The panic within, propelled me towards finding some answers. So I started reading more.

I had barely read a book in YEARS!

Sad when you consider how much I loved reading as a kid. But with the internet at my fingertips, I now had access to all the knowledge in the world.

But what was I using it for?

Illegally downloading boxsets to watch for hours and hours and hours (though “The Wire” is a life-changing show in itself!),

Getting pissed off and frustrated by women on Plenty of Fish (“must be taller than me in my heels”, what the fuck?!)

Desperately trying to make my life look remotely interesting on Facebook

And what I am just going to describe as “MILF hunting”. I’ll leave it at that…….

Basically, I was wasting my life and was totally closed to the information that could turn my life around into something special. Sure, I could’ve still lead a decent life. But I don’t want “decent”.

I’d wasted too long, festering within 4 walls on medication and paranoia.

I want it to be truly memorable.

I want it to be sexy!

And I found a book that was almost a century old which told me that I CAN have a sexy life……

Read part 2 here!