Why your basic human needs matter more than your awakening does.
Photo by Anton Malanin on Unsplash
In the classic story of the evangelical church tent revival, a crippled man walks into a temporary church tent and, upon being blessed, he can suddenly walk.
He is saved.
But the story doesn't end there. The revival is just the beginning.
This crippled man goes home and realizes that he has to fundamentally change his entire life.
His kitchen cabinets, once lowered, can be raised again.
He can now drive a normal car.
He no longer needs to choose where he lives based on handicap access.
He may need to change his social network, upon discovering that some of his friends were only interested in him because they were addicted to being needed.
In a sense, his life has become limitless, and one might presume that actually, he has FEWER needs.
I mean for fuck's sake, he is no longer in a wheelchair!
WRONG.
His needs have actually become more nuanced and refined, and in fact, have evolved with him.
But what if he continues to live like a cripple? What if he doesn't change anything about his lifestyle or his dysfunctional social network?
In this case, this man would be choosing, consciously, to live with the same limitations that he once so desperately prayed to break free from. After all, he went into the tent voluntarily and asked to be healed so that he could walk, because he wanted freedom from being bound to his wheelchair, and the life that came with that, right?!
Now, he is crippled by his lack of limitations. He is crippled by overwhelm of choice.
Because this man is attached to his identity of being crippled.
(The unconscious mind is a tricky motherfucker.)
So in his mind, he is not yet free, despite no longer being bound, despite being healed, despite being stripped of his physical limitations.
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If you search hard enough, you can access awakening. You can expand massively. You can have your very own revival.
It's not even that terribly hard. Transcendence is available everywhere.
Like the crippled man who can suddenly walk, you can also suddenly wake up. Some people even wake up on accident (or even more commonly, THROUGH accidents)!
But if you wake up, if you open your eyes and you can now see, and you choose to pretend to not see, and you choose to stay in denial, and you choose to not take actions that are aligned with your newfound limitlessness...you may be awake, but you are not free.
One of the most common pitfalls of people on an awakening journey is that their attention is on continued awakening.
But if you awaken, that sort of rapid expansion comes with some serious responsibility.
TO YOURSELF.
It's super basic, but it's the most confronting and challenging work for most awakened people, and that is: DISCOVERING THAT YOU HAVE NEEDS YOU DID NOT KNOW YOU HAD, AND THEN FULFILLING THEM.
If you don't address your evolving needs, which grow, refine, and become more nuanced as you awaken, you are sabotaging your own growth. Period. Because no matter how conscious and wise you become, you are a fucking human being in a fucking human body and you don't stop being that until the day you die.
The more out of alignment your awakening is to your ability to meet your own ever-expanding human needs, the higher likelihood of suffering from things like:
lack of grounding
anxiety
depression
disorientation
confusion
lack of structure
lack of motivation
etc...
I've been asking all of my clients for the past week: What are your needs? Do you have all your needs met? Are you sure?
Because you see, my clients rapidly expand mostly just by me putting my attention on them. Expansion is the easy part of our work together.
The challenging part that requires a shitload of willingness and courage on their part, is where they have to confront the reality that actually, they have more needs than they want to have.
Because most of the people I work with pride themselves on having no needs - especially if those needs require other people.
Because somehow we've turned into a twisted culture where independence is the thing to be celebrated, and enduring a life that isn't good enough for what we want because we're ashamed to want more for ourselves is par for the course.
So. Do you want to fundamentally change your life?
If so, stop chasing awakening like a commodity, and start chasing your fundamental, totally nuanced, entirely specific-to-you needs. And take a fucking stand for them like your life depended upon it.
Because freedom comes when you can actually allow yourself to have the life you want and need, in its entirety, without apologizing for it.
And awakening will inevitably follow.