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In the spring and summer of 2014, I began to experience what I can only call an "Awakening."  Over the course of three or four strange and wondrous months, I went from being an atheist and scientific materialist with absolutely no spiritual beliefs to a full surrender to the Universe and reconnection with my higher-self.  During this early period in my awakening, I wasn't sure what was happening and thought I might be going crazy.  But as I got unceasingly buried with magic it was only a matter of time till the truth would be undeniable and I would have to accept and embrace the deeper reality — a reality that I now call Divine!

Those first four months up to my "surrender" point were just the beginning.  Over the next year, my awakening unfolded and expanded, and it was an amazing and wonderful ride!  I'm sharing my story in the hope that it might help others who are awakening to understand what's happening to them and maybe smooth their journey a little.  Here's my story…

Prelude to Awakening — Dark Night of the Soul

For ten or more years before that momentous moment in the early spring of 2014 when something clicked and an overwhelming feeling of confidence and empowerment came over me, I was in a downward spiral into the depths of despair.  A spiral that ultimately led me into a protracted depression.

Without belaboring the details of this downward spiral, I'll just say that a long series of perceived career failures slowly eroded my self-confidence and self-worth.  Also, I had lost all interest in my career feeling like it was meaningless.  This combination eventually led to my being laid off and was the final straw that crushed any remaining self-worth and belief in my competence in the career arena.  It was a desperate moment; I felt washed up on that career path and hadn't the slightest idea of what else I could do and very little confidence that I could do anything right.

I desperately tried a few new career paths, all of which turned out to be dead-ends.  Which, in my self-critical state of mind, I interpreted as more proof of my incompetence and unworthiness and it send me deeper into despair and depression.

In parallel to my career saga a long series of perceived relationship failures was adding to my feelings of unworthiness.

The one thing that kept my head above the water during this period of my life was my love of mountain climbing.  Playing outside in nature and the mountains was a great joy for me and the only thing that mitigated the effects of my depression — without it I might have sunk.

The last straw that completely destroyed me was an epic relationship failure.  This relationship reached the highest of highs I had ever known and then crashed to the lowest of lows.  It was an absolutely devastating "crash and burn" scenario and brought me to my knees in utter despair — my self-worth was obliterated.  I was a completely demolished man.

For years I drifted from one menial job to another.  My finances where in shambles.  I was afraid to engage in a relationship.  I pretty much crawled under a rock and hid from the world in utter despair.

The only thing that kept me from going off the deep end was my mountain climbing activities.  It was the only thing in my life that I felt competent at, and it was the only place where I had confidence in myself.  Out there in the mountains I shined!  It was my joy and if it wasn't for that who knows what would have happened.

Another thing that helped me make it thru these trying times was the financial support from my Dad.  He patiently supported me and I suppose was patiently waiting for me to find myself and heal myself.

For years I stubbornly thought that I should be able to fix myself, to pull myself out of the depression.  Perhaps it was stubborn self-reliance or perhaps I was just afraid to ask for help.  But after numerous years passing and still being solidly stuck in my hole, with a little nudge from my Dad, I finally surrendered to the fact that I needed help.  With my Dad's financial support I started seeing a therapist.  The therapist taught me that depression results from largely false self-beliefs and presented me with a bunch of techniques that could chip away at those false beliefs until one liberates themselves from their tenacious grip.

Awakening Stage #1 — Dissolution of Despair and Self-Loathing

My therapists logic about the root cause of depression and the efficacy of the tools she offered made complete logical sense — and I knew they could or should work — eventually.  But after about 10 months of working with her I was getting very frustrated.  Even though I felt the process could work, my negative self-image/depression was so strong that that it wasn't working — I just couldn't believe anything other than my own unworthiness.

I didn't know what to do — I didn't want to give up because that would mean I was hopeless and that was terrifying.  But I was very discouraged and frustrated at the lack of progress.  I also felt that perhaps I wasn't committed or motivated enough and I was embarrassed to be wasting everyone's time and money.

The only thing I could think of was to take a break from the therapy.  So I told my therapist that I would take a break — I wasn't giving up but I was discouraged and would take a break and see what happened.

After about four or five weeks on break — just relaxing and not thinking or worrying about it, I finally was ready to think about what to do.  I needed to DO SOMETHING.  I'd felt like I'd been going through the motions with the therapist, waiting for some magical change in my attitude and feelings about myself, but afraid or unwilling to DO anything to get myself out of my hole.  And there was plenty to do — for starters I needed to find a job and rebuild a career.

My dilemma on building a new career was that I didn't have a clue as to what it should be.  After much pondering I decided I had to take some action forward, any reasonable action — I couldn't stay scared to act, that was guaranteed to keep me in my hole forever — and that was like a death sentence.  I had to make a list of options and pick the most likely one and give it a try.  And if it didn't work out, instead of beating myself up and seeing it as another failure and proof of my incompetence and unworthiness, I'd just view it as something that didn't work for me and move on to trying the next idea.  I'd repeat this process till I found something that I liked and that worked.  For a person in my state of mind, this was a major breakthrough.

The problem was that I still didn't believe in myself — which is a big problem.  So a brilliant idea popped into my head.  If I cant BELIEVE maybe I could do the next best thing … just SUSPEND my disbelief in myself for a while and see what happens. This was a pivotal idea and moment for me; it was the psychological ploy that set me in motion — I didn't need to believe in myself (which I honestly couldn't do in that moment) I just had to suspend my dis-belief in myself for a while — a subtle but profound difference!

So I made a decision and I enrolled in a Web Developer/Designer program at the local college and got started.  I also started seeing my therapist again and told her about the thought and decision process I'd gone through and she was delighted.

So taking a break, rather than it being an indication of failure, apparently turned out to be just what I needed to let everything I had learned percolate and sink in!

As my schooling unfolded I began to get irrefutable evidence and feedback that I was smart and capable at what I was doing.  My grades were great, the teacher was giving me very positive feedback and mentioning my work to the class, I was helping the teacher solve problems, etc.  I was rapidly beginning to believe in myself again!

In fact my self-confidence was improving so rapidly that one day an overwhelming sense of confidence, empowerment, and fearlessness came over me — a feeling so powerful that its hard to describe.  And get this — I KNEW I didn't need to see the therapist anymore.  So I decided that the next time I saw her I'd tell her that I didn't need to see her anymore — that I felt perfectly fine and was confident in myself and my future, I was going to be OK.

Saying Goodbye to My Therapist

When the therapy session arrived I marched into her office and confidently and calmly explained my breakthrough — my new powerful sense of self-confidence, self-belief, and self-worth.  Amazingly she reacted with obvious dis-belief and doubt.  She tried to hide it but I could sense it very strongly.  I immediately told her, in a very calm, polite, and self-assured manner, that it was the first time in years (perhaps a decade) that I believed in myself and I could sense that she did not, and I told her I could not and would not see her anymore — I simply could not be around someone who didn't believe in me.  I was polite, I thanked her for her help, and told her that what she had taught me had been instrumental to my healing.  I also told her I wasn't stupid and that if the situation changed I had her number and wouldn't hesitate to call her.  With that I calmly and self-assuredly walked out of her office to never see her again. And that's when strange and wondrous things began to happen!

Awakening Stage #2 - Strange Magic

I started to experience a constant stream of unlikely but fortuitous coincidences — coincidences that seemed too good to be true.  I frequently bumped into people, or stumbled across information or situations that were exactly what I had been thinking about or desiring or needed.  Any one of these "synchronicities" could be written off as mere coincidence but I was having TONS of them — I was getting buried in them on a daily basis!  And they were getting increasingly incredible.  So much so that each night as I was going to bed I would wonder what was going to happen the next day that was more incredible than what had happened today.

Another interesting thing that began was a heightened sense of beauty — for some reason everything seemed more beautiful and I was fascinated with everything — nature, man-made works of art, everything!

I also became fascinated with people and wanted to interact as much as possible and hear their thoughts about the deeper meaning of life.  I decided to run an experiment — I would approach everyone with a big smile and a hearty hello and see what would unfold.  I'm not exactly sure why I thought of this idea but the results were amazing!  I was having deep and meaningful interactions and extended conversations with complete strangers — and I felt like I was learning a lot.

Because I was meeting so many new people, and having so many deep interactions it was easy to notice something that seemed very odd.  It seemed like I could sense what people were like from a distance!  As I approached a new person and saw them from a distance there seemed to be a correlation between how I felt and the subsequent experience of interacting with them.  And here's the interesting thing, the eyes gave it away.  People who had a twinkle in their eyes, who seemed to have some sort of light beaming from their eyes always were wonderful to interact with.

Another strange thing that I experienced was the ability to recognize and understand patterns better than before, and figure stuff out faster.  I was noticing this both in my college classes and out in the world.  It seemed like my perceptual and cognitive capacity was enhanced!  At least this is how I described it at the time.  Now I know that it was enhanced intuition, which is a result of a better connection to your higher self.

Another odd thing that started was I began to feverishly study all sorts of topics like I was on a quest.  I really didn't know why I wanted to study all sorts of things with a burning passion — economics, physics, history, you name it!  My obsession to study didn't make much sense since I really needed to find a part-time job that would work in conjunction with my college class schedule but I couldn't stop myself.

I started to write outlines for books!  Yes, for some inexplicable reason I had a burning passion on a number of subjects that I felt I needed to share with the world.  Again I thought I must be going crazy. What the heck business did I have writing? English, grammar, and writing had been my worst subjects in school and the scope of the subjects of my interest were huge and way over my head.  I had set my sights on some pretty profound topics and my burning interest in them had no precedent, so I continued to suspect I might be going crazy.  To give you an idea of the topics of my passion here are the tentative titles of the books I was working on; "The Evolution of the Universe and Consciousness", "Transforming Our Humanity", and "Reimagining America".

Awakening Stage #3 — Surrendering to the Universe

After about 3 or 4 months of this strangeness and the constant magic of synchronicity that  I knew could not be explained by mainstream science I had one of two choices — decide I was completely nuts or embrace that the there was more to the universe than I had previously assumed.

Of course there really was no choice, the universe had been burying me in magic till it was undeniable and the conclusion was unavoidable.  So one day, 3 or 4 months into this most amazing experience,  I threw my hands up in the air and surrendered to the Universe.  “OK, OK, I give up. The Universe isn't what I thought, not with all this divine magic going on.  I'll bet it has something to do with spirituality, and I intend to get to the bottom of it! ” I said in my head.

Awakening Stage #4 — Seeking the Truth

My quest for knowledge continued but it had morphed into a quest for the truth — the deeper truth underlying our reality. I turned my studies towards spirituality and metaphysics — somehow I knew the answers must lie there, even though these subjects were completely foreign to me, in fact I had rejected them completely.

As I dove into my spiritual studies, It didn't take very long at all till I had a completely new understanding of myself and the Universe that resonated deeply with me.  What we are and what we are a part of is absolutely magnificent!  I'd done a complete 180 degree turn around in my view of the universe in an extremely short period of time and it was MIND BLOWING!

Awakening Stage #5 - Wandering the Country

At this point an idea popped into my head that I should go on a tour of the rocky mountains, something I'd always wanted to do.  So I conceived of a five week road trip thru all the mountain ranges and national parks from Montana to Colorado and New Mexico. I ran the idea by my Dad and he thought it was a wonderful idea (I think he secretly hoped it would be a part of my healing process and finding myself).

As I started planning this trip, another idea popped into my head.  Why not cut loose completely and make the trip open ended and maybe settle somewhere new?  So on a whim I decided to sell my house and hit the road for who knows where, starting with my tour of the Rockies.

First stop - Glacier National Park, MT

And guess what? The Universe had already set me up for this.  Two different people, one a month earlier and the other three months earlier, had out of the blue come to me with offers to buy my house.  At the time I had told both of these delightful people that I had absolutely no intention of ever moving.  Yet now that was exactly what I wanted to do and had two awesome offers already lined up without lifting a finger.

This is an example of the ease with which things unfolded for me now. And this is only one example, there are many others from that period and of course they continue.  I feel  graced by the Universe!  And indeed I am and we all can be if we let go and go with the flow of our higher self.

So I called both of the people who had made unsolicited offers and settled on the sweet deal offered by a builder.  It was literally less than 2 weeks from the day I decided to sell my house and I was closing a deal with the builder!  I quickly staged an estate sale and sold just about everything I owned, then packed the car for a camping road trip, and hit the road one beautiful day in June!

Rolling through Teton National Park, WY

On this trip another interesting thing began to happen to me.  I started to experience frequent moments of utter bliss where I would break down and cry like a baby in utter joy.  These short experiences were overwhelming and inexplicably powerful and seemed to be triggered by listening to inspiring music, or seeing something beautiful in nature, or just thinking about an uplifting idea.

High in the Colorado Rockies

I spent about five months mostly traveling through natural America sticking to the mountains, countryside, nature, and rural areas as much as I could.  In the end I drove a complete 7000+ mile loop around the entire country.  An absolutely delightful and magical time. I continued to be graced by the Universe.  The weather was always favorable whenever I needed it to be.  Even thou I was winging the entire trip with absolutely zero pre-planning or reservations everything always fell in place even when logic said it wouldn't be likely. Everything went ridiculously smoothly.  I was either the luckiest man on earth or something had my back!

Me on top of Crested Butte peak.

As I traveled I continued studying and reading all sorts of spiritual and metaphysics books, articles, and videos.  I collected over 100 ebooks.  My understanding of the true nature of self and the wider reality kept expanding.

Along the way on this trip I visited a number of very old long lost friends that had magically appeared out of the blue and had contacted me after I started awakening who all had similar awakenings and their stories were fascinating.

Awakening Stage #6 - Connecting With My Spirit Guides

After visiting an old long lost friend in Texas I decided to drive to South Carolina for a visit with my parents, and my sister and her husband who had recently moved to live near them.

Somewhere on the 3 day drive to Carolina is when an explanation for all the strange repeating number patterns that I'd been seeing for months made its appearance.  I had been seeing 11:11, and a few other numbers as well, on clocks, license plates, and elsewhere with a frequency that was startling and seemed much higher than pure chance would allow. One of those other numbers was 911 which really got my attention for obvious reasons.  One day I stumbled upon a webpage entitled What Are ANGEL NUMBERS?  It immediately perked my interest and as I read the very first paragraph explaining what angel numbers were I had a big "AH HA" moment.  It said the following…

The phenomena of 'Number Sequences', sometimes known as 'Angel Numbers' is becoming more and more prevalent day by day. Thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life, from all parts of the world, and from every creed and religion, are reporting the phenomena of noticing particular number sequences on clocks, timers, car number plates, billboards, and from all kinds of sources.

It went on to explain that your spirit guides (angels, etc) will often show repeating numbers that they know will get your attention and clue you in to their presence. Then they will direct you to stumble upon one of the many "angel numbers" books that are available in the hope that you might be open minded enough to try it out.

Holy crap! this sounded exactly like what I was experiencing!

In the "angel numbers" books the spirit realms have codified thousands of messages each associated with a particular number between 0 and 999 (or sometimes from 0 to 2000).  When you see the same number appear in rapid succession 2 or 3 times, for example; on the clock of your car, then moments later on the license plate of a car that passes, and then perhaps a 3rd time as you pass a building or sign with the same number on it, this is a message number being delivered to you from your spirit guides.

All you have to do is to look up the message associated with the number.  This serves as a rudimentary means of communication and guidance while you learn to get better at hearing them through your intuition and trusting the guidance through that channel.

Well, regardless of the correspondence to my experiences, I was still skeptical.  But I decided it was worth a try because the payoff was so potentially big.  I decided that I would look up the message of any number that repeated in unlikely or "suspicious" ways or gave me a strong feeling that I should.  I reasoned that if real communication was happening through these messages that the messages would be context specific and change as my circumstances changed.  If I tried this with a truly open mind and gave it long enough, I figured 6-8 weeks would be adequate, it should be obvious as to whether it was real or not.  If I was just looking up messages based on random numbers there should be no correlation between the message and my situations.  If there was, then one could safely assume it was real communication.

Eight weeks later I had received numerous messages on a daily basis and the messages were clearly and consistently related to my situation and changed to match my situation as it changed.  I was convinced this communication channel was real and have been using it extensively to this very day as a backup channel to my reasonably well refined intuitive guidance channel. If you'd like to connect with your guides via this communication channel I recommend the book below.  This is the book that I have been using on a daily basis and it has served me well.

Early in my developing connection with my guides I started addressing them very casually as "YOU GUYS".  I often would speak out loud to them saying "Hey you guys, what do you think about this..."  This is the way I addressed them for quite a while, not being sure who or what I was addressing and really liking the informal approach.

The Magical Carolina Coast

Shortly after discovering this connection to my guides I arrived at my families place on the Carolina coast.  I had a wonderful seven week stay there that was filled with great times with my Mom and Dad and my sister and her husband.  I had many wonderful walks on the beach and many magical experiences.  My guides were showering me with signs and magic to solidify our connection and when I think of the many magical things that happened during that time it brings tears to my eyes.

Me and Sis on the Carolina coast.

On the last nighttime beach walk of my visit, for no explicable reason, there were three fireworks shows along the course of my walk.  I had walked the beach almost every night for seven weeks and hadn't seen a single fireworks show, and it was late September.  When I got back to my family's house (not all that far from the beach), my Dad asked me what all the racket in that direction had been.  I told him about all the fireworks and asked him if that was something that happened, and he said "No never.""  Clearly, my guides had arranged this as a big send-off show for me.

I then went to my room to retire and opened my computer for a quick email check.  For no apparent reason, the background image on my screen had changed to a RAINBOW!  The rainbow seemed similar to the fireworks in the sense that they are both colored light, so I suspected it was another sign from my guides of our firmly established relationship and a symbol of completing a major milestone in my journey.

The magically appearing Rainbow screen.

Subsequently, my suspicion that this was from my guides was confirmed because that rainbow screen now magically appears whenever I hit another milestone. It's a perennial sign and symbol of my awakening journey, and I am absolutely delighted whenever I see it!

Heading to Montana

Eventually is was time to move on and my travel continued through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, etc towards Montana where I decided to make my home.  My prior life experience had kind of set me up for this and I had received hints from the Universe in this direction which I took.

The view from my place in Montana.

The Next Step in the Connection with my guides

After a few months of living in Montana my connection with my guides was very well established and very intimate but I was still referring to them as "You Guys".  One morning I decided that maybe it was time to get to know my guides a little more specifically.  So I said out loud "Hey you guys, it seems like we have a very close relationship now but I'm still using YOU GUYS to address you.  It seems like something more personal might be in order. I'd like to be able to address you by name from time to time out of respect.  I assume you have a name that I could use.  I'm assuming there's more than one of you.  But I'm also assuming that one of you is the lead guide.  I would very much appreciate knowing your name."

Shortly after that I headed out in my car to do some grocery shopping.  At the very first intersection a car pulled out right in front of me and the license plate grabbed my attention — it clearly had a name on it!  But a name that I did not recognize and it had a biblical feel to it and was reminiscent of some of the names of the Archangels.  Could this be my answer, probably I suspected so I wrote it down it the note book I keep by my side, intending to look it up with a google search when I got home.

On arriving home I entered the name into google at hit enter.  The entire search results page was covered with results for one and only one thing — a famous ascended master by that very name.  "What the hell is a Ascended Master?"  I thought. I had never heard of that term before.  I immediately surmised it had to be a very good thing since the first word was ASCENDED and the second word was MASTER.

Needless to say there was some interesting reading as I dove in to explore what I had found.  I could expand on this greatly but I'll leave this story for another time.

The Journey Continues

Since then the divine magic has continued unabated, and I continue to feel graced by the Universe and I continue to experience frequent moments of utter bliss where I break down and cry like a baby. I've continued my spiritual/metaphysical studies, and my understanding continues to grow.  What we are is utterly magnificent and with this knowing nothing will ever be the same again!

With my passion for this subject, I felt a strong calling to make it my purpose to share this knowledge.  That's why I've started this blog and I'm also working on some books.  And I feel like the Universe is fully supporting me in this endeavor.

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Thanks to Universe,