“Woke up today and decided to kill my ego”

“ain’t never done me no good no how”

I resonated with this song years ago. It took 10 years for it to hit the way it’s supposed to.

Slapped I should say. Slapped me right in the face.

Sure I knew the lyrics I sing them all the time. I can recite the whole song I’ve sang it to myself enough. It was part of my meditation playlist before it became a standard meditation program.

Trail markers man, the more your eyes open the more they shine right in your eyes.

Slow down, reflect and stew. You’ll see them. This isn’t about Sturgill Simpson who I admire as a song writer and artist.

But

I gravitated towards this album like it was my comfy sofa. I listened, it hit, it fucking stayed.

I was years away from fully understanding this song and this album.

I understood it. I knew its meaning. It took 10 years for the light to come on.

Let’s talk about that light.

Quietly

Subtly

Methodically

I’ve been spiritual for most of my adult life. Childhood and teenage years I was introduced into a structured theological process. One I wasn’t sure of. One that was explained to me by dozens of different people and opinions. They all had the same point I suppose but they didn’t get along with each other. One absolutely had to be right while the others were completely wrong and to follow their rules meant eternal damnation.

Pitchforks used as symbolic terror.

Flames burning your soul for eons. EONS

Horned demons, dark red as the fire you would reside in for eternity.

I was given these pamphlets to read in between Bible school classes. I’d sit at these old wooden school tables with these little cartoon books depicting a giant man with white hair and beard residing on cloud planes with golden architectural structures, dead ancestors in white robes all standing in line outside the golden gates smiling at me, greeting me once I died. And if I gave my love for someone that I was taught to love out of fear.

That was the back of the pamphlet. The front I recall an illustration of some construction workers sitting around their work site about to eat lunch. Four men all enjoying their lunch, three of them praying over their meals while the other mocked them for religion. He laughed at their God and their beliefs and remarkably right after he grabs his heart and suffers cardiac arrest. He drops dead right there with a sandwich in hand.

*turns page

He awakens in a pit of fiery hell. He’s scared, he wants to know where he is.

Big red demon with horns on his head (demons are scarier if they are gender assigned I suppose) pokes him with a pitchfork “you are in hell!” More demons are in the background laughing at the man’s folly all holding pitchforks poking him as he stands in a pit of fire. He’s screaming “please let me go!” They all laugh in unison. I can’t recall all of the literature but the point was made. It hit home.

I was terrified to not believe in God.

I was 10. Someone at that time in 1982 thought “this is a great way to introduce a child into religion”

PRINT IT JACOB

I was born into Episcopalian, bussed down to Southern Baptist with a side of Pentecostal. When I was released into the wild I put all those pamphlets and literature into my mental attic and locked them up tight. There was no key involved I had no intention of ever opening that room again.

With all that said I’ve never intentionally insulted a religion, disrespected or scoffed at anyone’s alignment with theology. I respect everyone’s spirituality and commend them on their faith. Life is hard. It’s much harder when there’s no where to go and the road dead ends. Religion is a way out of the cul de sac for a lot of us. My only interjection here is most of us are reading a map that has more routes than you think. Some like the wide open highway while others like the backroads. Some like me, prefer smaller less traveled paths with trail markers. They all have peaks and valleys.

We all meet at the same place. Once you figure that out the path leads to.

I’ve gone through quite the transition the last 4 months. It didn’t start 4 months ago it actually started 53.8 years ago

But

I didn’t find the atlas until recently.

I’ll throw in a few quick recent trail markers I don’t have the thumb energy right now to start with “in the beginning Chad was born in a small village in Mesopotamia 135 lives ago”. You ain’t ready for that and neither am I for that matter. That was just a little humor for you. I’ve learned over the years that satire and religion spark and set people’s pants on fire and this isn’t my intention at all so just sit and relax. It’s all related.

One day I woke up and decided to start writing. I didn’t go out and buy some journals or a typewriter. My daughter bought me a notebook to write down my recipes. I can’t recall if it was a Father’s Day gift or just a token of love. I started to do just that but instead of just jotting down recipes I wanted to add a little background as to why I came up with these recipes.

How they were created.

I wanted to write it out like my daughter was reading them because she bought me this journal with her own money. I wrote one page and stopped. Something else in my head asked me “so where exactly do we start?” I paused and decided that maybe I’d write a little about my background in the restaurant business first and then move on from there. It occurred to me that I knew very little about my parents’ background growing up. Both have passed so my living library is gone. I changed gears and downloaded WordPress to start some journaling. I needed to stretch my typing fingers and get loose. I’d write a little and stop. I almost deleted the app but every day I actually took time to write it felt good to release. Every single thing I have written on this app is meant for my daughter to read one day. Every thing I continue to write on this app is for her eyes to see, to read. She will have the opportunity to know how her father thinks, feels, my background and my childhood memories. I will come back and touch base on this shortly.

Same goes for drinking. When I turned 50 I told myself my drinking days are over soon. I didn’t say that but a part of me did. I can recall the moment it did. For three months a little light in my head kept telling me “soon Chad, it’ll stop soon.” The other half of me was dubious. I’ve heard this song and dance before. It didn’t tell me when to quit. It just put in my head that I could. And I would

And I did

I had to give up running. It tore through my body for years. It was my mental escape but my joints and bones wouldn’t allow it anymore. So one morning I got up and went for a walk. A part of me told me to. It wasn’t a suggestion. I always envisioned walkers as those old people that walk around with a stick in their hand walking all bent over because they can no longer move fast. I didn’t want that. My mind said tough shit go for a walk. So I did. It was a difficult transition because I couldn’t get my legs to slow down to walk but eventually I got used to it.

And I liked it.

Same mileage just a few more clicks on the clock. I liked it enough for it become a ritual of mine. 15- 20 miles a week. It slows my thinking down while running always sped it up. I recall when I parted ways with my old company I had a notebook I used for menu ideas. My first morning of unemployment I wrote one sentence down over and over and over and over again-

“You need to slow things down”

At the time I don’t know why I wrote it. I knew what I was writing at the time but it had no meaning to me. I put the notebook down and never opened it up again. I also discarded the thought. It had meaning in its context I just wasn’t ready to acknowledge it.

Yet

TikTok and I’ll stand by this with all my heart has some algorithms that will smack you in the face and you won’t even realize it. No it’s not my spiritual advisor or a beacon of higher consciousness but when your mind is open your algorithms will speak to you. I’d see a clip of a show that seemed engaging. I enjoy comedy and I like humor on all forms. The clips were prompted and showed up from time to time enough for me to say to myself “what is this show?” The show was Loudermilk, a well written comedy about an old grunge music critic in Seattle that battles with sobriety and has the issue of being very unfiltered and transparent in his conversations. I love grunge, I had just completed my first year of sobriety and well my filter is terrible. I resonated with this show on several levels. My personality resembles Ron Livingston’s character in so many ways. He’s a little miss understood in the show but he means well. I get it. The show itself wasn’t so much as a trail marker as was one little prop that appeared frequently in his apartment. His Shinola headphones. For whatever reason my eyes lit up and I thought “man those are some fun looking headphones”

I looked them up online and thought “man those are some expensive ass headphones”

A little too much for my liking

But

It was already in my head that I need to check some out. I’ve always wore ear buds that fall out of my ears and roll down the block so I rarely wore them. My ear canals are not built for those I suppose. I went to Best Buy (can’t tell you the last time I’d been there) and I headed straight to the headphone section I guess you would call it. By some “coincidence” (there is no such thing as coincidence btw) a Sony headphone rep just happened to be in the aisle as I walked up. I had no intention of buying any headphones that day I only wanted to give them a try. He introduced himself to me and handed me a pair of noise cancelling headphones, gave me a brief rundown on how they work. I put them on and didn’t feel anything different with the music. That is until he hit the noise cancellation button. It made a little ping and at the same time my brain did the same.

*Ping

My shoulders slumped. My mind smiled and I walked out with a brand new pair of headphones that I have worn every. single. day. since. They did something nothing else other than sleep has ever done. It quieted the noise in my head. Once I was able to focus without the noise I slowly started the practice of meditation. I didn’t buy the headphones to help me meditate. I wasn’t a meditation guy, never had I been. I do yoga from time to time more for stretching and strength than anything else. I’d wear my headphones to help me write. I get too distracted from sounds when I write. As I’ve mentioned on this platform before I’m a high strung individual with some fun ADHD. Headphones helped me cool off and relax. I started wearing them to bed to help me sleep better. I constructed a calm music playlist to allow me to release some tension it did just that. Over time the focus and relaxation began allowing me to revisit some of my old childhood memories. The headphones, music playlist was training me to self hypnotize myself without realizing it. After a few weeks of practice I could go back in time like it was yesterday. I could smell and feel things from my childhood. Old Christmas memories, school friends, some traumatic, some beautiful. I’d wake up the next morning with the memories fresh in my mind and write them down. I’d acknowledge some not so good moments in my life and make peace with them. I became my own therapist. Each memory I wrote down helped me make peace with it. I was erasing childhood trauma while I reckoned with it writing it all out. My emotional state started leveling out over time. Writing has been the best thing for my mental health. It all started with a note book my daughter had bought for me to write down my recipes. I’m writing a 1000 words plus a day because of my daughter’s gift to me. I don’t think I would’ve started writing if she had not.

Lily’s heartfelt gift was a trail marker. I big one kiddo if you read this.

When I opened the deli I slid back into some old emotional patterns. I got caught up in the net of tetherment (new word) from being a business owner again and it got in my head for a bit. I was overworked once again and stressed. No resets due to a freak hurricane and Covid tried to scatter my brains again. When I finally was able to take a break 6 months later, I went to Hunting Island for two days to relax.

For transparency purposes I did a small dosage of psilocybin the first night and opened my mind a little. Nothing over the top it was a good time I just walked around the campground to take things in. I will say the next day was a little weird. A pea soup fog surrounded the island. Only the island. One mile down the highway was sunny and clear. Also the internet had collapsed the whole entire day. I chose to stay on the island and just rest and be with myself with no distractions. It’s what my trip was intended for anyway. The next night while chilling in my roof top tent I was on a good vibe (no mushrooms or anything just hanging out) a song came on my magical headphones and it hit a little different. I didn’t hear the song I felt the song. I went from smiling big to crying tears of euphoria. The music felt like it was trying to lift me to the sky. I had never felt like that before not even close. I could almost hear organs and what sounded like angels singing in the chorus. Tears streamed down my cheeks I almost couldn’t catch my breath. It was so overwhelming I thought I was dying. There was no way I could feel this was a regular person. I thought this was it. I’m dying. Which resulted in me throwing myself halfway out of my tent to catch my breath.

Obviously I didn’t die. I was fine . I went to bed like a living, breathing human being and woke up with a slight “wtf was that all about” but afterwards I felt fine.

But I wasn’t. That’s when things started to get a little weird.

And this is when I started to think TikTok started “waking me up”. No TikTok isn’t the Tower of Babel or anything close. Something in me started resonating with algorithms on TikTok. Hell on everything else for that flashed in my vision for that matter.

My TikTok algorithm overnight introduced me to some things I’d never once thought about in my life

Frequencies

Vibrations

Quantum realms and physics

Alternate realities

Timeline flips

Moon phases

With that came my mind reaching out for information on hermetics, Jung even a compulsion to by a book of poetry by Rumi, essays on the Kybalion. Other than a brief mention of Jung in some old books from school I had never heard of any of the these before. I bought these books because I was compelled to not because I was curious or wanted to discover a new reading curriculum. I don’t read books like these. I read them all from to back.

The tent episode was in February. I’ve been on quite a ride since then.

My world or my view of it has evolved. Turned upside down you might say. I no longer see things the way I used to. I can’t accurately describe what that means. I don’t feel like my whole life was living in a lie but more like a dream and I awoke out of it.

Boy did I.

I’m not going to go into details on here what or where I am at the moment. I’m literally collecting new data every day. A slow process of downloading you might say. Every day I have a new “wow” moment. You might say I’ve gone a little crazy or maybe some sort of psychosis but I’ve never felt more at home or peace with myself where I am now and it’s literally just started. How do I know? Can’t say. Don’t know because I’m not driving the car at the moment and that’s ok with me. I’m in a mental limousine.

Dare you say a spiritual awakening?

For damn sure.

The writing, walking, struggling, emotional distress, nature, meditation, four year reckoning built this up for me I have no doubt now. I devoted myself to an invisible voice that’s coming alive inside of me. Something inside of me is communicating with me. Nope not schizophrenia. It’s not voices it’s actions and subtle trail markers. Sometimes not so subtle..

It’s life changing.

Altering

It’s taking me higher than any drug has. It makes me question the right things and even better it’s allowing me to embrace the flow of life. Every thing happens for a reason, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. This isn’t recited text this is clear alignment and emotion.

I ended my reckoning last month. Not because I thought “it’s time to stop”, I was writing one morning and looked down and saw it had been written down. Yes I typed it out but I didn’t if that makes sense. All I did for about ten minutes was stare at it and cry.

I passed my fucking exam.

Automatic writing is wild.

Man I could tell you a lot more but it’s just not meant to be expressed this way. At least not at this time.

I’m still burying my ego. It gets easier everyday. This was meant to be, meant to happen. There is absolutely nothing out there that will convince me otherwise.

Are there cons? Sort of. I feel extremely lonely, not in the sense that you may think and it’s not a bad lonely just a “is there anybody else out there going through this?” I know there is, it’s more common than you think. I can see some momentum building up.

It’s “the coming of” something. I stop there only because I’ve gone far enough for now. Unplug yourself from distractions and everything else, open up your mind. It may come by and say hi. That’s what it did to me. Another con? I’m taking in so much mental data right now that I have zero urge to be creative for work. Or even work. I’m on autopilot right now.

I’ll get around to it one of these days god knows I’ve got a few sandwiches that need to be changed.

Religion isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s perspective. From my own personal perspective we’re just reading the code all wrong is all. In a literal sense. I say this with complete respect towards your beliefs. I’m not here to argue or to be the judge. I’m as far from it as you can get.

Go find your higher self. Introduce yourself to yourself.

I have a feeling more and more of you will see what I’m talking about one day. I’m not here to show you the way or convert you.

Only bringing awareness. Because that’s what it’s all about.

☮️