The Story Of My Spiritual Awakening

This is the story of my awakening experience in 1998 when I was just 19 years old. During one of my first ever meditations, I had an amazing life-changing experience. I describe this and then tell you what happened next, how this affected everything else! A moving story that will be relatable to those who have had a sudden awakening, and interesting for those who haven't.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Susan Harrington Baker,

And when I was 19 I had a spiritual awakening experience.

I hadn't had any exposure to spirituality up until that point in my life.

My upbringing was completely atheist.

I had no contact with any kind of religion,

Any kind of deep philosophical thought,

Or anything like that just wasn't a part of my world.

Not at all.

I was curious in a few things.

I was curious about astrology.

I was curious about the occult.

And I got a little bit curious in the Bible at one point.

But really they were kind of shallow curiosities.

I was a little bit fascinated in mysteries.

But as I said I had no actual awareness about anything more.

I had no real understanding of spirituality at all.

I was just a little bit curious.

So when I got to the age of 19 I started to read my first spiritual book.

And this book was too advanced for me.

But I wanted to read it anyway.

I was finding it really really fascinating and I was really resonating with some of the information in it.

And I was starting to see things differently.

And it had these meditations in it that you could practice.

So what was happening at this time in my life was that it was the summer holidays.

And my boyfriend at the time had a job in a beautiful part of New Zealand which is where I live.

And he was going to go and live up in this beautiful part of the country for a few months.

So I decided to tag along.

And I had no plans.

He was going to be going to work every day.

But I was just going to be doing my own thing while he was at work.

So we were staying in a tent out the back of a friend's place.

And there were other people in tents,

Other teenagers.

It was just all one big party really.

And I would just be hanging out there while he was working and then catching up with him when he came back.

So while he was at work I decided to focus on this book and the meditations in it.

I now had time to sit and practice some of the stuff that I was reading in here.

So I started to practice meditation.

And it was in one of these first meditations that I had this experience.

And I'm really sorry that it's so hard for me to put into words the experience that I had.

I had to do the best that I can.

It was like in this meditation,

It was like I spontaneously received an embrace from the whole of the universe.

Like I suddenly remembered my connection with everything and everyone and this energy of absolute bliss and love engulfed me.

And oh my goodness it was the most beautiful experience I've ever ever had.

And up until that point I had been having a lot of cool experiences.

I mean I'd tried a few different drugs.

You know I'd had a lot of really peak,

Fun,

Crazy experiences.

But this experience of absolute connection was beyond and above and way,

Way,

Way better than anything else I had ever experienced.

And it felt more real.

More just beautiful.

It was like I finally remembered.

I was like oh of course I get it.

But I'd found something.

I'd found the thing that I'd always been looking for but I never even knew I was looking for.

It was like I'd,

It was like the veil had been taken off my eyes.

It was like I'd been looking at the world through tunnel vision for my whole life.

And suddenly that tunnel was just obliterated.

And I had this panoramic 360 degree view of reality.

It was just so amazing.

So so amazing.

I was never the same after that.

And when I had that experience I knew in my absolute core that spirituality was my purpose.

It was what I was here to do.

And absolutely because that experience was so so real for me.

So beautiful.

And it just it just made me remember who I am in an instant.

It was incredible considering I had had no I had absolutely no idea about spirituality.

I had no one around me that knew anything about it.

I was just playing.

I was just exploring.

And I just had this experience.

And all of a sudden I knew who I was.

All of a sudden I remembered.

All of a sudden I was back on track with my spiritual purpose which I'd obviously been you know on the roll with in other lifetimes possibly.

And now it was time for me to get back on the wagon in this life.

I had a 180 degree switch in thinking and direction.

My whole belief system was uprooted and I could now see the world in a completely different light.

So this was all very very well and good.

But it didn't go that well for a little while after that.

So let me tell you what happened next.

So my boyfriend had finished this job and it was time to go traveling up to Auckland which is about eight hours away by car because we wanted to go to a concert up there.

So we were hitchhiking up the North Island of New Zealand and it was at this point that all of the new realizations and all of the new awarenesses and this new belief system that I'd suddenly adopted you know all started to really kind of sink in and the massive changes that are taken in my whole being started to coalesce.

And the problem was I was smoking a bit of weed,

A bit of marijuana and this wasn't really helping me at the time because it was making me feel a little anxious.

So one night my boyfriend and I had smoked,

Had a smoke and we were looking up at the stars and I was looking at how expansive they are.

They are just,

I mean goodness me,

Just so beautiful and they just seem to go on and on forever and I was thinking about all of the things that I now knew to be real.

The fact that we never ever ever die,

Who we really are,

Is eternal.

And how is that even possible?

I was trying to get my head,

My logical brain around a concept that the logical brain cannot fathom and it was making me feel crazy.

I started to get all this shaking in my body.

I had this current of energy running through me like I was a wire with all of this electrical current pulsating through me that was at much too high of a speed for the wire to handle and my body was shaking uncontrollably as I was thinking about how we never ever die and how can that be possible and how is the universe so massive and it just goes on and on forever.

Like how can that be possible?

I was kind of just freaking myself out with these thoughts because to be honest I'm 19 at this point.

I have no one around me who knows anything about what I'm doing or you know they knew about what I was doing but they didn't know anything about how to help me in this situation.

They didn't know,

They weren't spiritually evolved beings themselves.

I was surrounded by teenagers who just wanted to have a good time and I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know what was happening to me but at that moment it was all just freaking me out it was like it all just caught up on me all these new thoughts and it was just making me feel like I was going nuts I couldn't stop shaking and I could hear my inner voice was saying to me you're going crazy and then another part of my inner voice was going oh no I'm not and then they would go you're talking to yourself no I'm not yes I am see there you go again oh my god I am talking to myself and it was just this this craziness I felt like I was going crazy and it was awful it was absolutely awful was like hell pure pure hell and my poor boyfriend didn't know what was going on and he was just holding me and trying to help me feel better and eventually you know went to sleep and it was all good and I woke up in the morning I felt fine but later that day I had a thought come into my head and the thought was you're going crazy and I had that thought and then my whole stomach would start churning churning and churning and I'd be like oh my god am I really going crazy and at that age mental illness was worse than death for me it was like being ridiculed humiliated and outcast from all my friends and family I just imagined a mental asylum and and just being this complete freak and I sell and so that thought totally totally scared the absolute crap out of me and so my body would go into this panic attack and I couldn't tell my boyfriend about it I just felt like a like I just had to keep that quiet because I didn't want him to know that I was possibly going crazy so eventually my body would come down and I'd focus on other things and be fine but then a little while later maybe the next day or day after or whatever I would get that thought again yeah but you're going crazy though and then my stomach would churn and it would all happen again I couldn't eat I lost so much weight my tummy was always like in the state of butterflies so every time I went to the toilet I did a poo every time and it was yeah it was not pretty I lost a lot of weight as I said and oh I didn't know what was going on and the thing is I just could not talk to anybody about it I had no one around me that I could I felt I could share what was going on with me I just thought I'm going crazy and if I tell my boyfriend that he's going to dump me and he's the only one only thing that's really secure for me right now because all my belief systems were all over the place but he was the only thing that I could really rely on so I didn't want to tell him anything so he was just seeing me as we were hitchhiking up up to Auckland he was just you know every now and then I'd just break down and I'd cry and I'd cry and I'd just be so upset and he he didn't know what was happening to me and I couldn't really tell him so it was just really really really really hard and absolutely horrible finally we got up to Auckland and I thought oh as soon as I get to that big city I'm gonna be sweet you know it's gonna be we're gonna be around all our group of friends again I'll just feel you know safe again I'll feel okay and everything will be fine but when that didn't happen when we connected with our friends when when I we put up our tent in another friend's backyard and so on and so on and everyone was there I it didn't make any difference and when that happened when I had another anxiety attack with all my friends you know around that was just breaking point completely I just went to my tent and just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and my my boyfriend came out to see me and at that point I just told him everything I said oh my god I just feel like I'm going crazy I'm having this happen to me and that happened to me and blah blah blah blah blah blah and he was really really good and he just said look you should go see someone spiritual about it seeing you're you're really struggling and because spirituality brought this on for you you know maybe someone spiritual can help you and I was like no I don't want anything to do with spirituality anymore spirituality has messed up my head I just want to go back to being normal I just want to be I just want to forget about it I'm not I'm not I'm not doing it anymore did that work out for me I bet you can answer that question so our travels ended and we went back I went back to my hometown and I thought when I get back to my hometown I'll be fine I'll have my family my parents you know I'll be able to do something kind of grounding I'll get back into my old routines and go out with the do the things I used to do I'll just go back to how I was it'll be fine and of course when I got back to my hometown I couldn't talk to my parents about what had happened oh my god they would not have understood understood anything so I couldn't do that and going out with my friends and doing the things that I used to do like going to parties and drinking going to town and you know going to nightclubs and and all that kind of stuff that the things that I used to find really really fun I just found them so empty it was like I'd seen above and beyond all this stuff and it was so shallow like there was you know my soul was longing for deeper meaning for a deeper connection for truth for clarity for something real you know and and all of that stuff was just it just didn't do it for me it felt yeah made me feel empty so I was stuck in between a rock and a hard place I didn't I didn't want to explore spirituality anymore because I didn't want to go back into hell because I had stopped having the anxiety attacks by this point but I was now just feeling flippin depressed because I couldn't do the spirituality and I couldn't go back to my normal life my normal life was was it wasn't there anymore it wasn't fulfilling anymore I changed so much and I'd grown so much and I'd woken up and the thing is when you wake up you can't go back to sleep it's not possible so I went to university that was my answer I'll go to university I'll go to university and I'll study something and I'll you know put my energy into that and and then I'll feel better so I went to university and and I know you know what I just felt empty even the lectures and everything they were teaching it was all just so it was just so just seemed like such bullshit it was it was just stuff designed to to make you a certain way so that you could fit into the system so that the system could do this so it was all controlling it was all just I don't know it just didn't feel honest and it didn't feel real and so I kind of struggled with that a bit I did all my stuff and everything but and I did all my work but I had that emptiness I just had that emptiness and finally after I don't know maybe nearly a year of that I said to myself that's this is it I've had enough I've I'm not doing this anymore spirituality clearly needs to be a part of my life because I'm not whole without it look at me I'm I'm so depressed I'm I feel awful I've never felt you know my life has never been like this I feel terrible so I'm going to have to go and face this I'm going to have to go and see someone spiritual I'm gonna have to talk about it and I'm just gonna have to face it so I did I booked a session with a spiritual counselor and I told her my story and she was so good it was amazing finally someone who knows someone wise someone awake could tell me I wasn't going crazy oh my god it was just such a relief and we did a few exercises and things and and yeah it was just made me feel so much better it was like I'd been holding on and holding on and holding on and holding on for so long and finally I could let go and just go oh yay I'm not going crazy I know and everything is actually okay it's actually is going to be okay oh what a relief and she just started the spiritual development circle a weekly group that you could go to and just practice spiritual development and things so I started going along to that and it was just amazing it was it was feeding me all the things that I've been so hungry for like actually learning how to operate as a spiritual being you know the meditations and and working with my feelings and understanding myself communicating with my guides all of these things that I was so hungry to learn everything that I could and I just feasted on spirituality on everything I could I could find out about everything from that point on and my life just became so amazing so much fun it was so wonderful and I felt it was like an enchanted paradise it was like an enchanted world everything was bright and light and filled with spirit everything had a meaning there was so many synchronicities you know I was this newly awakened soul exploring earth for the first time with these new eyes and I had all the support that I didn't have well you know when I first had that meditation and I first woke up I had no support around me so I couldn't I couldn't sustain that that reality I needed to ground myself and a new set of beliefs and I needed to work on myself and have these like-minded people around me that were really on my page and so yeah everything became really really beautiful and then I got the call from my soul to leave New Zealand and to go traveling and that is pretty much the end of my awakening story so after that I went I went traveling and I you know lots of in and outs and ups and downs and and all of that stuff and I've had four children now and done a lot of things and I still am 100% connected to that very first impulse energy that came to me in that meditation and I follow that calling and it leads me on these beautiful beautiful journeys and into these creative projects and my life truly is about sharing from that level of of spirituality from the awareness that there is much much more much more than this physical stuff that we see and when you start to know yourself as an eternal being having a physical experience everything changes and a lot of us are scared of of really making that change but there's no getting away from it because it's the process of evolution and we're all going to undertake it at some point and when we're ready we'll get the call just like I got the call when I was 19 through that meditation very loud and clear a slap in the blimmin' face call some people will not get such a in your face awakening like I got for others it's a gradual and slow process and you'll know when you are an awakened soul because you feel that curiosity and that calling towards spirituality that calling towards service and if that's how you feel I just want to really encourage you to carry on with that and because you're listening to this I'm pretty sure you must have had some kind of awakening so many many blessings to you on your journey many many blessings.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing your beautiful experience! Your journey is so inspiring!

Omw! Thank you for sharing your beautiful experience and awakening. I have been searching for my purpose my whole life (I'm 62) and am currently studying at the School of practical philosophy, trying to grasp and understand the enormity of what you have just described. I'm imagining all the people in the world waking up and how it would be a better place because of it. It truly is a wondrous thing and I continue on my journey to be awake and receptive. Thank you for you. With so much love. Jenny.

Hi Susan

From across the ditch Australia. You come highly recommended & I now know why 😁..

Thankyou for sharing your lifes journey. I understand.

I had to disconnect to my comforting sensory world to connect to the world outside me to go to school, I then queried every faith based system that crossed my path to finally return back home to my original childhood knowing..

I look forward to hearing more of your stories with heartfelt anticipation 😀 or perhaps a live. I hope so!

Namaste 🙏 💖🌸🪷🌷🌼🌻⚘️🏵

Such a passionate experience. Which book was it that you were reading which started this spiritual quest for you?

Thank you for sharing your story ! That is a blessing! I am so happy you found your calling when you got your awakening experience ! 🙏❤️

Very encouraging, thank you for sharing ❤

Thank you for sharing your intimate story. What was the book that first brought on your spiritual awakening? I'm also curious about what type of spiritual counseling you turned to in your renewed interest in spirituality and how did you come to select this source?

thank you for sharing your story!

Love that you shared your story ❤️