67 Why Am I Regressing?

William responds to a listener, "I am on my awakening journey. It has been amazing the last few months. Deep awareness during waking hours. The silence has been so beautiful. Now I seem to have regressed. Meditation continues to be amazing flowing with acceptance, surrender and kundalini, etc. But when my eyes are open, I'm procrastinating, avoiding doing things, etc. Why can I experience myself as Awareness during meditation but not when I am active? Am I holding back? It used to be so easy."

Transcript

Hello everyone,

This is William Cooper.

Welcome to Awakening Together,

Relaxing into Happiness.

I trust your week has been going well.

Today I received an email from someone who has been listening to the recording of our live session,

But because of time zones is not able to participate.

She asked such a good question,

As all of you do,

That I thought I would do a podcast on her question since she couldn't participate live,

Especially since I think her question touches all of us.

I'll call her Bea.

Bea writes,

And I'm editing her email because it's a bit longer than I need it to be for a podcast.

Hi William,

I discovered your profile recently.

I'm listening to your latest Q&A from July 22nd now.

So good.

Thank you.

I'm in Sydney,

Australia.

Just wondering,

I'm on my awakening journey and it's been so amazing over the last few months.

I've been so deeply aware during my waking hours.

The silence has been so beautiful.

Now I seem to have regressed.

Seated,

Eyes closed,

Meditation times continue to be amazing and I'm totally in acceptance and surrender,

Kundalini,

Etc.

But when my eyes are open,

I'm procrastinating,

Avoiding doing things,

Etc.

Why can I stay in awareness during meditation?

And now,

When I used to be able to stay there more fully during my regular daily living,

Now I can't.

I'm suddenly unable to.

I seem to be holding back or something.

It used to be so easy.

I used to smile so much because I was aware.

I'm doing this now still,

But so much less.

So that's the question that many of us experience.

When I begin to realize myself and the wonders of who I am and what's flowing through me,

Suddenly I hit resistance and problems.

What's behind all this?

Great question,

B.

Let me explain.

In a nutshell,

We have two options.

We can twist ourselves and cover ourselves up and try to twist into fit into existence,

Into the shapes that are already formed in existence.

Like Jesus said,

We could put our light under a bushel basket.

We're trying to fit in the darkness of the cultural shapes in existence.

That's one option.

We try to fit in cultures,

Shapes and existence shapes.

The second option is we stand as ourselves.

We stay centered and the light that emanates from us being centered in ourselves is very powerful and existence fits itself around us.

Either we fit ourselves within existence or we let existence flow and fit around us.

Those are our two options.

What startles people since we're all new at this awakening thing,

Most likely what startles most of us is we can have awakening experience because our awareness,

Our beingness is always there.

It's always present.

And once we tune in,

Boom,

It's such a surprise.

Wow.

This is who I am.

The infinite has become me.

My shields and hurts and problems have begun to melt away and I just feel the radiant light flowing through my body,

My mind,

My emotions and my actions.

I'm more of a flow.

Once I flow,

Though,

How have I learned to be in the world?

All the years I've been in the world up to now have been shaped and conformed by my habits that I've built,

By the habits of society,

By the perspectives of society.

So initially in my initial waking experience,

I feel such relief and freedom.

But when I go to do something,

When I go to walk down the street,

I use the language that I've been taught.

I use the gestures that I've learned.

I use the psychological programing that's worked to me when I was cut off from myself.

It's worked for me.

So I use it because it's all I have.

It's all I've developed.

And when I use it,

I am enveloped in all that comes with it,

Which is a separation and a darkness.

And I start to feel depressed or anxious or cut off from myself because as we've talked about in prior podcasts,

I'm looking through the lens of my personality,

Which is dampening the light,

Which is cutting me off from myself.

It doesn't have to.

The personality doesn't have to cut me off from myself.

But before awakening,

It had cut me off from myself.

That's why I wasn't awakened.

Now,

As I recenter and I find my center,

I am coming from my heart and I am awake,

But mechanically,

Functionally,

I need a personality to get through life.

So I have to fit into it and it blocks me.

It covers me up.

And that's why I feel so enveloped as soon as I start to do something in the world,

Even though I am very awake when I sit still.

Why am I awake when I sit still?

Because I don't have to do anything.

I don't have to activate my personality.

I don't have to get inside of it.

I often use the example.

It's quite different to look at a bottle of wine than to drink a bottle of wine.

When you drink a bottle of wine,

You wake up drunk,

Everything becomes hazy.

It changes your perspective and your personality and your abilities.

You're wobbling through your day.

Perhaps you pass out.

If you just look at the bottle of wine,

You're fine.

Now,

In this analogy,

It breaks down a little bit because if you stay in your center as awareness and you are aware of everything around you,

You're aware of existence.

It actually begins to melt.

The bottle of wine will actually begin to melt and vaporize and melt down into its basic substance,

Which is consciousness.

And that consciousness is made of peace,

Love and well-being,

Which are the qualities of your being.

Everything,

Consciousness,

Everything is one.

Consciousness is one.

And it's the same thing as you are as you're watching it.

That's why the light of your awareness will break down anything that you're watching.

In meditation,

We're aware of our thoughts,

But we don't drink our thoughts like we don't drink the bottle of wine.

We don't get involved in them.

They'll be screaming for us to jump into them,

To think them,

To fantasize along with them.

But if we don't do that,

Just like we don't drink the bottle of wine,

We observe our thoughts they being even less substantial than a bottle of wine.

They begin to break apart and fall apart when they begin to fall apart.

They release everything that's been holding them together.

How did these thoughts and emotions get formed?

What formed them?

Well,

In separation,

There's a great amount of fear,

Hurt and anger,

Fear because I'm separated from myself,

Separation,

Anxiety,

Hurt or abandonment is because it feels like the universe has abandoned me.

I'm alone,

Existential angst.

I'm separated from myself.

So I've abandoned me and the infinite is me,

Which means the infinite has abandoned me.

So of course,

I feel hurt and I'm angry about the whole situation.

Life isn't so good.

So all of my thoughts,

Which I create,

I hallucinate thoughts,

I hallucinate emotions.

That means I create them.

They're coming from a substance of hurt,

Fear or anger.

And my thoughts and emotions are designed to try to overcome this existential separation,

This hurt,

Fear and anger.

I'm thinking things.

How do I get over this?

How do I get love?

How do I get safety?

How do I do this?

How do I do that?

That's what my thoughts are about.

So when they begin to fall apart,

They release what's holding them together,

Which is the hurt,

Fear and the anger.

So it's very uncomfortable when they fall apart.

That's why when people meditate,

They become discouraged because as they watch their thoughts and emotions,

They begin to fall apart and they feel the hurt coming out as they're melting.

Now,

Once they melt and they turn into their basic substance,

All that energy,

Peace,

Love and well-being that ultimately they're made of,

That flows through you and your aura becomes very strong.

The light within you becomes very strong.

And then existence begins to orient around you.

Life flows through you.

You don't willpower yourself through life.

You don't need to.

I need to have willpower to overcome my hurt,

To overcome my fear,

To get safe,

To get love,

To get happy,

To get fulfilled.

I need willpower.

I need positive thinking.

I need this and that and the other.

Not to put any of that down.

It has its place.

But in awakening,

You flow.

Your life shows up before your eyes and you flow.

You see clearly and the power that now is effortlessly flowing through you begins to reorient all that consciousness and it begins to form new objects around you.

But instead of being formed out of separation,

These new objects are formed through support of you,

Through an extension of you.

So that's the difference between creating through awakening and creating through separation.

I bring all this up because as you awaken,

You still have all the objects that were created from your separation and that's what's giving you the problem.

They're the only objects and the only tools you have to get through your life today.

So you have to compromise in a sense.

You might have to use some tools that aren't so good just to buy yourself time until you can fully create new tools once you have awakened.

So it puts you into an odd position,

B.

It puts you into this position where you're awake and radiant and the energy flowing through you,

Which we call Kundalini,

Is bursting and vibrant and joy and love and power.

Yet when you put your personality into gear,

It doesn't mesh because it's coming from a different place.

So it's like,

As my friend Jesus said,

In order to experience the Kingdom of God,

You have to be born again.

And that threw everybody into its hizzy.

They couldn't figure it out.

But it's exactly what you're experiencing,

B,

In your awakening.

You've been born again.

That's why when you sit still in meditation,

It's like you're a newborn babe,

But you don't know how to walk anymore.

You haven't learned to walk properly from the perspective of flowing.

You've learned previously how to walk through the perspective of pushing through willpower because you were in a world of separation.

Now you've been born again and you're a baby.

So just like a baby,

You have to do baby steps.

You use the tools that you've developed in the past just to get to the grocery store to feed yourself,

To go to work,

To do the things you have to do.

But hold them lightly.

Don't take them seriously.

And you'll begin to discard them as soon as you create other tools to replace them.

In Buddhism,

They might call that skillful means.

You develop more skillful ways to do things,

To respond to people,

To express your light.

Then the old means that were formed through separation in the past.

B goes on to say in her beautiful email to me that from her place of awakening,

Music is flowing through her and she plays the piano beautifully and in full acceptance and flow and every note is a beauty.

And she loves that and she wants to record that and offer it to the public.

In her case on Insight Timer.

But the flowing part,

She can do that.

In her being born again,

She is able to do those baby steps and they're beautiful.

But to do the next layer out,

How to get it on Insight Timer,

How to do the computer things,

The uploading things,

All of these mechanical things,

It doesn't flow.

And I imagine there are many things in your life B that do not flow because they're from the old way of doing things.

So what can I say?

Be kind to yourself.

Relax.

You don't have to figure out everything all at once.

One guru,

A side guru,

What he recommends is just feel your awakening and stay there without any conceptualization of trying to get better at things,

Trying to even do anything like,

How do I talk to my neighbor or how do I go to the grocery store?

Don't even mess with that.

How do I deal with the situation at work or how do I do?

No,

Just give yourself grace and tell yourself you don't know how to do these things.

You just don't and you don't need to know how.

You're just enjoying awakening.

And have you noticed in your awake state,

You don't need to get good at things because you're already happy.

You already feel good.

So at that point,

It only comes down to why do I have to do anything?

Well,

I have to feed myself.

I have to do the next obvious thing to get through some of the practical things I have to do in my life.

Well,

That's where you give yourself grace and stay in your center.

Don't feel like you have to do it perfectly because you don't know how to.

You're a baby.

Just take the next obvious step and do what you can.

And yes,

You will utilize the old tools that maybe are not elegant.

Maybe they're not skillful,

But they do get you a loaf of bread and you can't eat again.

And then you learn the more flowing ways and you replace the old ways with the more flowing ways.

And as you observe the old ways,

They break down,

They fall apart and they break down into their basic elements,

The qualities of being peace,

Love,

Well-being.

I think it's Galatians,

If we want to go back to the Bible.

And today we're talking about Jesus and Bible.

I think it's Galatians 5 23 talks about the fruits of the Spirit and the first probably five qualities are the qualities of being love,

Peace,

Well-being.

I don't remember them,

But you can read them.

And then it goes into the actions that flow from there.

Kindness,

Patience,

Things like forbearance,

Things like that.

Well,

That's how you will reorient.

And that's what Jesus was talking about.

That's also what Buddha was talking about.

That's what all those Hindu saints were talking about.

That's what the Muslim saints were talking about.

It's all the same thing,

But different traditions speak about it differently.

You are being born again is the point.

I would like to add this,

Though,

That a little while ago I said you'd have two options.

You can try to fit your light into the darkness of existence,

Into the existing structure of existence,

Or you can stay centered in your light and let existence fit itself around you,

Express you.

Those are your two options.

As we talked about,

When you rest in your center as yourself and let the infinite flow through you,

The structures that already exist and our current existence break down into their basic qualities,

Peace,

Love,

And well-being,

And they reform as objects that better express you.

If you choose the option to fit into the existing structures of existence,

They will remain as the existing structures.

They will not change.

Because if you just sort of fit yourself down those twisting tubes and cubes and different shapes and you twist yourself to fit that shape and you twist yourself into a pretzel,

You're not harming the shape.

You're harming you.

You're twisting to accommodate the twisted shape.

That just fortifies them.

That encourages them in an energetic sense.

They get very tough and hard.

That's what most of us have done for hundreds of thousands of years.

That's why those structures are so hard.

They seem so real,

Don't they?

Oh,

That thing seems real.

Miracles are simply when you rest in your center and you stay there and the old structures begin to fall apart.

It looks to the casual observer like,

Wow,

That's a miracle.

How could that happen?

We're used to the old structures just staying put.

But now that just vaporized as poof and suddenly healing replaced the illness or whatever other kind of miracle that seemingly is happening.

I use the word seemingly because it's all very predictable.

It's just unusual because most of us don't rest in our center.

Bea has found her center and she's now grappling and learning to rest in her center despite the objects that still exist around her.

Good job,

Bea.

So,

Bea,

Thank you so much for your question.

And as I encourage Bea,

If you can't make the live sessions,

Send me an email and I will just read your email if I feel like it applies and is appropriate for that session.

I'll read it in the very beginning of the live session.

I'll take your name out of it,

But I'll read it and then I'll respond to it that way.

And you can listen to it when I post the live session,

Which is usually the next week after we have the live session.

So you're free to do that as well.

How do you email me?

Well,

On whatever platform you're listening to this podcast,

Go to my profile and you'll see my website.

Go to my website and go under the resources tab and you'll find my email.

You might find my email on the profile of the platform that you're listening to,

But different platforms do it different ways,

But I think they all have my website.

So send me an email if you'd like.

Okay.

I look forward to talking to you again.

Take care.

Bye.

Reviews

I’m so glad this woman asked this question because I feel the same way.. And I appreciate your answer… I understand your answer. How our personality and our culture has so much influence consciously, and unconsciously on our awakening. Thank you.💕🌞🩷💜🌈💕🌞🩷💜🌈💕🌞

Thank you William, I found this one particularly helpful at the moment - thanks for the question B

Devine timing! What you describe here is exactly what my personality has been up to. I am a teacher at heart and the “I MUST reteach what I have learned or am learning” is at conflict with the voice I hear that keeps saying “Do nothing!” And “Baby steps” is so aptly name because we are like babies in our awakening. Like “B” I am inventing protocols in my head for helping clients, but then I find myself walking, riding my bike, and doing other things to help in my physical recovery. First things first, right? Do nothing, relax, notice the shifts in perception and enjoy the now. Thank you for this beautiful explanation of what is happening as we travel this path or stand in the river (whatever metaphor works 🤩).

This was an excellent topic. I enjoy hearing what resonates with others and what they are working on. It definitely helps us all. 🙏🏾🌸🙏

That was fantastic… what a terrific question and response. Very uplifting.
Thanks for another great one!!! 😊
~ Jennifer

Thank you 🙏