Waking Up: The Transformative Power
of Momentous Life Events

Part I of a two-part teaching

Waking up is healing because it brings new understandings and purpose to our life. It focuses our attention on what really matters.

KABOOM! You have had an emotionally explosive event that shattered your current reality or you have experienced an incident that moved you so deeply it dramatically shifted your inner reality to a more loving and expansive one. Either way, you make a choice. Either you choose not to make changes in your outer or inner life and thus remain the same, or you choose to wake up and modify your life so that it is different from what it was. If you choose to wake up, you will not be the same person.

Having a “WOW” effect, a kaboom immediately gets our attention because it has a distinctive voice, sound, feeling, quality, or visual image. It can either be loud and dramatic, or quiet and subtle. A kaboom can motivate us to change how we live our lives, to challenge what we believe to be true or not true, and to examine how we relate to humanity and the planet. Events that can trigger a kaboom are endless. For example, we can experience a kaboom as an upheaval or trauma, perhaps a cancer scare, emergency surgery, the death of a child or partner, an accident, a painful illness, or an unkind comment from a family member. A kaboom can also come from an inspiring book, an insight, a healing experience, helpful words from another, or an experience of unconditional love from a pet.

Kabooms are unexpected, coming out of left field. Our reactions to kabooms are typically strong and irrational. Intense emotions often overwhelm us. We rant and rave, sob with abandonment, cry tears of joy, or feel a peaceful glow in our heart. Regardless of what form a kaboom takes, it can potentially strip away a negative belief, a haphazard way of life, or a relationship that no longer serves our physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual wellbeing.

Having a “WOW” effect, a kaboom immediately gets our attention because it has a distinctive voice, sound, feeling, quality, or visual image.

For many, waking up after a kaboom is followed by a major shift in their physical, psychological and/or spiritual development. Parts of ourselves have been in denial or asleep. We might have been unaware of what forces were inhibiting, restricting, and distorting our motivations. Are we replaying a past, negative event? Do we have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde within us? What within us needs to be awakened so we can choose a life of joy, unconditional acceptance, honesty, and integrity? Are we ready to forgive by learning from our hurtful experiences? What philosophy of life wants to emerge? What is the hidden masterpiece within us that wants to be revealed?

My most notable wake-up kaboom occurred when I decided I needed to leave my marriage. My reality was shattered and I was emotionally and spiritually devastated. What I thought was true was not. What I had forced to make true I discovered could never be true. Without a doubt, I knew I needed to wake up and focus on healing my lifelong emotional wounds. I eventually gained a deep appreciation of emotional pain from this experience and was able to transform my understanding into serving others by being able to provide them with insight and comfort.

I experienced a different kind of kaboom when I was getting my doctorate degree at Northwestern University. Because of intense anxiety about my ability to succeed, I was seriously considering leaving the program. Quite unexpectedly, a person I had worked with in Alaska contacted me, saying she was immediately flying to Chicago to meet with me about something very important. When we met, she asked if I was thinking about dropping out of the doctoral program. Her question surprised me as I had told no one of my possible decision. When I said “Yes,” she said, “You are not to do that. You need to complete your degree in order to accomplish what you came on earth to do.” With her message delivered, she immediately flew back to Alaska. Her unexpected message woke me up. I recognized the truth of her comment and continued my studies.

Waking up clears our mind and opens our heart because it clarifies our motivations, our decisions, our wishes, and helps us define how we want to be, what we want to do, and what actions we want to take to bring the change about. Waking up is healing because it brings new understandings and purpose to our life. It focuses our attention on what really matters. Most of us have many kabooms in our life. Our challenge is to welcome the potential transformation that can come with each one. Our life becomes a series of kabooms that again and again transform our reality from what was so to what now is.

Most of us have many kabooms in our life. Our challenge is to welcome the potential transformation that can
come with each one.

In my last blog teaching, I wrote about the current transition from Piscean to Aquarian values. We are on the brink of a major evolutionary challenge on our planet. Old organizational structures and belief systems are collapsing around us. Global warming is threatening our planet’s survival. All on the planet – humans, animals, nature, even Mother Earth herself – are experiencing intense stress and fear about the unknown future.

The good news is that masses of people are experiencing kabooms that are serving to wake them up to Aquarian values. A few of the transformations now occurring on our planet because people are waking up to Aquarian values are shifts:

• from competition to cooperation
• from territorial priorities to global priorities
• from being head-focused to being heart-oriented
• from individual needs to group needs
• from superiority of masculine energy to partnership of masculine and feminine energy
• from separation to unity
  
  

What supports our waking up? Keep it simple. Take one day at a time, one experience at a time. Make a choice to change one thing every day. Persevere. Don’t give up. Don’t waste time worrying or giving power to fear rather than trust. Use each life experience as an opportunity to choose another way. Serve others by showing them another way, which you can do because you have been learning how to do that for yourself.

We must remember that there is one purpose for recognizing and learning from the kabooms in our lives. That purpose is to discover and remember to “sing the song of Divine Light” – the topic of Part II, my next blog teaching.

Identify kabooms in your life that you particularly treasure. Describe how they have served you personally and how they have served others.

Share with me what you experienced as you work with the Reflection exercise, or just say hello and let me know if you are finding my blog of value.
Email me HERE.

Photo Attribution: "Blue Fireworks (the Finnish Fireworks Championship 2007 in Helsinki)" by Neurovelho (31 August 2007), via Wikimedia Commons.