wendyboode

The Science of Spirituality   Living as a spiritually awakening person in Western society has been one of the most profound and challenging experiences of my life. I’ve faced many trials before, but none have transformed me so completely or called me to live with such depth, presence, and courage.   I didn’t expect awakening to feel so disorienting. When your inner reality shifts, the outer world appears almost unfamiliar. Everything is re-contextualized, your values, your relationships, even the way you see time and truth. The veil lifts, and suddenly you’re living in a world that few others around you seem to recognize. It’s beautiful and bewildering all at once.   The most difficult part of this transition has been navigating relationships. On one hand, making new connections is easier than ever. I feel more compassionate, more present, and more open to learning from others. I’m drawn to spiritually awake or awakening souls, people with whom I can have real, soul-nourishing conversations about the nature of existence, healing, and life purpose.   At the same time, old relationships, especially with family or long-standing friends, have often become strained. Early on, I believed those closest to me would understand what was happening to me. I assumed they would be curious, supportive, or at least open-minded. But awakening isn’t contagious like that. It’s deeply personal and often invisible to others. I quickly learned that most people are not yet ready to see what I now see, and maybe they never will.   At first, this hurt. I didn’t yet understand the inner workings of the mind, the unconscious patterns behind behaviour, or how deeply conditioned we all are, myself, included. But as I studied the mind and observed my own reactions, and those of others, I developed a kind of compassionate x-ray vision. I began to see the pain behind defensiveness, the fear behind control, the longing beneath the masks we wear. It was humbling. And healing.   If you have relationships that feel draining, are chaotic, or full of friction, I gently encourage you to pause and examine what’s really happening. Not from a place of judgment, but from a place of loving observation. Good science begins with curiosity, and you, yourself, are the best subject you’ll ever study.   As I was delving into neuroscience and many coaching techniques, a mentor suggested I become my own first client. So I did, and it was illuminating, and again, very healing.   I asked: What is motivating this dynamic between myself and this person? What does my body feel like around this person? Tension, dread, anxiety, anger, these are not trivial sensations. They are signals.   Conversely, notice who makes you feel light, joyful, and calm. We naturally gravitate toward those who lift us, who reflect back the wholeness we’re stepping into. That’s not selfish, it’s soul-guided. Not all relationships are meant to last forever. Some are simply chapters. Some are lessons. And some must be lovingly released.   One of the hardest but most liberating truths I’ve learned is this: no one is entitled to your energy simply because of shared history or shared blood. Love does not require self-abandonment. A wise teacher once told me, “Some people must be cut from your life like a cancer, or they will consume you.” That was not said with cruelty, but with deep compassion for the sacredness of one’s path.   And yet, I hold great tenderness in my heart for those who are not yet awake. We are all on our own timelines, and awakening cannot be forced. It’s not about superiority, it’s about remembering who we truly are. I now see un-awakened people not as “others,” but as future allies, walking their own necessary steps through the fog. I’ve been there too. We all have.   That’s why I feel so grateful to be awake now, in this time of global upheaval and transition. There is so much suffering in the collective field, but also so much potential for transformation. I feel I was given this awakening not just for myself, but so I can help others cross the threshold when they are ready. So, I can be a lighthouse in the storm. I knew this the same day I experienced my first profound transformation with sacred plant medicine, I knew I had found my calling.   Discerning authentic connection from superficial interactions has become both a spiritual practice and a kind of joyful experiment. I use life as my laboratory. Relationships as my curriculum. And every interaction, every trigger, every goodbye becomes another opportunity to practice presence, compassion, and love.   Awakening has brought challenges, yes. But it has also brought awe. It has brought gratitude, and a fierce devotion to being of service in this tender, extraordinary time on Earth.   If this speaks to your heart, stay tuned, I’ll be sharing more reflections on the wonder, mystery, and transformation that awakening continues to bring.   If you’d like to receive more posts like this directly to your inbox, leave your email below and walk this path with me. We’re all waking up together.   https://boodeful.com/contact/

  What is Spiritual Awakening?   I have always been interested in the written word. I LOVE writing, literature, non-fiction mostly, poetry, theatre, even spoken word, you name it, I’ve been enamoured since I was a little girl. I’m a life-long journal writer and I read voraciously. I practically fell in love with every English teacher I ever had, especially if they were passionate about what they did.   When I write about spiritual awakening, however, I find myself at a loss for words.    The very nature of “it” is ineffable, esoteric to the core. Thousands of spiritual teachers, Gurus, Monks and seekers have been trying to explain it for centuries and many of them have been successful in evoking the feeling and the meaning of what it is, giving us a beautiful picture of the wonder and awe of it. I am so thankful for their words of wisdom.   But words cannot really explain accurately, what exists outside of language. It’s like trying to teach a toddler calculus. There’s no common ground, no starting point that you can reference and expand upon. It does not compute for the tot. They have no concept that something called calculus exists, they just look at you and then go find something to play with that they can understand. You can’t even start with one plus one because that’s beyond their comprehension, too.   So, this is what tends to happen to me when I try to describe spiritual awakening to someone who has no prior metaphysical understanding of the world.   What is absent is the understanding with which to comprehend the concept of non-duality, self-transcendence , self-actualization or enlightenment.   Early in my awakening, in my eagerness to learn more, I would often engage people in conversations about the existential nature of reality. I was so very curious.  But I would often get blank stares……silence…..crickets.    How does one describe the infinite oneness of the universe to someone who has only ever believed that they were separate from it? How do I explain that we are all consciousness itself, that we are all one and the same thing when everyone thinks they are unique and couldn’t possibly be the same as their neighbour, or their enemy?    So, although it is very difficult to explain spiritual awakening, I love to try, because it is my Dharma to help others awaken so that we all may live in a world filled with infinite love instead of infinite suffering. It has been a huge life lesson for me in cultivating compassion, and for meeting people where they are.   During my awakening, my 3rd eye opened, my Ajna chakra was activated, and things became known to me. I can’t really explain it any other way. They are known as “downloads”.   I became aware of the mechanisms that drove me, pre-awakening, which I lovingly call my sleep-walking years. I understood so much more about life, death, society and humanity, and many things that once perplexed me, became crystal clear.    I truly understand what love is now, the true meaning of Love. Not the romantic kind of love you would feel for a partner or spouse, nor even the deep, caring kind of love you feel for your child, if you can imagine that. This is a total, soulful love that is infinite, a love without limits, an unconditional love that fills you completely and expands you to infinite heights and depths of being.   What came over me was this amazing sense of having discovered a part of myself, a very intimate and beautiful part, that I never knew existed. In actuality, I became a different person, I have a completely different perspective on reality. It’s delicious and sweet and exciting beyond measure.   A huge percentage of people living in the world today, believe deeply in a materialist, scientific, rational paradigm, as I did I. I was unaware that there were other paradigms, unaware that this one I held as the “truth” was actually very far from the Truth, and conversely, it was actually a very limited way of looking at the world. I was shocked into a new perspective, shocked by how much I didn’t know before, and I was so thankful for this gift of sudden awareness!   In the West, we are programmed to desire things from a very early age. We are convinced that to be happy, we should want to live in a nice house and drive a cool car, we should want to achieve success, we should want to acquire wealth and possessions. These outward “signs” of success.   We are fed this ideology through every possible avenue of distribution since birth. We absorb it from our culture, our parents, our religious leaders, our schoolteachers, our professors, our media outlets, our friends, our entertainment. This becomes our reality, and it seems so convincingly real that we never question it, unless we find ourselves unhappy despite having it all, as happens so often in our society. This was my experience.   Most people NEVER question this reality, and really, why would you? It’s like being a fish in a tank, the fish doesn’t notice it’s swimming in water. That is its reality. It doesn’t know that there’s something called “air” outside the tank, the fish doesn’t even know air or earth are things that exist.   This is the kind of feeling you have when you awaken, you get to peer outside of the tank and witness a whole other universe that you heretofore, were completely unaware of. It’s mind-bending.   It’s so completely foreign and yet so absolutely perfect and natural. It’s the biggest A-Ha moment you will ever experience. You come to know that what you thought was “real” is actually not, and you see that there is so much more to life than what you have been taught.   Much, much more.   Spiritual awakening is a catalyst for profound positive change in your life. I have a deep desire now to live