My Spiritual Coming Out

This is vulnerable.

You may have seen that Court VonLindern and I are offering a spiritual community building event this Friday called Recaliming g*d.

The truth is I have been shy about promoting this event because I knew it meant I would have to put a very precious and important part of myself out in the world as I never have before.

So here goes…

For a lot of my life, including in my childhood, I felt like a yearning spiritual seeker. I was raised in a rigorously atheist household by my devoted single dad and though I have thrived in many ways both as a child and adult, I’ve also felt an emptiness that I knew could only be filled by a deeper spiritual connection. As I struggled with this, I also struggled with a deep-seated terror surrounding death, a scary suspicion that I might be a selfish and unlovable person, and a chronic feeling of loneliness.

And, though these feelings were mostly alleviated whenever I had a strong sense of community, they returned regularly as my communities naturally dissolved or other transitions happened.

Nothing fundamentally changed until five years ago. The constancy of these feelings had mixed with the pressure of my COVID quarantine experience and some very difficult life circumstances including almost dying in a car accident, shockingly being laid off from a beloved job, my marriage and my relationship with my mom (who lived with us) completely rupturing at the same time, and experiencing debilitating neuropathy in my hands.

All of these events compounded the stress of one another and 2020-2023 were easily the most distressing and lonely years of my life. And, I suffered pretty secretively, even from my own awareness at times, though those closest to me could see it.

A journal entry I just found from this time

I was so desperate for something to significantly change, but in order for that change to come…

I had to totally break open, to come completely undone. I had to admit to myself that I had no idea what to do, that I needed serious help.

And, I had to cast a wide net and be open to all kinds of new ways of being supported.

And something very interesting happened. Most of the people who ended up helping me heal were tapped into a strong relationship with g*d/Spirit. This included people already in my life who began to reveal their spiritual lives to me for the first time, many of whom are guarded in who they share this with—something I would come to understand.

Through getting support from others, I gained the courage to hold grief rituals for myself with the support of nature, music, and occasionally, the healing spirit of the Marijuana plant. These rituals became a nearly daily practice for months and acquainted me with the most exquisitely merciful divine presence I could possibly fathom.

‍ ‍One of the grief altars at our recent Commuity Grief Ritual

My grief became a portal to what I now know would become a profound spiritual awakening that would lift my connection to the divine to the very centerpiece of my life.

I started to experience a growing feeling of peace, of connection, and of faith in myself and in life.

For about a year, I was terrified that it would go away, that I would lose this connection.

And while I do still feel worried, overwhelmed, sad, and lonely for community sometimes, the fear of death has remained absent, the question of whether I’m lovable continues to feel absolutely absurd, and most the time, I feel very held and accompanied, whether I’m “alone” or with others.

Other things started to change. I started weeping in public all the time, because I am so often deeply moved by witnessing mundane life. I started laughing WAY WAY more. The shame around resting and doing “nothing” went away. I started pooping better. I started looking people in the eyes and framing my chest toward them more while talking to them. Anxious animals started being drawn to me. My relationship with my dad improved so much I’m crying right now thinking about it. I set boundaries with my mom that eluded me for years. My relationship with my childhood best friend of 30 years became a much more intimate and rewarding focal point of my attention and care.

I could go on and on about what is in process of healing and relaxing in me. It is a continual unfolding and becoming.

Fundamentally: I’ve learned how to love myself as I am and am learning more every day how to love life as it is.

Then just this last May, a very startling and horrible thing happened. After a year of investing a ton of time, energy and money in the my first year in the U of Montana’s graduate school of counseling program, I was pretty spontaneously removed from the program by the faculty. This is another story that I am not going to go into here.

The salient piece here is that this incredibly undesirable event did hurt my finances, increase my stress, and intensely destabilize my sense of direction temporarily, but it didn’t even come close to hurting my self-esteem nor my faith in life. In fact, it strengthened both. And, it continues to do so in wild and unpredictable, hilarious ways.

I know why I am strengthened. All through this time, I have tended my relationship with g*d and with the divine in all of us, in all things, consistently throughout every day. I have been shown by the divine spirit how to live a relational and praise-full life. And I am held in interdependent relationships with other spiritually awake humans.

One of my favorite ways to practice devotion is in a hammock

For me, spiritual life tending includes an eclectic variety of daily devotional, contemplative, and creative practices by myself and with others. It is the only “wellness” practice I haven’t had to nudge myself to do, because, as I have hopefully demonstrated, the tangible rewards are so immense. And over time, it has become as natural and habitual feeling to me as sleeping or eating. I am no longer afraid of losing this feeling or this connection even when I am struggling. Actually, especially when I am struggling, because that’s when it tends to grow.

Over the last two years, I’ve intensively researched and read about mystical experiences to better understand and relate to my experiences. And, though this is not everyone’s story, many mystics throughout time and across the world have experienced their spiritual awakening in the depths of their “dark night of the soul.” And the things I am experiencing in the dark night’s wake are very common in others who have powerful, yet also grounding spiritual awakenings.

In other words, I’ve learned that I am not unique. Many people have these kinds of spiritual awakenings when they get a terminal illness diagnosis or experience a prolonged period of intense despair and isolation.

For many of us we, have to heal our heartbrokenness by truly breaking a part and letting a life far beyond our imagination and perception sew us back together.

This is obviously the short version of my entire life story, but is the longest thing I’ve published on the internet and If you made it this far, I sincerely thank you for reading. It means a lot.

Maybe you understand more now why I am beginning to embark in offering spaces for interfaith spiritual tending in community, it obviously means everything to me. It’s why I am partnering with Court VonLindern, who has a profoundly intimate relationship with g*d that is very different from mine. I love engaging in devotional practice with Court, because what feels the same is the power and profundity of the relationship to g*d/the divine we each experience. And, our own connection to g*d is amplified when we experience it together, across our differences.

So, if any of this resonates with you, or provokes any longing or curiosity, I hope you will join us this Friday for our first offering together, Reclaiming g*d. And either, way, I would really love to hear from you and any thoughts or feelings this stirred up.

Contact me at JP@touchandchange.me