My Faith Journey: New Eyes

 If you know me, you know that curiosity rarely stops with one question. Give Alice a rabbit hole, and apparently, she will explore it.

Over the years, my search took me deeply into New Age, New Thought, metaphysical, and alternative spiritual teachings. I explored Reiki and energy healing, yoga philosophy, chakras and kundalini, manifestation, astrology, Human Design, meditation, breathwork, hypnosis, sound and frequency practices, dreamwork, Eastern philosophies, and teachings about higher or expanded consciousness. Some I encountered briefly. Others I studied, practiced, taught, or immersed myself in for years.

This wasn't casual curiosity. I pursued extensive training, read countless books, attended workshops and retreats, learned from many teachers, and eventually incorporated what I learned into my own work with others. I wasn't standing on the outside looking in. I was deeply immersed in it.

Much of it didn't feel dark or dangerous to me. Quite the opposite. It could feel peaceful, beautiful, fascinating, healing, and profoundly spiritual. I believed I was exploring the extraordinary relationship between the body, mind, consciousness, spirituality, and God.

Meditation, in particular, had been part of my life for decades. I first began exploring it as a teenager and formally learned Transcendental Meditation around the age of eighteen. Over the years, I visited ashrams, learned from different teachers and traditions, and spent countless hours in meditation, breathwork, and contemplative practices. Eventually, entering deeply relaxed or altered states of awareness became remarkably easy for me.

My attention had been trained inward for a very long time.

Yoga eventually became much more than physical movement. I explored yogic philosophy, meditation, pranayama, chanting, mudras, and teachings surrounding chakras and kundalini. Within the traditions I was studying, these weren't merely exercises; they could carry ideas about consciousness, subtle energy, devotion, and spiritual transformation.

And I had experiences that seemed to make those teachings real.

At times, I experienced extraordinary physical sensations—waves or rippling movements through my body, including a strange ladder-like sensation that is still difficult for me to describe. Within the framework I had learned, I interpreted experiences like these through the language of kundalini and energy moving through the body.

Reiki brought its own experiences. I often felt strong sensations in my hands, sometimes more distinctly in one hand than the other. I understood those sensations through the Reiki framework I had been taught: energy moving, being channeled, or my becoming a vessel through which healing could occur.

The sensations were real. What I now question is the meaning I assigned to them.

That distinction has become very important to me. A powerful bodily sensation doesn't necessarily tell me what caused it or what it means spiritually. Breathing, focused attention, repetitive movement, meditation, emotion, expectation, and nervous-system activity can all accompany profound bodily experiences. A sensation can be real without my interpretation of it being true.

Dreams became another world of exploration. For years, I treated dreamwork almost like a field of study—lucid and conscious dreaming, symbolism, archetypes, Jungian ideas about the collective unconscious, masculine and feminine imagery, spiritual messages, and what I sometimes interpreted as visitations or experiences beyond ordinary consciousness.

Eventually, that curiosity led me further into ideas about astral travel, nonphysical realms, and expanded states of awareness.

During the last couple of years, my exploration intensified through the Monroe Institute's Gateway material. I became deeply engaged with practices designed to explore consciousness beyond ordinary waking awareness. I was fascinated by how quickly I could enter those states, and I was preparing to go much further. I had even put down a deposit for an intensive week at the Monroe Institute.

Some of those experiences felt extraordinarily real.

And that eventually became part of the problem.

I had begun letting the intensity of an experience determine what I believed about it. If something felt peaceful, expansive, profound, synchronistic, or seemingly beyond explanation, I was inclined to believe the interpretation surrounding it.

The same thing happened with manifestation, intuition, energy work, and experiences that seemed to confirm what I was learning. Over time, I became increasingly confident in my own ability to understand what was happening spiritually. I even referred to myself as a “master manifester.”

There were times when I intentionally opened myself to whatever the universe might bring in, believing I was surrendering, becoming receptive, or allowing something greater to move through me.

Today, that language gives me pause.

Not because I need to deny everything I experienced. I don't have to deny an experience to question what I believed it meant.

I'm also learning that I don't have to assign spiritual power to everything that affects me. Breathing can simply be breathing. Movement can simply be movement. Music can move me deeply. Stillness can quiet my mind. Therapeutic touch can care for the body. Nature can fill me with wonder.

The deeper question became: What was I giving spiritual authority to?

By then, even familiar Christian words had taken on different meanings. Jesus could be described as a model of elevated consciousness. “Christ” could become a consciousness available to humanity. “I AM” could point toward discovering divinity within ourselves. Awakening and spiritual evolution could begin sounding remarkably similar to biblical transformation.

The words sounded familiar. The meanings had changed.

I hadn't recognized that shift while it was happening. I believed God had created an extraordinary universe and that perhaps I was simply discovering more of how it worked. But somewhere along the way, I had also begun placing tremendous trust in my intuition, my consciousness, my experiences, and the spiritual systems through which I interpreted them.

For years, I had been asking:

How much deeper can I go? What else is there to discover?

Now I found myself asking very different questions.

Where is this leading me?

How do I know that something is from God simply because it feels peaceful, profound, or real?

What am I giving spiritual authority to?

And ultimately:

Whose voice am I following?