Believe it or not, my divorce has been the most spiritually rising experience of my life. Who’d of thought, huh? I guess depending on the kind of marriage one had, what one went through and how invested one was, well that could assist in determining the transformation on the other side.
It’s different for everyone, I think. Depending on your past, your childhood, etc. We are vastly different, but we are more the same. We have something in common. The pain. Gotta love pain, huh? The pain is what flipped me upside down and turned me inside out.
The pain. It cuts you down to the roots, pours gasoline on what’s left of you, lights you on fire and tells you you’re dead. How we get to this pain, that’s not what matters, what matters is that we all feel it. We all share it. And we all use it as motive, as cause, as an excuse, as however we choose. But we use it, nonetheless. Some use it as an excuse to die. Some use it as a reason to rise from the ashes, and grow back stronger and more beautiful than ever. Rise up or die, really.
I am a spiritual being, well we all are, but the difference is, we don’t all believe that. I’ve always known deep down that I am not me, as in the human, me. I am the spirit, me. I use to look in the mirror as a child, I’ll never forget. I use to get so close to the mirror that my nose would touch it. I’d look myself dead in the eye and say, “who are you?” Then I’d answer back to myself and say, “I am me.” I’d close my eyes and recite the same sentence over and over again, ” I-am-me, I-am-me, I-am-me” until I’d have this kind of out of body separation of my spirit and my humanness. It would jolt me and then I’d snap back, open my eyes and shake it off. It was like my connection to the real me, the one I can’t actually see. I’ve always known I am more. I am something deeper, I am aware. I am awake.
Let me tell you, being aware; being awake, well, that’s some scary shit. It comes at a cost when you live in a world where most people are asleep. It’s frightening and eventually you fall asleep, too.
Being asleep in this world means buying into ideas that humans have invented, made up and sold to all of us. For instance, the idea of marriage and its all encompassing rules, namely not to get a divorce. You marry once, you stay together no matter what, and you are happy because you stayed and “worked through” the struggles of your problems. Otherwise you’re looked at as damaged, or used up, or a royal fucked up failure.
From a spiritual standpoint and someone who is awake, this is the silliest concept I’ve ever heard. First of all, what is marriage? Who made it up? And what does it aim to achieve? Oneness? Partnership? Wholeness? companionship? Yea, all of those, I’m sure. But do you need marriage to have it? And if not marriage, do you need one lasting relationship to achieve this?
Is it mandated as a requirement in the bible? Another human idea that was invented, and sold to us as a true, material piece of proof that God exists and faith is real. Now, a piece of history, as its literal or hypothetical existence has been around for centuries, denying it, or saying “no thank you” is practically seen as a form of disrespect.
Well, I know that God does exist, except maybe I don’t call it God, or maybe I do. And my faith? It’s loud and strong, but doesn’t follow a text or rulebook. My faith is led by my gut, it is led by intuition, by my spiritual power. And it is real because I feel it. It is love and it is warm and graceful and yummy!
So why didn’t I feel this when I was asleep? I mean, I was following a lot of the rules. I was married, young at that. I had babies, in which they say you don’t get much closer to God than that unless you’re dead. I was a good person. I worked really hard and did all the things. I stuck out hard times and tried to find resolution after resolution, to the same problems over and over, so what gives?
Why was I the most asleep I’d ever been and yet I was doing all the right things, according to the rule makers?
Well, I guess it’s because I bought the ideas. I used the inventions and believed the lies. I was trained to sleepwalk through my life so that I wouldn’t really know it’s all a crock of shit. I was told this is what would make me happy. And I was terrified to wake up. You know those milliseconds where you see through the smoke and mirrors and it all becomes so clear until the fog machine is turned on full blast to cover it up, and you’re told you didn’t really see anything at all? In those moments, those milliseconds, those are your chances to wake up. They happen often, you just have to choose to see them, and then you have to choose to wake up. But I get it, it’s terrifying, because that would mean change. That would mean breaking the rules. That would mean pain.
For me, the inevitable happened, as it always does to the ones who had been put to sleep after being wide awake, I woke up for the last time. And my spiritual self said, “What the actual fuck kind of bullshit is this? Do you really think you were placed on this earth to just abide by rules that people created for you in order to keep you in line? NO! You are a spiritual being, bound by nothing! Not marriage, not jobs, not bosses, not education, not money. You are bound by one thing, other spiritual beings! And that is ALL that matters! Learn from your spiritual partners and GROW!”
I see articles, and social media posts every day speaking of the amazing marriages people have. I see praising words about how two people stuck it out for 25 years and have become so happy because they stayed in their marriage. Reasons vary from relationship to relationship, but kids and faith seem to be strong winners of reason. “Stay for the kids! The kids will suffer if you don’t stick it out. You’ll go to hell! This won’t please God!” Yes, the kids are affected but how they are affected all depends on the relationship between the spiritual beings involved. And God, well he’s actually cheering on your self-preservation, perseverance and is your number one fan, but I don’t need to tell you that.
I love seeing people overcome feats. I love seeing unhealthy people get healthy. I love seeing lessons learned and growth come from adversity, but it’s not because you stayed married. Hopefully it’s because two spiritual beings learned something from one another and chose to continue on that path. But marriage, marriage is an institution that I believe in if you want to show commitment. But I also believe in divorce if two people have outgrown that commitment. I believe in change. I believe it is OKAY to change! I believe it is NECESSARY to change! I believe it is IMPERATIVE to change! Without it, we are stagnant spirits with a lot of catching up to do.
Staying in a troubled marriage doesn’t mean you win a war. Staying in a marriage that is aching to break doesn’t mean you beat the system, it’s just a choice you’re making, not wrong, not right. Maybe that choice stunted your growth, maybe that choice was your growth.
But society? These humans? They will praise you for staying. And who doesn’t want to be praised?
If you believe in the tradition of marriage, then you probably don’t believe in divorce. If you believe in the ritual of expressing commitment in its highest regard, you probably believe in marriage. And maybe you don’t mind getting divorced one day. Whatever it may be, a commitment is beautiful and sacred and is very, very real when it’s made. But my point is, we are not humans in our greatest form, we are spiritual beings who need to change in order to transcend. And if on your journey, your commitment changes, and you must walk away in order to grow, that is so fucking ok. And you’re doing everything right!
Appetite for Honesty 