The Serendipity of my Spiritual Practice & Life Experiences

I have embarked upon a path of individuation unknowingly since the year 2018. This occurred due to an existential question I had asked myself at the time. I was 22 years old, having graduated college, working in health care administration, and not happy with the life I had built for myself.

Would this be it?

Is this all I have worked for?

“Challenging the meaning of life…is rather the truest expression of the state of being human, the mark of the most human nature in man,” and this very expression of humanness is what led me to question my purpose, and guided me to the point where I am at today (Frankl, 1986).

From a young age, I was conditioned to do the “right thing,” to think of others and their comfort before my own, and to keep the peace amongst those around me at all cost. At first it was hard for me to accept I chose this for myself, but as I grew older I realized that these challenges and conditionings helped mold me into the person I am today.

These challenges were the breadcrumbs that lead me to the life I’m living today.

Some people believe that you were born with your whole life planned before you. Others believe that you have full control of shaping your own destiny once you are alive on Earth. I believe it’s a mixture of both, some perfect blend of destiny (free-will via inspiration) and fate (unchangeable life circumstances).

Has it been my destiny and my fate to do the right thing, think of others' comfort above my own, and to keep the peace? These are qualities I was born with and situations I have chosen for myself. Over time, these three conditionings also forced me to take the necessary action to find what the meaning for my own authentic life is.

Acting in a way to put other people’s well-being before my own caused me to question what my purpose was. I used to think about this trait as a part of my fate, because I felt I had no control over this, but eventually I saw it as part of my own destiny. If it wasn’t because I chose to put others before myself at a young age, I would have never reached a point in my life where I would question my own actions and motivations. Eventually, my focus went from fulfilling others needs to fulfilling my own. This caused me to pivot my life direction and purpose to the one I am currently navigating at this time.

The question of destiny versus fate is one that I have discussed with friends in the past, and it’s fascinating how everyone can come to different conclusions. It seems apparent that the definitions people give are in alignment with their morals and values, or the religious and spiritual beliefs they may have. It also seems to reflect any positive or negative connotations people have over their life experience. Someone that cannot take responsibility for their actions and may often play the part of being a victim could not possibly agree with the fact that an aspect of their life is in fact chosen by them through the destiny you create for yourself. Some sort of internal inspiration is guiding them to act in a certain manner which brings forth specific circumstances.

How could a person that cannot take responsibility for their life have a clear understanding of what destiny and fate truly mean for the human living experience?

Does someone need to take accountability for their decisions and choices? Does a person need to be optimistic, see the silver lining, and be willing to learn from their personal mistakes in order to become the best version of themselves? Can someone achieve this same goal without embracing this principle?

I have found that because I have been willing to learn from my personal mistakes, see the silver lining, and stay optimistic, I have been able to walk my own path of individuation. One of the first examples is the job I mentioned from 2023. Instead of blaming my co-workers, my superiors, my company, or my family for my sorrows, I took it upon myself to take responsibility for my decisions and take the appropriate inspired action to change the course of my life.

I understood I got myself into the job that made me question my life, and that I was learning something while working there even if I wasn’t completely happy. I knew that job served multiple purposes, one of them being the fact that it helped me open my eyes to the world and to my true and authentic living experience. Because of this clarity, I understood that I needed to plan my next steps accordingly in order to move in the direction I really wanted for my life.

During this time, one of the many angels along my path was my favorite coworker at the time. She loved crystals. I started wearing my own crystals in order to support one of my friends – she had a business selling crystal pendants and crystal jewelry that helped her with finances during her undergraduate career – and after one week of wearing one of her crystal pieces, I noticed an increase in the amount of peace and clarity I felt. I confided in my crystal-loving coworker and she saw potential in me. She shared with me what she knew and encouraged me to take it a step further by exploring other mystical ideas such as tarot cards.

At this time in my life, I was still holding onto some Catholic beliefs from my upbringing, and I did not feel comfortable with some of the things she suggested such as creating an altar with crystals or receiving a tarot card reading. The experience of peace and clarity from wearing the crystal, though, impacted me so much that I was curious enough to stretch out of the confinements of my preconceived beliefs and get a tarot card reading to see what it’s truly about. All I have known regarding card readings was what I saw on television shows, movies, or what was shared through the superstitions of my family members.

Some of my family members advised me against using crystals because it was not the work of God. One of the reasons I questioned this (besides my personal experience with crystals and the peace they brought me) was the level of high esteem crystals have in the Old Testament. In Exodus 28:19 it mentions how priests (which are people of high importance) wore garments with rows of precious stones such as amethyst, lapis lazuli, carnelian, turquoise, and emerald to just name a few. In the Bible, it’s even mentioned how brides would also wear these precious stones for their wedding day, which is a very important life event and sacrament within the Christian faith.

Another thing some of my family members advised me against was reading the horoscopes or looking into the zodiac. They believed it was the work of the Devil. The reasoning behind astrology not being appropriate was that “God would have never given us a hand-out or the easy answers for my life, and that God would want us to figure things out on our own.” This specific reasoning made me question the reliability of my family’s beliefs. If God is meant to be a Father figure that is loving and compassionate, wouldn’t He want to help me with life situations and struggles as much as He could? Plus, if God created everything in the Universe, doesn’t that mean that he created the stars as well? How can stars – which are beautiful, bring peace when staring at them, and provide tips and tricks on how to live your most aligned life – all be the creation of the Devil? With time I realized what the “Devil” truly represents, which is a conversation for another time.

Slowly things my family shared with me as to what is Godly and what is not started to fade in the background, and this gave me the courage to get the first card reading I ever experienced. This card reading was nothing like how I expected it to be. I received even more clarity on my life and my purpose than I thought would be possible. I also received reassurance and confirmation to continue to be a rebel and push the boundaries of my current familial beliefs. I had a subconscious fear of being rejected by my family, and in that first card reading it was mentioned that the family members that truly loved me are going to love me regardless of what I practice spiritually.

I had no idea how much my life would change from that card reading alone. Because of this card reading, I started to confidently separate from my previous religious practices, and I started seeking alternative schools of thought to gain insight into life’s questions from different perspectives. I followed my destiny and answered the calls of inspiration from my soul.

I learned as much as I could about crystals by taking a course from one of the stores that was nearby my home. I learned about their metaphysical properties and how to connect them to the chakras or to different metaphysical healing needs. As I deepened my knowledge on crystals, I also learned about meditation. In this crystal course there would be exercises where I would hold a crystal and meditate with it in order to feel its energy and see how it would make me feel. As I meditated I realized that I could see colors. Not only while my eyes were closed, but I also started seeing colors around people.

The tarot card reader that gave me my first card reading became somewhat of a mentor for me, and I had asked her what this meant. She informed me that I could see people’s auras, and that I can start working with people by giving them aura readings or even aura paintings (which sold very well). Because I could see auras, she also encouraged me to learn about Reiki energy healing and chakra energy balancing. At this point in my life I was outsourcing ways to find peace within. I felt like I needed crystals to bring me back to center, like I needed card readings to find the answers, and like I needed Reiki healing for me to function properly. Even though this was a step in the right direction, I still had a ways to go.

As time went on, I took up many different practices and realized I was looking for external ways to create some sort of spiritual experience for myself. In many ways I was outsourcing healing and connection, and through time I realized that I had the power to do this for myself all along. These spiritual experiences were difficult for me to do on my own at first, but as time went on, and as I gained trust and confidence for myself, it became easier for me to experience spiritual nonduality (or connection to Source).

In Fenner’s work, he explains how the “nondual approach… invests in the healing power of the unconditioned mind… [and] is designed to awaken us to, and root us in, the ever-present experience of pure-bliss consciousness” (2003). Searching for the meaning of my own life by taking inspired action was frustrating at the beginning of my journey, because I was looking for concrete answers. It wasn’t until I was able to create more spiritual experiences for myself that I started to understand that maybe the point of living is just to live.

This idea of living life just to experience it brought me back to question the meaning of religion. Why were people wanting to outsource pure-bliss and happiness through the works of dogma and religion when everyone can experience it for themselves by connecting within?

Lionel Corbett mentions how “one’s real God image is whatever is of the highest value or the greatest power in the psyche” (2021). I will also add that I believe one’s God image in some ways reflects the beliefs of worth and notes of confidence you have for yourself. At first I was not confident enough in myself, leading me to believe that this God image cannot be related to me in any form. Thankfully, as I learned more about gnosticism, energy, and formed my own relationship with the other worlds, I gained the confidence and self-worth to see myself as an aspect of God instead of being separate from God.

My God image went from being this angry, authoritative figure that was very far removed from my human experience to a loving and compassionate God image that I could see in my own reflection. I found God in the waters, the birds, the wind blowing through the trees, and in hearing the laughter of other human beings. I meditated, and it felt like I reached the Heavens. I would ground with the Earth, and it felt like I was one with nature. I was able to find connectivity through the different practices I started. I knew that life was not only about living a purpose, but it was also about living.

I expanded my understanding of God, and played with the idea that God created everything, the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. It was really up to us to subjectively put things into their “respective categories of division,” but where we missed the mark as a society was to divide them into God creations versus Devil creations.

In Jung’s work, he mentioned how God was mistakenly separated from the bad within our society, because in reality God is a totality (Corbett, 2021). God is masculine and feminine, light and dark, it's an all-encompassing existence that as humans we cannot completely understand. Not only that, but this notion that God is only light subconsciously creates a separation from human and God.

In Lionel Corbett’s book, The God-Image: From Antiquity to Jung, he mentions that “...the Self is a totality, it must contain all the opposites, and thus it must have both a light and a dark side.” Dividing the good and the bad by stating that the good comes from God and the bad does not can create this “Luciferian vanity” that can portray things in our human world as monstrous and evil.

I am in total agreement with the notion of the Self being a totality, as not only are we an image of God and reflect Their energy, but in order for me to truly heal myself, I needed to gain the confidence and self-worth of embracing the totality of who I am – the light and the dark. I also believe that if we can accept the good and the bad all under God, we can also accept our destiny and our fate as one. We are ultimately the creators of our reality, at least to some extent, and we always have the freewill to impose the inspired actions we would like to take based on our current circumstances.

When learning new paths within my spiritual journey, I eventually learned that the practices I started to do for my own wellness and soul searching were similar to inspired actions my great grandmother took in her lifetime. She worked with crystals in the same way I found myself working with them. My great grandmother also worked with herbs, recited phrases filled with wisdom that over time I found on gnostic texts, and was considered a white witch by my father.

It’s interesting that embarking on this alternative spiritual path was the door that led me to learning more about my ancestors and my father’s side of the family. This path also led me to understand my own purpose in my life and that I truly do have the support of my ancestors to live authentically and pursue my inspired actions. Realizing this also boosted my confidence, as the self-taught ways of my practice mirrored the ways of my ancestral elders.

From this point forward, the feeling of living my purpose solidified into my bones, knowing that it all serendipitously brought me to understand so many beautiful things about myself. I knew I was magical, and that I had the wisdom of my ancestors and elders in my DNA. I knew that all of the risks I had taken for my life were not in vain. I knew that I had created a way for my own healing, and this also opened up the healing for my parents and other family members. They were able to share with me things about my family I could have never imagined. Other friends and family members also started to ask me questions regarding this new spiritual path I have been on out of curiosity. They see how well it’s been going for me, and they want to try it as well in order to improve their well-being.

Through the journey of learning more about my ancestors and the gifts passed down through my DNA, I have also been learning about indigenous and Earth-based practices, one of them being ways of curanderismo and shamanism.

In a video titled Understanding of healing: An indigenous healer and western psychology, the findings and messages strongly resonated with me and my lived experience with curanderismo and shamanism (Robbins, n.d.). Robbins spoke about the pieces of wisdom White Bear shared with him through a multitude of interviews. White Bear was a Medicine Man from a Native American tribe that Robbins was a part of. As I was watching this video, I realized that I had actually experienced some of those situations White Bear mentioned myself.

One of the experiences being that “when you go into the eternal now, the spirits can come into time and space and help with healing. It’s like switching places for that time” (Robbins, n.d.). I had this exact experience a several years ago when undergoing the studies of a course on womb wisdom. I learned how to conduct womb healings for other women, and one of my dear friends volunteered to let me practice on her. At the very beginning of the practice I was very in the mind, but I reminded myself of the skills I have gained over time, which brought back a sense of self-worth and confidence into my being. This reminder helped me tap into the energies for the session and conduct the healing as needed. I opened sacred space, channeled the messages from my friend’s womb, and started to move energies out of her womb space. As I became more and more present in the healing session, my friend also became more and more present in her experience. Eventually, a gust of wind came and pushed me back, and I felt the spirits come into time and space to help me and my friend in her womb healing session that day. I could not intervene. All I could do was stay in the present moment, in the “eternal now,” while singing and breathing as I allowed for the spirits to help us both during the healing session.

For me to have experienced this, it was necessary to get out of my own mind and move into my senses, and my friend had to do the same. We were both in the “eternal now,” having gained the favor of our Ancestors, and received the magic from this liminal space.

White Bear also mentioned in his interviews with Robbins that in order to truly feel the pure-bliss essence, in order to find connection to spiritual experiences, in order to be in the present moment and the eternal now, logic has to go out of the window and bodily experience has to take the primary focus with an acceptance that magic can always follow.

Because of my experiences in my own journey of individuation, I now find myself trusting my fate. I now find myself trusting my destiny. I now find myself trusting the path I am currently walking on regardless if I can see the end result or not.

I now find myself trusting myself.

This is because a big part of my journey has been about gaining confidence for myself. There have been many situations I have gone through where gaining confidence has been the main lesson as well as the end result. I had to gain self-worth, self-love, self-confidence, and advocate for myself in an authentic way to get to where I am today.

All of this has been a part of the undoing of putting other people before me, and has shown me the gift of putting myself first. Of course there are situations in life where I have to be conscious of a proper give and receive dynamic in order to maintain healthy relationships with those I love, but I always need to remember that if my personal cup is not full, it will be hard for me to pour onto others. I have learned to trust the inspirations of my soul, and I will continue to stay confident in my actions as I continue down my personal journey of individuation.