The Most Sacred of Journeys

By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light

Every moment holds the possibility for Beauty, even when times seem challenging.
Every moment is part of your journey to the sacred.
One of the most profound, life-altering things I’ve learned since my NDE is that each of us can live in a more inspired way: more peace-filled, free, loving, and joyful than we can imagine, both as individuals and as a society.

Picture of winter sunrise.

 By making a pledge to live in love as much as possible, and maintaining a daily commitment to a fun and easy spiritual practice, I gained freedom from the tangles and dramas of my prior, pre-NDE life. Now, my days are more peaceful, joy-filled, creative, and centered than ever before. 

 What is different for me today? 

 I live with my soul’s awareness at the forefront of my life, rather than with my ego taking center stage and making the decisions. The way I think about it is that my soul (higher self) is in the driver’s seat of my life’s journey, and my fear-based, self-centered human ego is in the backseat as a (mostly) quiet passenger. For the majority of my life it was the other way around and as a result, I would get easily overwhelmed by regrets, fears, anxiety, drama, and pettiness.

 What does it feel like to live from the soul, to live in a more aware and peace-filled state? 
  • I have a deep knowing that all will be OK and all is just as it should be. 
  • My consciousness feels expansive, connected, and rooted to all on this earth and across time and space, yet elegantly centered on the present moment. 
  • Mind chatter is minimal to non-existent now, so I have more mental freedom to be focused on the person with me, or the situation in which I find myself.
  • I tend to bring a quiet, focused presence into almost every situation now where previously I was quite reactionary, rarely focused on the present moment, and lived almost on “autopilot.” In effect, I was what Deepak Chopra describes as a “biological robot.”
  • My decisions are now made in peace, love, and freedom, and are the result of this quiet, contemplative, fully-present awareness. 
In fact, most of my decisions in my earlier life were based on fears, which isn’t unusual in our modern age. We humans are born with some innate fears and are taught others by our families, friends, peers, societies, and governments. We are taught to fear scarcity, or what others might think. We might fear being alone, or be terrified of failure. We may be fearful of telling the truth, or afraid that we won’t be accepted if people see who we really are. We want to be free and powerful, but when allowed to express that fully we often shrink back into the shadows, too afraid of our own voice or power to fully express it. You name it, we humans tend to fear it.

 But it doesn’t have to be that way.

 Now, through practice, patience, releasing limitations and attachments, and allowing Spirit to light my way, those fears have essentially evaporated for me. To take their place there is a renewed sense of peace, of knowing the depths of who I am, who we are, and being fear-less enough to speak and live my truth.

 What were the first steps I took in order to achieve this? 

 Taking full responsibility for my life, and committing to a consistent yet simple spiritual practice, one that suits me and my life.

 If I was able to do this, I know you can too.

 For me, taking responsibility started after my NDE. I came to realize that no one else but me was going to cement the changes in my life that started during my time in the afterlife. In fact, from the moment I woke up after the surgery and NDE, I knew two things: that my life would never be the same, and that this was just the start of a lifelong journey and grand spiritual adventure.

 No one else could make the journey for me, though—I was the one called to change my life. I was the only person who could take what I had learned during my NDE and turn it into a catalyst to make my life better. Other people might help or teach me, or even accompany me for portions of my spiritual path, but ultimately it would be my responsibility to forge ahead on my spiritual journey and transform my life.

 Are you in that powerful place in life where you are taking full responsibility for your decisions and actions? Or do you still hide out in the shadows, living a life dictated by fears and anxieties, wondering when others will stop victimizing you? If you are like most people, your level of consciousness is somewhere between these two extremes. 
The first step on the journey to transforming your life is being willing to take full responsibility for all of your decisions and actions from this point forward. 

 Be willing. That’s all I ask as a start.
  • Be willing to take a good, hard look at your life until now, and why you made the decisions you did. 
  • Simply be willing in your heart to be responsible for your life from here on out.
  • Be willing to release any need you might have to blame others for the negative.
 It might seem daunting, but the truth is that only you can steer your life onto a more powerful, peaceful, loving path. 

 Be a willing observer of your thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. Be willing to emotionally step back  to analyze situations not from a place of fear or drama, but from love, peace, and humility. Be willing to question your own thoughts, beliefs, and actions, because it through the process of being an impartial observer and being willing to question, that you can make new, more love-filled choices. Be willing to make decisions that are awesome, and others that might not be so great. Be willing to make mistakes, and to fail sometimes. 

 It’s through practice, and even failing (and learning from that failure) that we ultimately succeed. And you have to be absolutely willing to succeed, even if success seems a little scary.

 Just be willing.

 I now look on this physical life as a sacred journey. An opportunity to live more from my heart and soul. Simply being here on earth, learning how to live consciously from a place of love, awareness, and centered presence, is my journey to the sacred. And yours can be as well, whether you consciously realize it or not.

Picture of footsteps on beach

Each moment is an opportunity to learn, to grow, to love, or to take an action that advances you toward your dreams and goals.

 Toward that end, I want to remind you of a free Webinar series I recently released to YouTube. Called "Simply Peace," this webinar presents some basic ways that you can allow peace and love to take the center stage of your life:

 Simply Peace Part 1

Simply Peace Part 2

Simply Peace Part 3

 If you are unable to view the webinar on YouTube, the videos are also available on my website  NancyRynes.com   



Downloadable, Audio-only versions of the webinar are available on my SoundCloud site:  https://soundcloud.com/nancy-rynes


In the coming months, I'm going to explore more topics related to Sacred Journeys, both the spiritual ones we are on in our lives, and the more outward journeys we take to special places. I hope you join me on this exploration of sacred journeys.


Stuff You Might Have Missed
Archive: Past Newsletter Issues

TODAY Show: Nancy's Interview on NBC TV's TODAY
          Messages of Hope with Suzanne Giesemann: Exploring NDEs with Nancy Rynes
Article: Seven Lessons That Dying Taught Me About Truly Living (Aspire Magazine)

Article: Lives Changed by NDEs (Boulder Daily Camera)

Article: Awakening to Life(Pages 6-10, Journal of Exceptional Experiences and Psychology, Summer 2016)

Article: The Meaning of Life (Excellence Reporter)



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