By Nancy Rynes, author of Awakenings from the Light
Article copyright Nancy Rynes
Note: With this article, we venture into caring for your mind. Please see the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.
Ask not what Spirit can do for you, ask instead what you can do in service to Spirit.
(My apologies to John F. Kennedy)
I didn't have a clue that my soul was working on another spiritual revelation when I was driving north out of Boulder one morning about twenty months after my first Near-Death Experience (NDE). My drive took me on a country road, and while I drove, I snuck glimpses of beautiful clouds breaking over Continental Divide, and the golden light of dawn making the Rocky Mountain Front glow.
I thought about the past twenty months of recovery from my accident, surgery, and spiritual transformation. For about the first year I struggled with sadness, grief, and depression.** I greatly missed everything about the spiritual realm: the peace, the enormity of Divine love, the connection to everyone and everything, the expansiveness of experience, the learning. I missed my friends, my spiritual team. I didn’t like that Earth life was so difficult: there was the need to eat, the need for sleep, to clean the house, to do laundry, to pay bills. My heart broke when I heard news about violence, neglect, or other forms of mistreatment. Everyday life on Earth just seemed overcomplicated and unnecessarily difficult. I felt at odds with myself and my experience…I knew that I should feel grateful for my life and my second chance, but deep down I didn’t.
I wanted desperately to go home. I had no intention of taking matters into my own hands but that didn’t stop me from requesting Spirit to remove me from Earth, permanently this time.
Month twelve came around and I was still on this very physical planet. My request to go home went unheeded so I had to rethink my approach to being here. Apparently my job wasn’t complete yet and I still needed to do something. I wasn’t quite sure what that something was, but I thought it might have to do with what I had been challenged with during my NDE: Make my own life better; share my experience with my family and friends; then share my experience with the world.
I decided to start with the easiest part: finishing my book Awakenings from the Light. I had been diligently writing content for it in my personal notes this whole time, but needed to compile my notes and turn it into a book that would make sense to others.
Working on AFTL helped me regain a sense of purpose, and it dawned on me that the key to my emotional and spiritual healing lay within its pages. I had been told that my NDE would help me make my own life better, that it would give me the keys to living a better life…all I needed to do was to start putting what I learned into practice. So I dedicated time each day to some of the exercises and practices I had learned during my NDE.
These practices sis help me feel better, much better, but it wasn’t quite enough. Even though I now felt grateful for my life, and looked forward to the rest of it, I continued to battle a vague sense of unease. Something still wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t get to the root of it. I didn’t feel as joyful or grateful as I thought I should, like so many other NDErs report. So I began to ask God/Spirit/Universe every morning to bring clarity to me as to what was going on. Why was I still feeling so uneasy?
Then came month twenty, that morning I was driving out of Boulder. That morning with the beautiful clouds and golden light of dawn hitting the Rocky Mountains. No, it's not what you might think. I didn't crash and have another NDE.
As my car descended a hill, a sudden realization came to me completely out of the blue: for the last twenty months since I "came back" from death, I had been carrying around a very quiet, deeply-buried sense of anger that I was sent back here against my wishes, and I believed too that somehow Spirit owed me something for dealing with life on Earth.
I felt my heart sink. I had no idea I was feeling anger and entitlement. Those were things that other people felt, not me, right? But it was me. I had felt angry and entitled. And those feelings were the source of my unease.
A little ray of illumination shone on a shadow side of me that lay hidden for months.
While I felt gratitude for what I had in my life, including my health, deep down inside I had an expectation that Spirit should give me what I wanted as some kind of payment for sending me back to Earth. Without really thinking about it, below my consciousness lurked a very subtle sense of anger and entitlement.
I wasn't nearly as grateful as I thought I was.
It's not uncommon for people in our culture to have a deeply-held sense that they are owed something by God, the Universe, society, or even other people. If you're one of these people, or were in the past, you're not alone. For me, feeling both angry for being sent back here, and somehow magically entitled to a perfect life without me actively taking steps to make that happen, was hampering my spiritual growth. The more I didn't receive what I thought I was owed, the more angry I became. It prevented me from fully living in peace and contentment in each moment, and it put up a subtle barrier between the Divine and me.
People who have had a spiritual experience aren't necessarily instantly awakened or enlightened. We may get a jump start, but we still have a lot of work to do. I realized just how much work I actually did have left to do.
In that moment of hyper-clarity, though, the residual anger about being sent back to Earth evaporated in a moment of pure love, understanding, and acceptance that seemed to come from outside of me. I felt embraced by Divine grace once again. Maybe I was. Maybe Spirit reached through the clouds of my anger and entitlement that morning to show me once again just how much I was loved, no matter my struggles or feelings.
I pulled off the road at a safe place and simply let myself experience that grace, the clarity, and that love. I almost felt as though I was in Heaven all over again, surrounded by the Divine Presence. Perhaps that love and acceptance I sensed were indeed Divinely-inspired, or perhaps it was simply me, fully embracing and forgiving my own faults and foibles.
Then in an unusually clear flash of insight, I understood that Spirit doesn't owe me a thing. I was given the exquisite gift of living on this Earth with endless opportunities and paths toward joy and enlightenment. That's enough. The rest is up to me.
It would be up to me to listen to my inner wisdom, to follow my own path through life, and to go after my own joy. It would be up to me to cultivate deep gratitude, and to learn love and accept myself and my fellow beings in this Universe. Spirit may indeed give me rewards, opportunities, luck, stuff, or even answers to my prayers. But it would be up to me to choose to live in a state of joy and gratitude for whatever I do have in that moment, whether I achieved it through my own work or received it as a gift.
While sitting there in my car, a wave of strong emotion washed over me. I felt deeply sorry for my feelings of anger and entitlement, but my gratitude for being here deepened and strengthened. I didn't beat myself up about feeling what I felt; rather, I gently accepted that this was something I needed to learn, embrace myself with compassion and forgiveness, and let go of any sense of guilt or shame. My feeling of love for Spirit and for this life expanded beyond what had been possible for me just the day before. My heart opened up once again.
The Universe doesn't owe us anything really: health, a great job, a loving spouse, kids, money, fame, a nice car, or happiness. The gift of being here is more than enough; the rest is ultimately up to us. Think of an artist, perhaps an oil painter. She can be given the best paints, easel, canvas, and brushes, but the painting doesn't just create itself. The canvas will still be blank days later if she simply sits back in her recliner and waits for someone else to paint the picture. It's up to her to make a start, to be active in her own creation.
In reality, we're the primary artists of our own lives. We're given the basic raw materials but putting brush to the canvas of our lives is ultimately our job. Spirit may step in and rework some brushstrokes, guide our hands, or give us another color or two to add to our palette, but we have to step up to the easel with brush in hand and fearlessly start painting. We can't expect the Divine to complete the whole painting for us, start to finish. There is no fun or learning in that anyway, nor is there a sense of accomplishment.
Are you harboring a sense that you are owed or entitled to certain things, "just because"? If no, wonderful! If you are, is it getting in the way of living in true joy and gratitude? If you'd like to change entitlement into something more positive, try starting a dedicated gratitude practice. (See Practice # )))
A gratitude practice can help you feel your blessings and live your truth.
Remember that you’re not automatically entitled to a happy, peaceful life just because you were born—it’s something you embrace, embody, and emulate. It’s a choice, one I hope you continue to choose every day of your life.
As always, take care and many blessings to you,
Nancy
Disclaimer: If you have been diagnosed with a mental or physical health condition, or suspect you might have one, please check with your qualified, professional provider. You deserve specific treatment for your condition. Nancy Rynes is not a medical or psychological professional. In this series of articles, Nancy is sharing with you what her experiences have been and what has worked for her. If you choose to use any of this information in your life, which is your right, Nancy Rynes is not responsible.
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)
Simply Peace Part 1
Simply Peace Part 2
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