Calvin Niles is a mindful storyteller, guiding businesses & individuals in authentically telling their story. We met a couple of years ago co-presenting in a mindfulness online retreat & a friendship has blossomed. He recently asked me to share my story of spiritual awakening in his podcast – you can find out more in the link below.
So I thought it might be nice to turn the spotlight onto our mindful raconteur & asked Calvin if he would like to share his story of conscious awakening. What a wonderful morning we shared as he spoke publically for the first time about his journey from automatic pilot, unconscious living into a more present consciousness.
I wondered how on earth to do a master storyteller’s own story justice. I reflected on the similarities of our own distinctly unique but also familiar transitions, the catalysts, the moments of clarity & knowing, the shifts that ran as threads through our own stories but also through the story’s of others.
What is a spiritual awakening? I would describe it as a shift in consciousness, or as Marianne Williamson describes it: full recovery from the fractured sense of self. It’s not something you do or something to attain because it is much more about an inner sense of peace, equilibrium, a feeling not a doing.
It’s a different feeling, a different experience for everyone but at some point along the rocky road of life, opportunities will present themselves that open up the door to awareness, acceptance, lessons, learnings, healing & growth.
As children we are really quite present & more consciously aware. This can be conditioned out of us by society or trauma. We can become disconnected from our emotions & feelings because they were intense & frightening, disconnected from our mind body connection, thinking, acting & behaving unconsciously & automatically. We are beginning to understand that 80% have experienced some kind of trauma. That’s a lot of disconnected & unconscious people.
Calvin explained that even though he had grown up surrounded & influenced by the metaphysical texts of his mother’s bookshop he was not consciously aware of it nor was he immersed in this world. And a series of as he describes them, ‘mini traumas’ encouraged him to be less conscious & more disconnected with his own emotions.
Many who experience some kind of spiritual awakening experience a cataclysmic ‘life’ event which is a catalyst.
There’s the thing, The Universe wants us to learn the lessons we came here to & often they are presented gentle whispers & soft nudges so we often miss them. So the next one is a little louder or a more forceful nudge but still we may not heed the calling & so on until something gets so loud & so uncomfortable we have to do something about it: that cataclysmic event, the catalyst for the inner work.
Often these big events centre around a relationship, relationships being a spiritual practice, the playground of the ego & the spirit. For some, like Calvin & myself it was in the acrimonious ending of our marriages. For others a may be a different fractious relationship.
There is a catalyst & finally The Universe has got our attention.
In the wake of this seismic shift often there’s a dark night of the soul experience. For some this is a self-imposed exile, a time to turn inwards, do the inner work & practice, a conscious decision: they go on silent retreat, into rehab. For others is is more imposed upon them. And for many it’s a combination of both.
For Calvin the suffocating & deafening silence of an empty house when the kids spent time with their Mum after being so used to the hustle & bustle of a busy family life & home was excruciating. Something I completely empathize with.
This is when we tend to turn to our practices as sources of comfort, peace, guidance, surrender. And this is often when the magic starts to happen.
Insights, shifts, an inner knowing, a change in beliefs. For Calvin it was a realization he was part of something much bigger. I felt a deep sense of being taken care of. Whatever the words or what it looks & feels like it is a profound connection to Source, God, The Universe, whatever you want to call it.
From thereon you can’t un-know what has been revealed to you. But life tends to bumble on. Sometimes we dip & fall in & out consciousness. Sometimes there’s more work to do. And if we don’t take heed of the whispers & nudges these reminders The Universe or Source will do something else to catch our attention.
Find out tomorrow what was in store for our mindful storyteller.
Listen to Calvin’s podcasts:
Read Calvin Fiction Spiritual Adventure: The Sun Rises in Eastmoor available here
Facebook: @calvinnilesofficial
Instagram: @calvinniles
Website: www.calvinniles.com
Email: contact(at)calvinniles(dot)com
To listen to Alex & Calvin together please click here: https://youtu.be/q–PivQeINw