Love is an Action

Self forgiveness is one of the hardest things we ever have to do.

Some folk are blessed and born with a positive sense of self and never know what it is to be deprived of it. Yet for others,  who aren’t so blessed, whilst we can try and  mentally convince our egos that we’ve done the work and healed and made it to the top, it’s not that easy for our inner souls to really and truly find the route to peace.  

To find that place fully in our hearts where true and lasting forgiveness resides, that is a different journey that is invariably unplanned and unpredictable. 

What I write about now was the last and smoothest of my spiritual awakenings in my thirties, probably because I’d already been through the really rough awakenings like Elleanor and The Antrim Cliffs, and thereafter making the necessary changes my life the improve my mental health.   

(By the way, just in case you think spiritual awakenings are sweet and gentle things, be cautious, as many will agree they often call on the receiver to go through hell and hang on for dear life until the gifts emerge … and that can take years, leaving people feeling exposed as they come to terms with accepting different realities about life. And I’m no exception.) 

…….

Aged 38 I had a griping pain in my stomach that had been there for months, possibly years, and nothing I could do would move it or ease it. 

I knew it was emotional. Like a knife in my sternum. Slowly twisting, never ending. Yet I didn’t know that this was the pain  that would lead me towards one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. 

A pain that, if I could continue to focus on it, the event it would lead to would change the whole way I saw and experienced a world that I originally perceived as threatening, to being a world filled with love and opportunity, and do it without the use of any psychedelic drugs, alcohol, ayuasca or anything similar.

It happened when I was attending the “Experience Week” at Findhorn, set close to the beautiful and rugged mountains and glens of Northern Scotland, in the early nineties. 

Findhorn was a globally recognised spiritual community with its foundation based in ecology and connection with nature. The experience week was an invitation to participate in a personal journey to deepen one’s life and to participate in an environmental community, whilst being prepared to meet others at a more profound level than one would meet in normal life.

Towards the second half of the week, Will, an American who was on course with me, approached me a couple of times asking “ Are you ready yet Nigel?”. 

I didn’t know what he meant but I did feel like he was asking a deeper question of me, something I didn’t understand. I felt a little uncomfortable that he seemed to know more about me than I did. Having spent a week with him on course he seemed to think he had an insight into my personality that I wasn’t aware of and even though I trusted him, I was intrigued but also a little wary.

Nothing big happened though until the last evening on the course when we were in the dining room in Cluney Hill College, Findhorn, the training college for the Findhorn Community.

A group of us were sat at a dining room table, having finished our meal. Will was sat opposite me. He was chatting with a colleague about how I was presenting myself and they both agreed “He’s ready”.  

Despite feeling a bit like a ready grilled hamburger,  I was intrigued by their interest. 

Will said “Nigel there is something you need tell me. Something inside you that needs to get out, to be heard.”

“What is it that you need to tell me?” 

The pain in my stomach grew.  That knife slowly turning inside my guts got stronger. And it seemed that he knew it. He could see it working away inside me even though we had never discussed it.

He said “When it hits you it will be like a release in your gut. Like your stomach unfolds and unfolds and lets out” 

I didn’t have a clue what he meant and I was worried about what I might have to talk about in order for this “thing” to happen. 

He asked me once again what it was that I needed to share. This time he added the words “What do you need to confess? “

I tried hard to get what he was meaning but everything I guessed at didn’t fit the bill of what he was looking for. I was dreading having to confess to any number of things I’d done in the past, many of which could be quite embarrassing knowing my past.

But Will insisted on me listening more intently, more inwards, listening to the pain inside me.

Slowly it dawned on me as he talked me through it. A statement was forming in my head that encapsulated the whole of my life up until then. Something I had been fighting with for years, with everything that was about me and what I stood for, but never managed to put into words. 

But now the words formed, came out, stuttering, from deep down inside me, and with such shame . 

“I’m unworthy”

My eyes welled up with tears. 

I was finally hearing this thing inside me, this pain, talking to me at last with such clarity. 

“I’m unworthy.”  The words had been powering me for years, messages from childhood, challenging me to prove to myself that I was worthy to the world, or my parents, but yet never managing it how hard I tried, and instead feeling so shitty inside.  

I repeated it as if it was a secret message that I was hearing myself say for the first time. Too shameful to say before but in this real life scenario I felt safe enough to let the words out. 

“I’m unworthy” 

“I’m unworthy”

I looked into his eyes and said, simply and with great honesty,  “ I’m unworthy”.  

He heard it, in its fullest sense. He was the first person ever to hear what I had unconsciously trying to say for years.

This was my confession to him and the rest of the world, that, despite doing everything I could to prove my worth, I still felt unworthy. It was a core belief that I held about myself, hidden beyond words and thoughts, but felt deep down.

The pain in my stomach intensified.

Will reflected back on my sense of unworthiness, validating it in the moment, and then asked “And what is it you are you trying to tell yourself”  

“What is your next confession?”  

I couldn’t get it, but he helped me a little on the way. 

“What have you been trying to prove to yourself for years, Nigel, about worthiness”. 

It took me a while for the penny to drop but when it did, a eureka moment began transforming inside me and my world started to beautifully fall apart.

As new words dawned on me, the colours changed around me.  I went into tunnel vision and out again and back into tunnel vision. I was looking at a little blue section of stained glass in front of me, which then became my sole focus for hours. 

“ I’m worthy” I whispered. 

“ I’m worthy”  I repeated, realising that this was what I had been trying to convince myself of for years, by trying to live the best, most honest, unfailingly truthful life of spiritual and emotional integrity and accepting whatever challenges came my way with an open heart.

“ I’m worthy”. The words had such a profound meaning. They came, not from my head or from some mantra, they came from so deep inside me, so far back. 

After a few minutes Will and his friend said “He’s there” and like angels they disappeared into the night. Those were the last words I heard that night. 

I was now starting to experience the words “I’m Worthy” as a mystical experience I never expected, never asked for, and will never experience again. 

As my sight grasped that little blue square,  the sharp pain in my stomach started to fade. That unfolding process that Will had talked took place. Easing, loosening, an unfolding as though a tightly wound roll of paper started unwrapping from my stomach, downwards.  It was a beautiful, releasing feeling until, after a few minutes, there  was nothing but perfect calm in my stomach and my whole being for the first time in my life.   

Peace. Joy. Stillness. Complete and utter calm. 

I stayed for what might have been hours watching that blue square of the window. Utterly transfixed on the colours and the new feelings. 

My breathing stopped entirely.  I remembered it with a little bit of alarm and would occasionally force a little breath in.  But I didn’t need it. I had entered a different reality that was heaven, pure joy.  

When I did walk out of the room I was on my own.  Everyone else was long gone.  I floated into the reading room and sat in a big armchair, mouth open, watching a world I had never seen before with feelings in my body that I had never known could exist. 

The world of threat, of worry, of darkness, of effort, of stress and overbearing responsibility, of struggle, had given way and a veil been opened in front of me that transported me into a world where everything was so much more alive, colourful and meaningful. 

Over the following week its newness slowly subsided, but the inner peace and colours remained and the pain was gone forever.  I would often whisper to myself the magic words “I’m worthy” and quietly rejoice in the realisation that it was set to stay.  

That event split my life’s timeline in two, with two entirely different modalities. “Before Findhorn” was the dark years of drudgery, feeling a failure and unworthy and “After Findhorn” was the release from my chains into a world of colour and opportunity. 

It wasn’t my only deeply spiritual experience; there were many before and many after each with varying degrees of challenge to deal with, but this one was the smoothest.  With this one I simply stepped through a blessed doorway and into a beautiful new life. 

The changes that followed moved me from a stark military life, and into a holistic career as a therapist, healer and counsellor, seeking to help others as well as heal my own wounds from a lifetime of failure, unworthiness and self sacrifice. 

Almost by magic the changes took me to find my spiritual home, my center of healing, my escape. A little wooden chalet sitting in the sand dunes of the Northumberland coast, unwanted by anyone for years, was waiting for me to arrive and breathe fresh air into its little rooms and beautiful views, and to share it with those who knew it’s spiritual specialness.  Thirty years later I still live there and still it holds it’s magic with the sound of the seas and the glorious sunrises, sunsets and full moons that shine brightly over the sea and into the chalet at night.

I have often wanted to make sense of my experience and it is in my studies of Buddhism and yoga that I’ve learned about the experience of kurma-nadi where a yogi goes into a super consciousness and sublimes with God. Breathing virtually stops, all desires go, perfect consciousness arrives and perfect stillness arrives. For me, that was where I ended up, completely unexpected, suspended in in a god-like trance, with my eyes fully open, my mental faculties all present and my body fully working, in the most blissful experience of my life. Suspended in time and space. Nothing, absolutely nothing has ever come close to that experience. No being in love, no incredible orgasm, no drug, no adventure high. Nothing.

Of course it’s impossible to retain that state, so for us normal folk, as “normal” life takes over and the ego reinstates itself, I became the Nigel once again that people knew, but with a quiet and blessedly fundamental change inside me that little miracles like this bring.

…………

There, I’ve confessed to another vitally important part of my life that powers who I am. No matter how many adventures I get involved in, or drama that surrounds me or what craziness I get up to, what sits deep inside me is a strong sense of authenticity and worthiness that comes from the search to get to the centre of my soul and the blessings that have come as a result.

I hope you found some joy and inspiration in reading this and maybe feel inspired to think a little more about your own journey.

Nigel

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Next: Chapter 12 The Power of Prayer: Elleanor

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