Suffering ~ A Path of Awakening - Visitor's Story

by Shellee Rae
(Ashland, OR, USA)

Suffering ~ A Path of Awakening: Dissolving the Pain of Incest, Abuse, Addiction and Depression by Shellee Rae

This now world-wide and incredibly inspiring little book is for anyone who has longed for more in their life, has been (or is) lost to their purpose, struggled on different spiritual paths or experienced suffering, abuse or addiction at any level.

Suffering, takes the reader on a 39-year journey of the author's life, from a victim of sexual abuse, drugs, alcohol, and depression to the doors of death, into 12-step recovery, many spiritual paths and finally to full embodied Awakening in August of 2008 with almost eleven years of sobriety.

The raw truth and vulnerability of this amazing real-life story is inspiring hope and deeply touching the hearts of those who read it. A heart-wrenching and uplifting adventure, it will forever change the way one looks at suffering and enlightenment.

From the chapter "Check Out Time":

In June of 1997, in a blackout, I swallowed every prescription in the medicine cabinet (there were quite a few) and chased them down with a bottle of tequila - after drinking all day with a "friend". In the wee hours of the morning wearing only a tee shirt and my underwear, I dragged my blankie with me and curled up on the railroad tracks out in the woods to die...

For years I could not recall anything about that illustrious event but something began leaking into my consciousness over time and though it's not like a memory, more like a feeling, I know that I was on my knees crying out to a God that I felt had abandoned me and praying for help like I had never prayed before, desperately and from the depths of my soul.

...I vaguely remember the paramedics reviving me and asking me a bunch of questions about what I had taken then I slipped back into the fog. I was rushed to the hospital, stomach pumped, spent two days in progressive care and then shipped off to the ward where they take all sharp objects and shoelaces away and there is only one handle on the door - on the other side. I was there for four days before I remember anything.

From the chapter "Falling In ~ The Journey Home":

The first big occurrence: I had a kundalini experience in April (2008). With that came such a feeling of purification, lightness. So much burned off. It was incredibly intense and not something that I would recommend to anyone given a choice! It was right around that time that my partner of four and a half years started backing away from our relationship. He began house-sitting (we had been having some relationship issues) and he was gone for weeks at a time. I kept falling deeper and deeper into every feeling, every experience, and I slowly came to realize that something very profound had shifted. I was no longer in the same relation to pain as I had been for so many years.

My eighteen year old cat, Tigger, passed on June 30th, my partner ended our relationship July 2nd, and that evening I was bit on my right leg by a brown recluse spider which caused great physical pain and fear as I watched the skin continue to deteriorate as if acid had been poured on it; it took a couple of months to heal and has left quite a scar as a reminder of my initiation.

As I began to experience the losses, the first thing that happened was the heartache, great sorrow, deep misery that felt like it might be endless. Mentally I kept making my list over and over of all the things that I had to feel pain-filled about, which had been my modus operandi for most of my life. What was different with this grief was that I was not fighting any of it. I was just falling right down into the middle of it, feeling it deeply, fully, expressing and venting it by crying, primal screaming, or punching pillows; whatever was needed in the moment to allow the feelings to fly freely... At times, the bottom of the emotion would seem to drop out and I would either land in a pool of peace or bliss. I remember thinking 'wow, you mean pain can be blissful or peaceful too'? Not resisting anything, everything began to change.

The double-whammy of losing Tigger and not having him to console me for the loss of my partner, our house, the recently built cottage for my clients and my garden, and also of losing my partner and not having him to console me for the loss of Tigger created a volcano inside of me that felt like it imploded (once the eruption subsided) and I landed right smack-dab in the middle of me; someplace I'd never been before...home...complete...nothing needed. All of a sudden, it all felt sacred, all of it, from the very beginning of my life, every piece a gift to help me land here...Here. As I cried, now from a love that was alive in me, I wanted to thank my partner and Tigger for the gift they gave me. This heart that I thought was shattered and taking on one more battle-scar was washed clean and filled with amazing gratitude for Life and all its dips and curves. Love like no other...

What an incredible sense of freedom living in this Heart space. How did I miss this all these years? So close, so far, so beautiful, so very sacred.

...Love seems to dissolve or transform all the pieces that no longer fit who I am.

...It is amazing to be so alive in this body. What a gift. Today I can't imagine missing one moment of this sweet gift of Life...so precious. Awareness has expanded so much at times that the local self seems like such a funny trick that I am playing on myself. An example: I went to Mount Shasta to pick up some class supplies and on my drive there, my awareness expanded. Gradually I became aware that I Am so Big. I am all of it and nothing is moving separately from the whole and it seemed so funny to have all my attention on this "little me" driving in this little vehicle, moving around in myself and not really going anywhere at all. I felt like I should have a sign displayed on my vehicle: "Caution, driver under the influence of God and may be in an altered state"...


Blessings and Love,
Shellee

Suffering ~ A Path of Awakening?
www.shelleerae.com
Also at Amazon and BN.com
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