I used to search for enlightenment, fulfilment, contentment and happiness… My search is over

It all started while I was driving back to my favourite beach on Easter weekend 2009. I was in the process of digesting my loss. After a conversation with Grant McFetridge, powerful shamanic healer, founder and research director of the Institute for the Study of Peak States, it was made clear to me that dying quite soon was more than a remote possibility. He had seen it before and his wisdom is guided by a higher consciousness. I had been through a dreadful period, which started about a year ago and gradually degraded to a point where it was nearly impossible for me to work and do the normal things that I used to take for granted, which I used to call my lifestyle. Much of the last couple of months seem to have been a battle between life and death, leaving me with very little hopes for a normal future, at least in the short term, and possibly for the long term.

It seemed to me that everything that was most important to me had been taken away: the ability to heal myself and help others to heal, to contribute  to Grant’s research as part of the  Peak State research & development team, to provide for myself financially and to contribute to gathering knowledge for the benefit of humanity. I wasn’t even able to pursue any of my favourite hobbies anymore since I was too weak and fragile physically, mentally and emotionally. It seemed to me that I had nothing left, since all the activities through which I was defining myself consciously and unconsciously had just all been taken away.

As I looked at my options to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life with the possibility that I may be permanently mentally and physically limited, I had to find a way I could pay the bills again. There seemed to be a lack of viable options. So I came to the conclusion that the way I would create the least suffering for myself and everyone else was to totally and unconditionally accept my situation. No ifs or buts, no hopes or dreams. In a moment of complete despair, I decided to simply accept the facts as they were and deal with it from that point. Immediately, I felt much lighter, as if a weight had been taken off my shoulders.

The next morning I woke up around 4am, and I went on a little stroll on my favourite surfing beach to watch the sunrise. The atmosphere was surreal! The clouds were magnificently painted with pinks, reds and purples, and the absence of the wind created a complete stillness which allowed the clouds and their amazing colours to reflect on the ocean as if it were a flawless mirror. The waves had the ideal shape for a good surf, and behind me was a perfectly round full moon. It seemed so effortless to let myself get completely absorbed by this beauty. The total stillness which I felt was beyond what my words can describe.

I then effortlessly allowed myself to completely dissolve in that beauty. And as I did, all my unconscious resistances suddenly dissipated. I had just experienced a spontaneous remission of all the physical symptoms that brought me so close to death 3 times over the last couple of months. I had just experienced a miracle in my own body. It also seemed as if someone had just turned the light on inside, and all the things that seemed so scary and threatening before in the dark were suddenly revealed and I could only see beauty inside of me. I had just experienced a miracle. I had just experienced Oneness.

It all happened in an instant. I had just decided to accept totally and unconditionally without resistance that everything was just as it was meant to be. And at that moment, I felt that all these underlying conditions that were previously threatening me were now irrelevant and could not affect me anymore, no matter if they stayed or went.

I also realized in every part of my body that I was part of a larger whole; I was just one tiny atom in the whole Universe, one little thread in the Fabric of Life. I was no more or no less important to the Universe than the blade of sea grass next to me or the grain of sand on the beach. And for the first time, I was at peace with that. I understood and accepted that fully. I did not need to be important or special anymore, I did not need to be recognised or appreciated, I did not need to be loved and accepted: it didn’t matter anymore. Because I had just found that all I needed to know is that “I am”. I don’t have to be anything. I don’t have to be someone or do something to know who I am or define myself. And how much pressure this took off my shoulders! I didn’t have to be perfect, or good, or busy, or successful anymore, I can just BE. Oneness is being at one within myself, with all parts of me, and being at one with the whole Creation. Wholeness within and Wholeness with all there is.

All the craving for attention and love, the need to be unique and feel important, the desire to realize myself and accomplish things, all evaporated into thin air in an instant when I realized how insane it all was. I felt as if layers and layers just left me, like an onion loosing all its layers and finding myself completely denuded of everything but my core essence. I could now allow myself to be detached from the ways I used to define myself and the losses that I had just experienced. I could now be detached from the outcome of any project I would work on, because it’s the attachment to the outcome that creates suffering. All I needed to do was to fully and unconditionally accept everything and reconnect to the whole.

I had felt a lot over the previous months a vague and uncomfortable feeling that the Universe didn’t love me, wanted me to suffer and experience pain; that the Universe didn’t care whether I lived or died. The results of it was that in many of the healing processes I’d run on myself over that period, the feelings of rejection and desperation were so strong that a part of me just wanted to curl up in a corner and die. Even though this feeling didn’t make sense to me it was somehow dominating my unconscious. And some parts of my body did their best to act that out.

In the light of that moment on the beach, all of the drama I had been through seemed completely ridiculous. I’m part of the Universe, in the same way as my fingernail is part of my body. How could my body want to reject my fingernail? Separateness is only an illusion. It was as if that whole illness period was caused by a resistance to the flow of Life, because a part of me thought the Universe did not want me. And the moment I experienced that the separateness was only an illusion and that I was not separate from the Creation, that I was not separate from Life itself, the resistance disappeared and the suffering vanished. I was completely fulfilled for the first time. I had only been fooled by the illusion of separateness. I don’t need to feel loved by the Universe or by anyone anymore, I am part of Life! I AM Life! I am part of the Universe, a tiny little stitch in the Fabric of Life.

Every healing session for me used to be long and seemed like hard work, and all that was because a part of me was terrified of being Life itself. Healing had become a way to change something, to get rid of a problem, to fix something, therefore a resistance to what IS. And then came the awareness that healing is acceptance, not trying to change something, which is in itself a resistance. Accepting a problem is much more powerful than trying to change it. In a state of Oneness, or non-resistance to the flow of Life, everything is possible. Even miracles.

The moment I let go of all my unconscious resistances while sitting on the beach, it allowed the Light to finally come in, and I let myself become the Light. It also allowed me to connect with Life, to be in total harmony with all there is. At that moment, I stopped pulling myself away from the Fabric of Life and realized that I was not separate from Life and the Light, that I was one with the whole Creation. I was in a state of Oneness. And all the craving, wanting, need for attention, despair, pain and suffering, all dropped away in an instant. I was part of the whole again. That’s what Enlightenment is all about. I was the Light and Life and all there is all at once. I was finally at peace with being nobody and nothing, and able to understand that the only purpose that was important was the purpose of the whole Fabric of Life, not my own, and that purpose is to become One again. I did not need any identity anymore, because now I just know from the bottom of my soul that it’s sufficient to know that I am.

And for the first time of my life I felt completely and undeniably sane.

I now know that the shortest way to absolute happiness and fulfilment is with total and unconditional acceptance of what is from every part of my being while stripping myself bare from all the concepts and identities by which I used to define myself to be left with only my core essence, which is made of Light and Life. That’s the gateway to Oneness.

My soul’s deepest desire is to help you on that path. I want to be your guide if you will let me.

Myriam Pitre
Ultimate Happiness Coach
www.UltimateHappiness.com