When the Ego Dies: Experience of Spiritual Growing Pain

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So, you have chosen the spiritual path. You feel empowered, free, awesomely happy and delighted to be alive and you evolve, you grow, you become more, and BOOM!
Suddenly one day you fall, you fall deep down in darkness and despair, and you wonder “what’s just happened??”
Thinking that isn’t the way of God suppose to be a joyful one? Truth is, that it is, but it’s like the saying about the diamond; that “a diamond is a chunk of coal that is made good under pressure”.
You are going though a period of spiritual purification, and while in the midst of it, it feels like your world is falling apart and nothing makes any sense anymore. I mean nothing makes any sense anymore. You even question if there is any God after all, and you curse in intensive anger towards this God who was suppose to bring you peace; Well, where it is then?? You feel very, very sad, have feelings of hopelessness and feel deeply disconnected from all the wonderfulness you experienced only a moment ago.
This is what’s going on:
While you are going through a transformation, your ego is dying. It is really dying, and who wouldn’t protest if we were in danger of dying? While spirit is emerging and taking you to a higher level of consciousness the ego is being left behind, and it become scared of loosing its home; you.
It will do whatever it can to make you stay on the level of awareness where you currently are, and it is doing everything in it’s power to make you feel you need it. That what you need and want is something the world can give you. But the world cannot give you what God gives you. God is the only source there is, and even if you feel panic dwelling up, please remember that you are not alone on the path that you have chosen.
Please remember: This is all a really good thing.
I can testify that it is good, even when it feels like the world is crushing and we see no way out, I promise you that it is all for your highest good. I have gone through these periods in the past where I have literally been on my knees, crying and feeling completely abandoned by God.
Now I recognize the periods and I get through them faster, but they are still very painful.
It’s a process that everyone who has seriously chosen the spiritual path in life goes through at some point in their evolutionary journey, and it can take years for some, the periods come and go, while for some it’s a few nights of very, very deep spiritual depression or crisis.
But it is all a good thing.
I know this, and I want to encourage you, if you are going through something similar, to understand that it is temporary, even if it feels like it will never end. Even when all you feel like is to go to bed and just sleep through it all, or even feel like you never want to wake up again. There will come a brighter day, I promise.
And I also promise that when the day comes, it will be brighter than the days you have ever had before. I promise you this. It is all worth it, so stay strong and faithful.

It’s very important for your own personal growth that you don’t resist the process. The void is not to be avoided, but embraced.

Sometimes the purification we go through is shown as physical symptoms:

• Severe headaches, back pain for no reason at all, and sometimes intensive periods of only one or two days of a flu-like symptom where you are totally collapsed, body feeling sicker than ever before.

Know that if you have chosen the spiritual way of living, and if you have asked for your ego to be undone, and you have prayed to awaken and to be transformed, and you suddenly experience something like this, think for yourself if it can be spiritual growing pain. Go within and ask if it could be it. It probably is. If you want to awaken to your true self, you have to expect and accept the fact that the ego will not give up easily.
I know, it’s easier said than done, but the easiest way through it is to just surrender to the process.
Let spirit lead you through it, and know that even if it feels you are “forsaken”, you are not. You are being held by the hand. You truly are. You will know it when you have passed through it to the other side.
What to do when going through these periods? What to do when praying and meditation just doesn’t feel good or right anymore, what to do when reading inspirational stuff just doesn’t seem to interest you anymore as it did before..?
What to do when all you want to do is to go to sleep and hope for a better day tomorrow?
Well; what not to do is to try to fix it somehow. To not desperately try to take control of the situation and become almost hysterical about looking for ways out. All those things are actions made from a place of ego. Out of fear.
What I have learned is to surrender to all of it. It’s a practice, and we surrender and take it back, surrender and take it back. But the taking back-part becomes less and less as we grow.
Say out loud:

“I surrender all this to you God! I don’t know anything anymore, I simply don’t know anymore God, so I leave ALL MY LIFE IN YOUR HANDS, all of it”.

Just surrender. I mean it. You can’t possibly know which way to go or what to do, because the world you are now entering is new to you, you can’t know anything about it because you haven’t been there yet.
So surrender and let your self be LEAD to it, because you truly are not alone. I promise you that. Just let go.
Let yourself be lead through it without interference from the ego, welcome the transition and the journey to the next level of your consciousness will be less painful.
All really is well.