Spiritual Awakening
Have you ever thought about the nature of spiritual awakening? I love this topic and there have been many personal discoveries in my life that had brought me to my current place of spiritual comfort and joy!
Over the years, I’ve always enjoyed hearing about the journeys of other people. I’ve read hundreds of personal stories about spiritual awakenings from authors and experts including Neale Donald Walsch, Eckhart Tolle, and Esther Hicks. Their writings stir something deep inside me and I love the way new concepts increase my own inner awareness.
My Spiritual Awakening
Today it’s my turn to share a story with you. Really it’s two stories and they are about two of my own powerful points of transformation. The first one came about when I was about 13 years old. My mother had decided to move back to America from where she had been living and raising me and my two sisters in Italy. To me, it felt like my life had just undergone a huge shift – moving halfway around the world, landing in the US which was a foreign land to me, and trying to figure out my way forward.
As I looked around at the economically challenged American city we landed in, I couldn’t help thinking about my life in Rome as a young girl, where I was surrounded by historical treasures, beautiful scenery, and deep faith. My mother was a young widow with 3 daughters to raise on her own and she chose to bring us up as Roman Catholics so we would be introduced to God and exposed to faith. But my mother’s own faith was faltering by that time and her life was very difficult, thus the reason for our move to Scranton be closer to my mother’s family.
Touching down on US soil, I embarked on what became a massive adventure for me, and quite the culture shock. The Colosseum in Rome one day, and coal mines the next! I was a bit bewildered by it all, but I knew one thing for certain: I had to be strong for my mother and be a good girl. So I studied hard and tried to make friends, while striving to be a responsible daughter. But deep inside, I was still seeking my own place in the world, my own purpose.
I distinctly remember the challenges of adjusting to our new lives because it was the same time as my own first whoosh of spiritual awakening. I became aware through books that there was more to the world than just the one religion I knew and there were so many different belief systems around the world! I found it fascinating even as a teenager and I loved exploring so many spiritual directions. And I eventually followed my mother’s path, gradually turning away from the strict dogma of the Catholic religion, as I began searching for my own answers.
On that path, however, I still accepted that life was about being good and doing good. Deep in my bones, I knew I’d find a way to improve the human condition and make the world a better place. I knew I had some kind of important mission to fulfill here on earth, but I couldn’t have known it would take a few more decades to really discover what it was!
My Spiritual Mission
This brings me to another point of enlightenment I love to share. It happened when I was just going about my daily life about 4 years ago, and I experienced a really big whoosh. A concept dropped into my mind and it stopped me in my tracks. All of a sudden I was aware of the words “a thank you a day” and I wasn’t even sure at first what it meant.
But it called to me so clearly and when it kept repeating over and over in my head, I felt I had to take action. So I did! I started to write a thank you note a day and send it out by mail to the person I was thanking. I kept doing it, sending one card a day, and before long, I found that this simple daily practice changed my life completely. I became so much more joyful, healthier, more at peace, and less stressed than I’d ever been.
This experience turned out to be one of the most powerful points of spiritual awakening in my life. I still feel so blessed to have been given this gem of an idea and its become my mission to tell everyone about it. That’s why I’ve been actively giving speeches and workshops, sending out blogs and I even wrote a book called Spread Thanks: Create Miracles through the Power of Ink.
The positive feedback from others is beyond what I ever expected. I am overjoyed that the practice of sending a thank you card a day has been increasing the energy and the positivity of the people who are adopting it. As a collective, the goodness just keeps rippling out to the world and transforming individuals, one card at a time.
Now it’s your turn! Do you feel like you have found your own spiritual mission in life? What makes you excited about getting up each day? I would love to hear about a specific whoosh of awareness you might have experienced, how it felt, and what you did about it. Thank you for listening to my story and spreading goodness in your own corner of the world.
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