Becoming Divinely Human
by CC Leigh

Chapter 12: Your Divinely Human Life

Our Story: As we lived forward into this new manner of experiencing life, we continued to explore the further possibilities of Awakened Heart, Awakened Mutuality, Awakened Creating, and Awakened Purpose in company with others who were also exploring their newly-awakened potentials. Our divinely human awakening took root in us and became so unshakeable that, although we continued to weather the ups and downs of our lives, we never again lost touch with who we truly are, and our lives became imbued with the grace and ease of Being.

Things change, things stay the same
Your divinely human awakening is a passage, or a shift- point, that ends one period of your life and inaugurates a new one. You begin experiencing life from a fundamentally different perspective that is no longer driven by unconscious avoidance of the core paradox. And all the time and effort you once spent “seeking” is now freed up for other things. If you are like many others who have awakened to their divinely human nature, confidence in Being is growing, and the times of feeling easeful and relaxed about your life are becoming more predominant. This doesn’t happen overnight, but it is a palpable trend that is typically observed in the first couple of years following whole being awakening.

The rest of the story is about all the ways in which you are still the same person you were before. Perhaps even more so! As the buffers that once kept you moving through life in a partially-numbed condition are removed, you may find yourself scrambling to cope with the sheer intensity of what’s coming at you from all angles. And you may find yourself reacting in old, familiar ways—ways that you’re not particularly happy about. But here they are.
As you’ve been learning (though might not have wanted to hear), embodied awakening will not automatically convey upon you supernatural powers nor will it give you a personality trans- plant. You’re still you, paradoxically new and different and yet still, somehow, the same.

Awakening “normalizes”
After a while, you might start forgetting how it used to be before you awakened to your true nature. Being divinely human is so natural that, once you integrate it, it is difficult to imagine how anyone can not get how they are this remarkable blend of infinite and finite, spirit and matter. We are hard-wired to “nor- malize” all our experiences, even this one. What that means is that what once stood out as new and different because it was in contrast to the base state at the time becomes just part of the landscape after a while. It is no longer drawing your attention in the same way.

Further awakenings
You may remember that in Chapter 9 I discussed the three primary aspects of your Conscious nature—Awareness, Being, and Heart—and how most people awaken through one, or at most two, of these aspects. Any one of these three can reveal to you the unlimited, ever-present, unchanging nature that is the divine part of who you are, and bring with it a radically different manner of self-knowing and experiencing life.

Some people will have their seeking completely satisfied with this initial level of awakening to their divinely human nature. Which is fine. However, others may find themselves still restless and wondering if there’s something more. Perhaps someone who awakened through Awareness is wondering why they aren’t experiencing more unconditional love, or someone who awakened through the life-current of Being still feels confused about what’s meant by “witnessing.” If that’s the case for you, you may wish to cultivate—through meditation or other practices as described in Chapter 9—the other aspects, the ones that perhaps aren’t as easy for you to “get.” And even the aspect through which you did awaken may yet have more to reveal: you may have touched in with it sufficiently to awaken, but not yet explored it to the fullness of what’s possible.

There is a paradox here that’s useful to keep in mind. Your experience of the core wound might leave you feeling like you’re “not enough” or “not good enough” or “insufficient”—because you intuit that there is an unlimited aspect to who you are that you’re not able to fully embody. You automatically compare your current situation with a more idealized one, just because you have the capacity to do so. So the sense of “this awakening is not enough” might just be an echo from the core wound, a habitual way of thinking your life is not good enough yet, or of always wanting more. Or maybe it’s the momentum of seeking that hasn’t fully unwound itself yet. So if you are questioning whether you need to awaken further, take a little time to sense into what’s behind it. Is it being driven by a restless, almost habitual downplaying of what is, or does it come from a deeply felt prompt from your innermost Being to go further?

Development in the divinely human life typically includes a dynamic tension between stretching into new areas and landing exactly in your life as it is right now and relaxing there. It also includes getting to know who you are now, admitting your limitations to yourself and others, and then finding ways for your potentials to come forth and shine.

First you awaken, then you need to get a life
During the integration period, you’ll have made many discov- eries about yourself as you noticed how you were showing up, or felt new impulses inspiring you to action. Perhaps you now find yourself looking for a way to make a meaningful contribution to the world, or a way to give back to those who helped you realize your dream of awakening. Perhaps you’ve been focused on awakening and little else for a while now. You may wonder how to transfer your interest in awakening into useful activity in the world. You might have an intuition, or even a passion, for becoming a spiritual teacher yourself.

If so, welcome. Spiritual teaching, or other ways of supporting people in self-discovery, can be a very rewarding life-path on the heart level, if not always on the financial level. And while it seems that the number of people who are interested in embodied awakening is currently modest, there is also evidence that it’s growing. The time is ripe for spiritual transformations to flourish, and there is an ever-growing need for people who can help others navigate the perilous darkness before dawn in order to arrive at a permanent awakening.

If you are so drawn, or even if you think you might have some interest in this area, you will want to do some preparatory work to deepen your ability to be with others in all the different ways they might show up. The Institute of Awakened Mutuality (IAM) offers advanced-level courses to help people integrate their awakenings, deepen in mutuality, and prepare to become Trillium Awakening mentors and teachers. You can learn more at www.awakenedmutuality.org.

Within the Trillium framework, people who have awakened and have an impulse to be of service to others begin with mentoring. You may remember from Chapter 7 that mentors are volunteers who offer their time to listen to and support others on the path, rather like an older brother or sister. Mentoring can be a first step toward becoming a Trillium Awakening teacher, or it can be done just for its own sake. It is a low-pressure activity that can help you discover whether you have an aptitude for the type of deep listening and holding that is at the heart of this path.

Mentoring is a gift to the one receiving it, and also brings gifts to the person doing the mentoring. There is something almost magical about the shift that occurs when you have the intention of being present for someone else. During the integration phase it’s easy to get swamped by the roller-coaster of emotional storms and broken zones, but when you show up for someone else who needs your care and attention a balancing effect occurs. You are tangibly reminded that you are still making a contribution even when most of your energy is turned inward toward your own process. Plus, it’s a great way to learn more about the give-and- take of mutuality in action.

So, mentoring is a valuable post-second-birth activity, whether or not you go on to become a Trillium Awakening teacher. You will increase your capacity to “hold” another—to be with them without trying to fix or change them—much like the way you are learning to be with yourself from Presence as you practice Inseeing. And that greater capacity will enhance all the other relationships you might have in your life.

Other avenues of creative expression
Of course, mentoring or teaching is only one of an infinite array of possibilities for expressing divinely human creativity. You might continue with whatever line of work or personal endeavor you’ve already been engaged in, or you might find yourself seeking something new, something more relevant to who you are now.
Whether or not you ever speak directly about your experience of awakening to your relatives or the folks you work with, you will be transmitting that awakening effortlessly, 24/7. Your very presence will be catalytic to those who are receptive to that transmission. You may not see the results directly, but you will have a positive influence and, over time, you may notice that people around you just instinctively feel more open, or more trusting, or in some other way demonstrate an increased ability to be present in their own lives and with you. Of course, your ability to be a trustworthy friend will increase gradually, as you integrate your awakening and work through some of the rougher edges of your personality. This takes some time.

Some people find themselves almost bursting with the impulse to tell others about their awakening, but if this is you, please have a care. Especially at first, you may want to hold back a bit and let the awakening mature in you a while. Then, when you do speak, you will want to stay attuned to the listener’s capacity and inter- est in hearing what you have to share. You will be more success- ful if you stay sensitive to their frameworks and, where possible, use language they can understand. You may feel frustrated if you discover that most of the people around you are less than enthusi- astically interested in what has been a primary focus of your life.

However, it does little good to proselytize—most people have a strong radar for that kind of approach, and avoid it.

This is where creativity comes in. Perhaps there are other ways to share your new-found confidence in Being. Perhaps you will take it into music, or art, or you might find yourself moving into some form of therapy or healing work. Still others find that they can simply be a good listener to their friends or children— something that is still all-too-rare in our world.

In the meantime, find other people to share with who are keen to hear about your experience. Teachers, mentors, peers, your local sitting or mutuality groups—these are all good places to start. And there are TA-related events offered throughout the year which can be a great place to share experiences and make new friends.

Four areas for deepening your divinely human experience
Beyond the work of integrating your awakening through revisiting your shadow areas and broken zones in order to free up more energy and attention, you can undertake further development that will really bring your awakening into full flowering so that it becomes a dynamic force not only for your life, but for transforming the world around you as well. Here are four areas worthy of special consideration.

Awakened Heart: longing for the divine
Any awakening will touch your heart, but there is a difference between a heart that has been moved by the shifts of awakening and a fully Awakened Heart.
The divinely human Heart is remarkable in its multi- dimensionality. We experience love in so many different flavors: a child’s love for his or her parents, a parent’s love for their children, love that draws adults together to form life partnerships, love for friends and colleagues, love of work, recreation, or creative endeavors, and so on. There is a range, or scale, of love as well. We can love fervently, fondly, deeply, unconditionally, warmly, barely, or not at all. Or even positively not love—as in feeling animosity or hatred. Our hearts are exquisitely sensitive parts of us, and they register not only how much or little we feel love for other people or things, they also register how much love—or lack of love—is coming toward us from others. And not only register; our hearts record and remember the things that hurt us. They may build up psycho-emotional scar tissue, or put up walls, or pad themselves as if with Styrofoam in an effort to avoid more pain. Yet still they long for, and try to, love others.

Beyond the love that is exchanged between people, there is another type of love that you might intuitively seek, and that is the pure, refined, sweet bliss of divine love, love of a Beloved that can transport you beyond your usual human cares, and beyond the fickleness that characterizes much of human love. Whether you personify the Source of that love as a divine being, or hold it as more abstract, you may long to bathe in a truly unconditional love, a love that affirms all that is good and true in you and in this manifest world. And not only to bathe in it, but to feel your own heart blown wide open, to feel the rush of that heart-love flowing outward to caress the world and each being in it. If you can imagine how it would feel to love this freely, this wildly, this unconditionally—and if you have ever had glimpses of it—you will naturally want more.

Or perhaps you long for a sense of your inherent perfection, or unity, or strength, truth, wisdom—whatever holy idea that appears to be missing from your experience. If your early life failed to include one or more of these core values, your energetic heart would have thickened in that region, so to speak, and you will have formed personality traits to attempt to compensate. You will be driven to seek that which you think you lack.

Awakening does not automatically heal all the wounds of your tender heart, nor does it necessarily bring you all the qualities you have been seeking. It’s an ongoing process. Some of the insulation around your heart may have melted, but more self-exploration may be needed to address the deeper wounds and residue of trauma. If you feel disappointed, if your life doesn’t have as much bliss and joy as you had hoped, it’s probably because your heart is still defended, still partially closed.

There’s nothing wrong with a defended heart, of course. The aperture of a healthy heart opens when it feels safe enough, and naturally closes part-way whenever it is in a more harsh or insensitive space. Being closed is only a problem when it is a stuck condition: when your heart simply cannot trust enough to ever open. That’s a sorry way to live. It’s important to remember that opening your heart usually requires persistence, sensitivity, and some help from skillful assistants.

This may be a good time to begin practicing or to revisit meditating or other means of connecting with your inner divinity. You may find yourself spontaneously feeling an impulse to express devotional feelings, either to a particular avatar or deity that has meaning for you, or even toward other people who shine for you as the living embodiment of the divine. As long as devotional expressions occur between consenting adults, this can be a most beautiful, heart-opening and life-affirming practice.

Devotion isn’t for everyone, however. Each body has its own manner of finding connection with that sense of transcendence, wonder, and bliss that we call divine. Take the time to nurture your impulses in this area, and discover what’s possible for you.

As your heart is restored to its natural permeability, as it comes more fully alive, you may find yourself at times dropping into profound states. Your awakened heart naturally attunes to the highest, most refined frequencies that can be experienced. More than that, even. Beyond what can be “experienced” in the usual sense is the direct apperception of the Absolute, that which cannot be described because it is not in form. For myself, the quest was not complete until I was graced by the “non-experience” of being immersed in Source, of going home where all distinctions, all concerns, and the last vestiges of separation dissolved into just That. And even though experiencing returned after a while, and functional separations were once again in place, something in me just knew beyond any doubt that I was That and That was me, and that all was mysteriously right with the world. If it is your destiny to take your experience to the edge and beyond, I feel confident that grace will smile upon you also.

Awakened Mutuality: relationships coming alive
Throughout the process of becoming divinely human, you’ve been learning about mutuality, which is the art of being fully and authentically expressed, while sensitively making room for others to also be fully and authentically expressed as well.

As you practice Inseeing with the many interior aspects of yourself, you are, in effect, inviting them to be in mutuality. From Presence, you are able to meet them with interested curiosity and invite them to communicate—to be fully expressed. Even triggered, reactive aspects that appear to be quite oppositional at first, when held by Presence soon become able to coexist without stress, and without preventing life’s forward movement.

The same fundamental dynamic is possible between people, when Presence, or Being, is holding the encounter and mak- ing room for the participants to fully express whatever is up for them—even when triggered. The challenge comes when the players are merged (identified) with their reactivity and unable to maintain a degree of Presence. Then issues tend to become volatile or explosive, feelings get hurt, and conflicts can appear irresolvable. Being human, this is not uncommon, and, though painful at times, isn’t a sign that you’re doing anything wrong.

In Chapter 8 you learned many keys to mutuality, including ways to build trust and ways to make amends when things have blown up and gotten messy. You can practice mutuality no mat- ter where you are in your process of divinely human awakening. However, once that fundamental recognition of your true nature has occurred, another degree of mutuality becomes possible.

For one thing, you will have more of you available more of the time (except when you are in the throes of a shakedown pas- sage). You will become better able to hold your own while hold- ing others in your awareness at the same time. You will also tend to be more understanding of the challenges each person faces on account of conditioned tendencies that flare up in them without warning—those patterns that at times seem so intractable.
More than that, however, is the fundamental recognition that the person sitting across from you isn’t fundamentally separate or other. Whether or not they have had any conscious recognition of this existential truth, you now know it. And in knowing it, you will begin to see that you cannot harm that one without, in some manner, also harming yourself. This “other realization” takes mutuality to a whole new level.

Your awakening will almost certainly bring with it a greater sense of empathy, so that you begin actually feeling what others feel. Assuming this is the case, you will very quickly get how hurting someone near to you can bring instant pain into your own awareness. But even if you don’t have this type of visceral experience, simply knowing your inherent Onlyness will make you mindful that you don’t exist in a vacuum, and that your well- being is, to a degree, dependent on others’ wellbeing. You can’t have one without the other.

However, it isn’t sufficient—or even appropriate—to just “be nice to everyone.” The other side of the equation is that you are here as a powerful, creative being and naturally feel impelled to make your mark in the world, to be fully and authentically expressed. This impulse only grows stronger with awakening, because the more you arrive here in embodiment, the more you want to actively participate in the dance of life. So that’s the challenge of awakened mutuality: being more yourself and more non-separate, both. You know you’re not intrinsically separate and cannot afford to treat others poorly, yet you also know that, in order to get in the room, you have to speak what’s true for you. Sometimes this might trigger pain in other bodies, even when that’s not your intention. Ah, the rub!

The payoff, however, for hanging in with these kinds of difficulties and challenges, is that your relationships can take on whole new depths of intimacy as well as autonomy. As you become freer to act from your inner sense of rightness, you also begin to trust that you can make room for others to do that, too. You trust that it will all work out, even if you aren’t in complete control or haven’t foreseen all the possible downsides. Relationships can become sweeter, and more playful. There can be so much joy in simply being, with others who are doing the same. And gazing—that most intimate meeting, eyes to eyes, beyond words—becomes richer and deeper than ever before.

Awakened partnerships can also reach new depths of intimacy and autonomy. They will have their own unique dynamics and challenges, enough to fill another book or two. For now I will simply say that all of the inner skills of Inseeing, and the outer skills of mutuality, can be brought into your intimate relationships (with parents and children as well as lovers) to great effect. But when you live closely with another person, all your best intentions sometimes can (and will!) fly out the window at a moment’s provocation. When both parties get mutually triggered, it can be nearly impossible to hear or hold the other from Presence.

So anyone who wishes to have a healthy relationship, given how complex we are as awakening beings, would do well to have a good support system, not only for themselves personally, but also for their relationship. Ideally you would have some same- gender friends who are able to listen deeply to you when you need a sounding board, in addition to whatever support you have from your divinely human teachers, mentors, Inseeing guides, and others. If you don’t have others to turn to, you may put too much pressure on your intimate partner to provide everything you want and need, and that’s just not going to happen all the time. Since no one can meet all the needs of another being, that’s where a circle of friends can make a world of difference to the quality of your life, as well as to the health of your intimate relationships.

Some people, upon awakening, pull back from the give- and-take of human relationships and, literally or figuratively, retreat to a cave in the Himalayas to spend their time in solo contemplation. Others choose to remain engaged in the world and in relationship. The latter are more likely to find that they simply cannot stay away from mutuality. Awakened relating is the edge where Being really gets to encounter Being and find out what’s possible in that interface. We are just scratching the surface of what it means to be divinely human together, and if you feel drawn to explore with those of us who are walking this path, you will be most welcome here.

Awakened Creating: the art of making things happen
So much of the embodied awakening process is about encountering and surrendering into your human limitedness and the core paradox that you may have lost touch along the way with the art of creating what you want for your life. You might have started feeling like a victim of your past failures, your circumstances, or your inherent limitations, with the accompanying loss of energy and enthusiasm for life that goes with the drama of victimhood. If this is true for you, it is very important that you shift your orientation to empowered creator, rather than staying in the enervating role of victim.

Being is inherently creative, and part of the joy of living comes from conceiving of the things and events that you would love to have in your life, and to take action to bring those things into form. You don’t have to be especially creative or artistic—this is more about creating desired results than about doing it in a novel or unusual way.

When you are in the midst of the dark night passage, creating might be the last thing you feel inspired to do. When you’re rotting out of the hypermasculine orientation you may be averse to anything that seems to require self-discipline, force, or so- called positive thinking. Or that over-simplifies, or promises instant “fix it” results. During that passage it’s more appropriate to turn your attention inward and allow yourself to drop deeper into just being who you are, and making your discoveries there.

But as you move further into awakening, your creative juices will start flowing again. Being, as you, wants to move and engage in life, and to not do so can cause an energy back-up that might be harmful. It’s important to notice any places of stuck energy or learned helplessness, bring them fully conscious, and consider new frameworks as you are integrating your awakening.

When you use Inseeing to bring Presence to all the elements of a life situation as you learned in Chapters 5 and 6, and are neither merging with nor exiling any of those elements, then something new can emerge, spontaneously, out of Being. Eugene Gendlin, the father of Focusing, calls this mystery the “implicit”—the place from which something potential or implied emerges into form.

Whether implicit, or emergent, or the now, this is the heart of genuine, spontaneous creativity. Most of us long to bring forth what is real in us, that which is most authentic, or most lovely. Or most heart-felt. And that arises out of the Mystery, when we are in Presence with all our conditioning yet acting freely rather than automatically re-acting.

Your personal human self is the vehicle that takes those inspirations and turns them into results. And since most of us were never taught how to create, it can be very useful to spend some time now developing or refreshing the basic skills of creating.

The steps of creating just about anything are:

• Identify what you want to create. Start with some simple, achievable goals that can be created within a week’s time. They must be identifiable results (primary choices), not just the elimination of something you don’t want.
• Formally choose the results you want, and pick one practice creation to begin with.
• See where you’re at currently in relation to that objective. This includes thoughts, feelings, fears, and resistance that might come up, as well as the actual circumstances of your life.Hold both the vision and current reality in your awareness for a few minutes each day.
• Identify supportive actions (secondary choices).Begin taking whatever baby steps you can toward your creation.

Be open to feedback—inner as well as outer—that comes as you start moving toward your goal, and make any needed adjustments or course corrections.
Stay open to synchronistic events, chance meetings, etc., that occur along the way. Your intention sets powerful forces into play.
When your creation comes into form, receive and appreciate what you have created. Celebrate!
As you experience successful creations you can move on to more ambitious results.

Becoming a master of creating requires intention, practice, and for many, the support of a skillful teacher or coach. Visit www.divinelyhuman.com for upcoming classes and other supportive materials for consciously creating your divinely human life.

Awakened Purpose
Beyond taking pleasure in the creating of things and events that you want for your life, it’s natural at this stage to ponder (or revisit) the question of your divine Purpose. During the dark night, many things that once seemed important quite likely fell by the wayside. And now that your authentic Self is online, you may be wondering what to do with your life.

Some divinely human people, upon coming into their awakening, expect their “capital P” life Purpose to show up in some sort of a grand display. They are looking for a sign—a powerful dream vision, or some remarkable synchronicity— something that would feel so compelling there would be no doubt, no hesitation about dedicating their life to that divine purpose or calling.

And perhaps it will come to you in just that manner. Or it may show up in a more subtle fashion. Or you might simply have more options to choose from than One Big One. If your purpose is not blatantly obvious to you, you might try noticing where your interest takes you. Go to a bookstore and notice the sections you gravitate toward. Or notice the people you are drawn to spend time with, and what topics engage you. In many cases, your destiny will somehow reveal itself out of your interpersonal relationships.

Also take note of what you enjoy, because enjoyment is one of the primary qualities of awakened action. Enjoyment (or the more intense feeling of enthusiasm) is the felt sense that occurs when you are linked into the universal creative power. As you envision your life’s purpose, you can use enjoyment as a touchstone, a way to get feedback about any endeavor you might undertake. Of course, when you attempt anything that is challenging there will be times of difficulty and frustration, but you can check to see if the overall activity is enjoyable for you. Remember those sensual delights you were encouraged to play with along the way to awakening? That was to help you open your channels of enjoyment. If an activity is not exactly enjoyable (like some of the chores life requires), is it at least acceptable? If it isn’t, if you find yourself continually disliking or resenting the activity, you are going against the natural flow of Being in your life, and may do yourself or others harm in the process.

Be aware that an important key to long-term fulfillment and happiness is to serve something greater than yourself. So if a sense of purpose hasn’t shown up yet, you might try serving others, or volunteering to help support the spiritual work or works that were most helpful in your awakening process. Embodied awakening is a yin process, mostly. Even when practiced in mutuality, it requires a strong inward focus that often leaves little energy for outward activity in the world. As you deepen in and integrate that awakening, you will find your yang energy for active engagement gradually returning. There is no need to rush this process; it will take time. But, at some point the need for your awakening to find expression will become stronger, and you will want to heed that. Otherwise, if your awakening doesn’t find its voice, if it is not expressed, a sickness of the soul, or depression, can arise.

If it’s been a long hard road
If you are having a difficult time getting your life back into motion, you might still be depleted from the stress of the awakening process itself. Not everyone has a particularly difficult journey into awakening, and if that’s true for you, terrific! But if you had to go through a lot, if your dark night included many losses, or if your reconfiguration has been particularly harrowing, now is the time to acknowledge and honor how hard it’s been to get here. Mixed in with the joy of discovering new capacities, you may—understandably—be feeling some resentment at God or Being or the divine One that sometimes felt absent or unreliable, that didn’t keep you as safe as you wanted to be. Or there may be layers of grieving for what has been endured. Please be especially tender and gentle with yourself, and frequently stop and acknowledge the path itself, and your courage for traveling it. You’ve done well!

You may also find yourself, with your heart more open than ever, feeling sadness for the others in the world who have not yet been able to get here fully. Again, take whatever time you need to feel the rich array of emotions that have been stirred by the profound process you’ve undergone. And when you are ready, give it all your blessing and step boldly forward into your new life.

Celebrating your awakened life
One day you’ll emerge from the more intense period of integration and discover a sense of ease, or wellness, bubbling up on its own accord. Allow yourself to celebrate arriving here in the wholeness and joy of awakened life.

You may find once again a sense of bliss, or feel a deeper connection to Source or Being, a connection that might have felt absent for a while during the more challenging encounters with your shadow zones. Perhaps it feels like the sun is returning after a long gray period of darkness and rain. Or perhaps it feels like your inner sun is shining now—for the first time ever in your life.
For some people, new sensitivities or abilities may begin appearing. Perhaps it takes the form of being more empathic with others, or perhaps some psychic abilities are becoming available for you now. Quite a few people find a deep sense of resonance with nature and feel drawn toward a ritual, or shamanic, path that helps them engage with that world. Still others find their hearts moved by devotional singing, ecstatic dancing, or sitting with heart-centered teachers who inspire them to deeper experiences of divine bliss.

Many find themselves fundamentally content to simply live and be as they are moved in each moment. There is so much variety in people that it would be pointless to generalize or create an expectation for how your awakened life is going to look and feel. Except for this: you will find that ease of Being and trust in Being grow stronger over time.

Equilibrium
Sometimes your life will flow easily, and sometimes you’ll be plunged, yet again, into some triggered reactive state where it feels like all your progress is gone in a flash. “Ugh, I’m here again.” What I’ve found is that, while some of my broken zones appear to have been fully “healed” so that they do not throw me like they used to, I can still get triggered. Over time, it happens less frequently and when it does, I’m more quickly able to notice and bring Presence to the triggered parts. The net effect is that, more of the time, I am in a state of openness and availability to what life is bringing. But I don’t expect to feel good all the time—because I’m embodied and bodies are always cycling through the whole gamut of feeling states.

It’s helpful to remember that most people do not automatically recognize “good enough.” It’s true! There is an inbuilt driver that keeps restlessly searching out perceived flaws and imperfections, even when our lives are fundamentally safe and sufficient. Even those who have made peace with the core paradox of existence may still find a nagging sense of “not good enough” showing up. When this happens, question it. Take a moment to pull back and take a bigger view of your life. Are you safe enough? Is there a roof over your head, and are there clothes on your back? Is your partner a decent, kind person? Does your work provide enough resources to meet your basic needs? Your life may not be perfect, or it may not be ideal in this moment, but always seeking “a better life” can leave you out of balance. If you habitually strive for something more, you will never arrive at a place of contentment with what is.

You can teach yourself to notice the ways in which your life—in which you—are good enough right now. You might begin with a simple exercise: each night before going to bed jot down three things about you or your life right now that are good enough. Then just send a bit of appreciation to those things. In this way you’ll start to recognize “good enough” more often, which will bring more peace and less worry into your daily life.

“Good enough” is not the same as settling for. You can appreciate all the ways in which your life is sufficient, and use that as a starting place from which to undertake creative new endeavors. It doesn’t mean “stop here,” it just means you know you’re okay right now even in the midst of all the inevitable imperfections of life. Real happiness comes from being able to hold the dynamic tensions of life—all the ways our lives (or the world) could be better, and all the ways our lives (or the world) are totally okay as they are—with a lighthearted, playful outlook that comes from standing firmly in the ground of Being, knowing that you are a precious, totally unique, and indestructible event of creation—even while being a tender, vulnerable, finite human person. Blessed be!

Living down
“Living down” means being awake and embodied. It means allowing life to impact you deeply, allowing yourself to be touched, moved, inspired, and at times devastated. It means not avoiding feeling what there is to feel, or numbing out, or living in some lofty transcendent state where real human feelings and reactions are reduced to a minimal level. It means having passion, and allowing yourself to be impacted, and penetrated. It doesn’t, however, mean “down” in a negative way—it’s more like “getting down” with life, where it moves you and shakes you. Living down is as much about passion, lust, romance, and creativity as it is about feeling difficult feelings. And although at first look it might not seem very spiritual, it is in this very “down” place that you come fully alive as the embodiment of infinite Spirit.
Remember that continuing to move through the entire range of human states is what’s normal in embodied awakening. When you are up, enjoy it! When you dive, dive deeply and find out what needs your loving attention. And to whatever degree you can in the moment, lend a hand to your fellow-travelers as they ride the ups and downs of this human experience. It’s so much easier when the journey is shared with like-minded others!

Further awakening: seamless Onlyness
In Chapter 1, I described a fourth stage of embodied awakening called “seamless Onlyness,” wherein the paradoxical both/and quality of divinely human awakening finally merges into a seamlessness that no longer feels like different qualities being juxtaposed, but more like a natural wholeness of Source, subjects, objects, and experiences all flowing together in a dynamic dance that contains opposites but feels inherently unified.

This stage seems to arrive gradually. It appears that the core of the separate self-sense that persisted for awhile in tandem with the awakened Conscious nature dissolves over time, thus provid- ing an ever-growing sense of freedom, spontaneity, and delight in living. Perhaps the “ego,” upon learning that no one (or no other part of us) is trying to remove it by force, at long last puts down its porcupine quills and begins purring like a kitten.
Seamless Onlyness is when the real payoff of awakening kicks in. The bulk of the work of falling apart, coming awake, and then integrating, is behind you now. More and more you find your contact with the luminous divine to be strong and steady, your heart filled with radiating warmth, and your thoughts rather effortlessly turning to whatever work is at hand. Your questions about who you are and your purpose in life have been resolved—at least well enough to give you a good measure of peace and contentment.

Your capacity for being with all of life is wide, and you effortlessly transmit a sense of ease to everyone around you. As you become less concerned about yourself, you become deeply available to others, with great compassion, knowing how very difficult it is to be fully here as a conscious, loving being.
You recognize that there is nothing that is not divine. Every bit of it. All of the opposites of Consciousness and matter, infinite and finite, heaven and earth have now fused into an indivisible unity of cosmic Mystery—and you are That.

These are only words attempting to point toward something ineffable. This integral stage of embodied awakening is still new, and still being explored by the handful of people who have been fortunate enough to find themselves here. I have endeavored, in this book, to describe, primarily, the precursor to this stage, the stage of coming apart then re-constellating as an awakened divinely human being. To arrive here in conscious embodiment is a remarkable thing. However, for all of you who’ve been wondering, as you read through this material, “When does it start to feel more like enlightenment?” well, this is it. The long journey down reaches its bottom and then naturally and organically again ascends, only this time nothing is left out, nothing need be excluded. We are whole and complete and able to welcome whatever life may bring.

Embodied awakening might not ever fully look like the classical enlightenment that stands apart from the travails of human life. We are pioneering something new here, something that is now possible in Being that may not have been possible before. I am so glad to have met you here as you read these pages, and hope that one day we will meet in the flesh, body to body and gaze to gaze. Then we will explore, together, how it is to become divinely human.

Acknowledgements and Resources
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has contributed to this book.
First, to Saniel Bonder who pioneered a radical new approach to spiritual awakening that honored the inherent divinity of body, mind, and emotions, as well as spirit. The website for the work of Saniel and his wife-partner Linda Groves-Bonder is www.sanielandlinda.com.

Next, I thank Ann Weiser Cornell and Barbara McGavin, who took the basics of Gene Gendlin’s Focusing to a very refined level with their Inner Relationship Focusing—which, in turn, is the foundation of the Inseeing Process described in this book. Inner Relationship Focusing, more than any other process I have explored, dovetails perfectly with Trillium Awakening. Ann’s website is www.focusingresources.com.

Creating a good book is a team effort. I thank all those people without whose assistance this book would never have made it off my computer. In particular, I bow to my editor Ruthie Hutchings whose editorial midwifing and loving friendship supported me through the challenging process of turning my very rough first draft into a real book; to Zoë Snyder who applied her creative brilliance to the cover artwork and interior layout; and to my dear husband Michael Radford, now departed, who patiently endured my months of preoccupation with the first edition of this book—while always encouraging and inspiring me along the way.
I owe deep gratitude to my students, who have been so remarkably open and vulnerably present with me—I am forever touched and enriched by knowing you. And to all my teachers along the way, too many to mention individually, I bow to you with love and appreciation.

I give a nod to the Institute of Awakened Mutuality, for their dedication to spreading the core values of Trillium Awakening though retreats and advanced-level courses. Their website is www.awakenedmutuality.net.
I especially honor all the precious teachers and mentors who embody the heart of Trillium Awakening, and continue to push the edges of what’s possible for divinely human beings. You are my “second family of origin” and your boundless love and support has made me whole. You will find the teachers and mentors listed at www.trilliumawakening.org.
I wouldn’t feel complete without honoring the blessed animals who have shared my life and taught me how to love without reservation. Thank you, Tucker, Bodhi, and Ziva!
I also honor, beyond my ability to express, the inner Guides who have accompanied me through this life-walk, loving and encouraging me to persevere even through the darkest times. Thank you for your assistance and guidance. I wouldn’t be here without you, and I am honored to be of service.

To contact CC Leigh and for information on her offerings, please visit www.divinelyhuman.com.