The Revelation

By Debi Hebel

Some of us have arrived at a time in our lives where we have become desperate with the feeling that there must be more. We struggle day in and day out, feeling empty and alone, which leads us to making attempt after attempt to fill that emptiness through relationships, money, and material things. This puts a mask on the despair for a brief time. But it always comes back, returning us to the desperate, lonely, depleted state of being that we are all too familiar with. It is then that many of us choose to begin a journey to search our soul for answers. To search for what it is that we so desperately need to feel perfect, complete, and whole. In this moment, we make the decision to leave the chaotic and undesirable place in which we struggle and we step into the opening of the tunnel to our soul.

As we walk forward, we recognize that the further we walk, the darker it gets and we only have a candle to light our way. Nothing is heard in the darkness but the sound of our heart beating. The stillness along with the obscure shadows along the walls create an unpleasant stirring in our stomach. The walls of the tunnel feel very close at times, as though we are being boxed in. But still, we continue on.

Eventually we come to a convergence of tunnels. Here we must choose which path is the right one for us. Since it is dimly lit, there are no physical signs that we can use to make this decision. The only thing we can do is to trust our intuition to choose the right one for us. This turns out to be a much greater task than we originally thought. In the outer world, we always have the ability to make decisions based on our cognitive processes that use analytical information to come to a decision. Now, to make a decision based only on how we feel is awkward at first, but proves to be successful. This gives us an empowered feeling because now we feel confident that all of the answers we need are truly inside us. As we curiously move forward we come across several more converging tunnels, but we do not give up. We trust in our intuition and we continue on.

In between the sound of our heart beating, we begin to hear a voice. The sound of the voice echoes off the walls of the tunnel. The voice has a very negative nature. It seems to know us well because its negativity is preying on areas where we have self-doubts. Over and over again, it echoes about how we are not good enough and how we will never make it to the end of the tunnel. Then we stop and realize that we recognize the voice. We are shocked to make the connection that the voice is actually our own. We have been listening to our negative self-talk. We decide that from this moment on we will reverse any more negative self-talk we have. Any time it returns, we will change it to be a positive statement of appreciation for who we are. And we continue on.

As we move through the darkness, we find yet another challenge: we are constantly being confronted by dark sinister creatures that seem to jump out at us from the depths of the darkness. These creatures represent our fears and would like nothing more than to hold us back from finding what we seek. We can feel them as we walk through the tunnel. With every step, the sense of tension grows. Then it happens: one of the creatures from the darkness jumps out to stop us from moving forward. We freeze, feeling completely paralyzed. The all-too-familiar feelings begin to appear. Our heart begins to pound in our chest, our palms begin to sweat, and we can feel our hands trembling. On previous occasions, we would have backed down and returned to where we came, but this time is different. This time we are determined to not allow anything, even our worst fear, stop us from getting to the place we need to be. So instead of turning around, we step up to the fear. With a smile on our face and determination in our voice, we point the fear in the direction out of the tunnel and tell it we no longer need it in our life. And we continue on.

Periodically on our journey, we come across sparkles of light. They usually appear in very synchronistic moments. This is how we know to follow their guidance. These sparkles give us the feeling of support, protection, and, most of all, love. Sometimes these are with us on our path the entire time. Others appear for only a moment, then leave to make way for others of a different expertise. These sparkles are the people who enter our lives, whether it is for a fleeting moment or for a lifetime, to help guide us while we continue on.

Finally, one day in the distance, a tiny light appears. Moving cautiously, we pick up our pace. Then we reach the opening. It is the end of the tunnel. The end of our search has arrived. We take a step into the light. We turn our face toward the light and feel its warmth on our skin. This warmth travels down through our entire body and into the depths of our being. With this light, we know our journey has been one of extreme enlightenment. We continue to move into our place of discovery. As we move forward, we notice all of the beauty that is around us. And then it happens, our epiphany: this is the same place where we began our search, only now it's a place of clarity, peace, beauty, and love. Our place did not change because we added more material or money to our outer world. Our place became more full as a result of the growth that we made during the dark moments in our inner world. With this growth, we feel perfect, complete, and whole because we have become conscious of the most powerful discovery of all: the love for who we are. Welcome to the revelation.