Have you ever had a moment when you felt simply done with something? Not “over it.” Not deciding that it’s time to move on. You are simply done. You feel neutral and calm, and there’s no urgency to change things. But the relationship, job, project, idea, experience, or something else is no longer something you have any interest with anymore. You are complete.
These moments of completion when we end some aspect in our human lives can be surprising. People are used to being told when something is over or having their ego decide to end something. It’s a very different experience to have this decision rise internally without thought.
And completion is just a piece of this topic. Then there comes a phase of uncertainty for many people as they pass beyond whatever was completed into a new phase of life. This is what I mean by crossing a threshold. We go through a time of possibly not knowing what lessons or changes are coming. Sometimes we do know as well, but making the changes to cross the threshold can be challenging, such as if you know it is time to finally start some business you’ve been dreaming of. Because of ego attachments, the desire to return to something familiar, avoid the unknown, or rush through a threshold can be strong for people. This can cause all sorts of problems.
With that said, let’s investigate these two closely linked topics of completing cycles and crossing thresholds.
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Understanding Types of Cycles
There are many kinds of cycles in life. In the physical world, we are aware of how these cycles look as children grow up. There is a cycle of gestation. Then the baby crosses a threshold during birth. Then there are cycles of infancy, toddler-hood, and so on as a person gradually grows up into adulthood. From time to time, these changes bring about “growing pains,” which I think is also useful metaphor for some of the things that arise on the spiritual path. But since this is on the physical body level, we can’t really backslide. The baby can’t call off birthing and stay inside their mother. And most of these things can’t be rushed. For example, your body will grow to its natural height on its own time.
But when it comes to other cycles, we can cause much more distress and confusion by trying to avoid or rush them.
Consider coming to a conclusion in a romantic relationship. People have all kinds of attachments to relationships, and for it to suddenly one day be completed for one partner can be a jarring experience. When I say “completed,” I have to emphasize that this is NOT an ego decision. The ego self could be completely happy with a romance, but on a deeper level, something completes. Whatever lessons, healing, or growth that was needed in this relationship is finished. The person can move on.
In the context of spiritual awakening, awakened energy seems to accelerate cycles. It’s like a four year history degree program is stuffed into four months, and then you’re on to a chemistry degree program that will also be stuffed into four months. It’s a lot. It’s one reason that people can feel so tired after awakening.
Ending a Healing Cycle
In working with people these last eight years, I’ve seen more than a few healing cycles complete. Anyone who says that “the healing is never really over” doesn’t know what true healing is. Healing can and does end for any egoic issue someone can have. When the energy of distress has released itself from the body, the person is done. Keep in mind that the mind, heart, body, and subtle energy all seem to need to heal in major traumas such as resolving sexual abuse. However, when all these levels completely release the energy that got stuck from the trauma, the healing of the abuse is now done.
Yet the person may wonder if it is really over. Serious trauma requires a lot of work, and they can have already gone through many smaller cycles of healing. Additionally, the person probably had a wounded ego, and they then had to develop a kind of self improvement ego to overcome their wounds. Well, at the ending of this healing cycle, neither ego knows what to do. Neither knows how to accept that the person is healed. The tendency is to keep looking for more issues because that’s the world these two egos have lived in.
A person coming to completion of healing may also find themselves in a state of confusion because they have achieved their goal, but they have entered an unknown phase. This is actually wonderful. No more familiar misery! Now it is time to be with their ego discomfort with the unknown. They have to learn to be with this new space as they begin to cross-over a threshold into a new set of life cycles and finally put healing behind them.
Other Types of Cycles
Beyond healing and relationship cycles, there are all kinds of cycles of learning and growth. Truly, it’s the growth and healing happening within the person that is more important than the outer expression of that cycle–the outer expression meaning the relationship, job, project, or something else that is ending. Let’s say for the example of the relationship that a person may have connected to another person to learn things like:
- Speaking their voice
- Discovering spirituality
- Learning to compromise
- Exploring sexuality
Then, at some point, those lessons are learned and therefore completed. For whatever reason, the soul decides that the person needs to move on from this relationship to explore new lessons. It’s just something that happens. If the person allows the relationship to complete and to move on, then they discover new cycles and a new stage of their evolution.
On the spiritual path, there are certainly all kinds of cycles in spiritual development. Many times, you don’t know what the cycle is until it’s concluded. However, as you learn to pay attention to what is going on within you, you get better at figuring it out. In general, learning to perceive and honor these development cycles is key to engaging with them and crossing a new threshold.
Sitting in the Unknown of a Threshold
I’ve discussed the space of the unknown after releasing issues before, and I have a link down below where you can read about that specifically. Depending on the type of cycle that has been released, there is more or less to actively do. In the unknown of the completion of an abusive relationship, someone may realize that they have to learn a lot about healthy relationships. So they seek counseling, read books, make new friends, and do other things to help them cross the unknown at the end of that particular cycle. In other situations, a person simply is with the space of not knowing until something intuitively arises.
Consider if you complete your interests in the spiritual path. You may find yourself with no direction. You simply are where you are. And yes, people sincerely lose interest in the spiritual path. What this typically means is that they are no longer seeing the spiritual path as some narrowly defined set of beliefs or practices. Often, crossing this threshold leads to a deeper seeing and sense of all of life as spiritual. But this type of realization does not come intellectually. Intellectual understanding is not enough–it is almost never enough. The whole of a person must realize it to finish crossing this type of threshold. After which, there is greater clarity around how to act and what calls to the person, if anything is calling at all.
Grasping and Struggling with Completion and Thresholds
Many people won’t be at peace with completion. Instead, they’ll revert to whatever their ego preferences are when confronted with something new and unknown. That can mean several things including:
- Trying to hold onto the thing, situation, person, or whatever they have come to completion with
- Immediately trying to change everything to get to the perceived safety of knowing what the next thing is
- Getting lost in confusion or indecision–this is particularly true when someone knows where crossing the threshold is taking them, but they decide that they don’t like that next lesson/cycle
- Being generally impatient as well as scared of the unknown
The result is that things become a lot less peaceful for the person. Many people backslide into old habits. Then they are often confronted by a sense of indifference or frustration that the cycle they completed no longer feels true. It’s like going back to a job that you no longer want to do. The initial phase of feeling safe quickly ends being replaced by a kind of aimlessness. This isn’t an ego sense of not liking something. It’s deeper than that. It also can make a person feel very lost and apathetic.
And of course, trying to rush through a threshold is sheer foolishness. Rush to where? Many people won’t actually know where they are going. That’s why sitting in presence is important. It allows things time to clear up and deeper insights to be seen.
The Spiritual Backslide
Completion and Letting Go
Firstly, it’s important to honor the completion. As I mentioned earlier, there is something amazingly neutral about completion. It doesn’t require an awards ceremony or for someone to be “sick of it.” It comes when it comes, and it tells you that you are done.
In so much of society, people are told when they are done. They are told when to graduate school. They are told when they are done with a work assignment. They are told countless things about when something is complete by the external world.
Additionally, they are used to their ego telling them when they are done with things, and this sense of completion is not that. Completion is a wholly different animal. It’s the inner space talking to you and telling you that you are complete with something. It can be unnerving the first time that it comes, but in time, these moments of completion are deeply assuring.
It’s assuring in the sense of the clarity and confidence of knowing that you are done with something. Through acceptance, we let go, and then the crossing of the threshold into a new cycle of life can proceed.
Identify, Accept, Embrace, and Let Go
Passing Through the Threshold and Growing Clarity
As usual, surrender is central to this transitional time. The more you surrender and let go, the more things can flow and arise. This is not a passive thing. If it is clear what the next cycle is, then there is no need to hesitate. Sometimes, the next life cycles and next actions are obvious. Sometimes, it is years before you really have the perspective to know what all was going on. This is particularly true with brand new life cycles.
Consider someone who is an intellectual. One day, they are done learning new ideas. I can imagine that some of you are shocked by this, and the very idea that we can reach completion with learning ideas can be shocking. Let me just say that while we can always be learning, there are other lessons that don’t arise in the realm of intellectualism. And there are times when certain types of intellectualism end. There is nothing further to be found there than what the person has already discovered.
On the human level, it may be very disturbing to the ego self particularly if they have built their whole lives around ideas as many people do. A whole career can go up in smoke with this completion. Crossing this threshold may lead to a time where they are experimenting in the worlds of the heart, body, or soul before things get clearer. But as they do, the person begins to be able to understand the life lessons and cycles they are now engaged in. The right kind of exploration can help them to more fully embrace the next phase of their development.
Stepping Confidently into a New Cycle
I want to re-state as usual that the way to flow best as a human being is to surrender to the present moment. In the timeless present, there is no cycle and no where to go. This is truth. But as we do that, this surrender in the present moment seems to ignite and further the life cycles that are most true to us. It’s a beautiful truth that giving up action and ego creates space for conscious action and flow in ways that we might not imagine.
That last part is often crucial. We generally have to give up our ideas that we know what should happen or what life lessons should come to us. In so doing, the ones that are most true to us–be they painful, enjoyable, both, or neutral–can arise. As we embrace them, then we can continue to grow and evolve in divinely inspired ways that allow us to come to completion with these next cycles and more consciously move through new thresholds in this ever-changing and amazing human life we live.
Embracing and Evolving from True Love (recording)
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