An Inner Experiential Perspective
Few years ago, in times when the world was experiencing relative normality to the present day state of a global pandemic and nationwide lockdowns, I entered an apocalyptic mind state for a period of 6 months. Triggered by a shortage of sunflower cooking oil in the supermarket, I started believing that the world was about to come to an end. The oil had no relevance to my belief. It was just the event that tipped me into this state.
I mention the oil event to show that anything can trigger such a mind state. It need not be just a global pandemic. Before the mass event known as corona virus, there were a large number of people already in an apocalyptic and/or depressive mind state with feelings of hopelessness and despair. I am sharing this story because what I went through to get myself out of that state may help others, especially now that this is being experienced en masse.
If you find yourself drawn into any of the states described below or anything similar, and you cannot pull yourself out, it is recommended to get help from an experienced therapist or facilitator who can guide you through this. With the help of an experienced guide, you can turn this into an opportunity and emerge from this much stronger than you could have ever imagined.
My journey of exploring consciousness gave me the gift to change perspectives and explore “dark” and painful subjects without fear, shame, or guilt. Using my experiential knowledge, I help people to explore these states so they can grow stronger by connecting with themselves and accepting the unacceptable reality of who we are. If you would like to discuss or have personally guided experiences to explore such states, please write to us.
Phase I
At the beginning, I thought the apocalypse was a few weeks away, so I started preparing myself by panic buying the most ridiculous things — packets of garbanzo beans, bottles of sunflower oil whenever I found them — and that was about it. Weird you say… have you seen the news today? Each person has a tendency to latch onto a different thing they believe is a necessity. The weirdness is not in the item they latch onto. That could be anything. The item is a manifestation of the fear that is driving the thought, action, and decision processes.
Stage II
When my apocalyptic mind state advanced to the next stage, two things happened. First, the timeline reduced. It had been 3 weeks that there was a low supply of sunflower oil, and many days there was just no stock. Then a gasoline price rise spiked my paranoia. Now I was convinced that the apocalypse was just around the corner. I believed the world could end tomorrow.
Since there was no global event taking place, I did not know how the world was going to end. Whether it was another world war, a biological threat such as a pandemic, or a nuclear meltdown. The cause was unimportant at the time — but I was completely certain it was going to happen.
What I managed to do at this stage was to overcome the fear that I will die. I managed to convince myself, that no matter what happens, I will make it through. Even being an atheist, I believed in magic and mysterious occurrences — and I had always been a very “lucky” person — so I started believing that in some way or another I would be one of the few that make it to the other side of this apocalypse.
And this opened the door to the real fear I had been escaping. Loneliness, isolation, and survival without support from the “system” that I hated so much at the time (my views have changed drastically since then).
The survivors of a horrifying global event are far more damaged and challenged than those who didn’t make it.
When we wish for things, most of the times we don’t realize the full ramifications of it. Surviving an apocalypse may seem like a major achievement or something to be thankful for. But do you realize that you will be completely alone? Even if there are other survivors in different parts of the world, there will be no communication systems, everything will have collapsed.
I started frantically researching ways to become self-sustainable with solar energy, farming, and downloading TV shows and movies in case the internet goes down. Priorities right?
Stage III
After about 3 months, when I realized that loneliness was my biggest fear, rather than go into socializing and escaping this feeling in some way, or trying to become a lone wolf survivor, I decided to “lock myself down”. Somewhere inside me I knew that this apocalyptic state of mind was more about my psychological and emotional state than the outward drama I was imagining.
I entered a voluntary period of isolating myself as much as I could. While I could not avoid contact completely, I managed to reduce it to a point that I could experience my loneliness to the fullest extent. Although it took me about two months to get even remotely comfortable with the idea of being completely alone post-apocalypse, I managed to shift my mind state to accept this “reality”. Once I accepted it, something magical happened.
I finally connected with my “self” for the first time. I started listening to my self, something I had never experienced before.
Because I believed I was all alone, the voices of the world disappeared.
I was only used to listening to the voices of the “world”. Of the people around me, of the media, or the voices within me that wanted to rebel and reject everything. I realized that none of these polarities were my voice. When for the first time in my life I could hear my self, my original untainted thoughts, feelings, and desires — it cracked open a magical doorway. I started feeling at peace even when I was completely alone.
I was no longer lonely, even when I was alone.
Shortly after this, I woke up one morning and opened the doors of my house. As I walked out, I saw the sun rising. And something was different. I felt the sun rising within me, not just as an external phenomena. I also realized that I had not been noticing the sunrise during this time. I had felt like the sun had been setting during this apocalyptic state, a feeling of doom and gloom had set upon me.
With this sunrise, I finally felt that a new phase was starting in my life. In this moment I realized that I had been experiencing an ego death in a highly exaggerated and outwardly projected state. What had been ending was a large part of my personality — the part of me that considered the opinions of other people and the world to be of greater importance than myself. What came to an end that day was the desperate survivor who would do anything to continue living, because I had believed many ideas about the “preciousness” of life.
That morning, as the sun rose within my consciousness, I felt a relief and a sense of calm that is present even in this day of global crisis. I don’t feel even the slightest sense of panic or fear about what is going on. It may seem bizarre or strange, but having confronted this fear at that time made me realize that I am not here just to survive. I am here to live and enjoy the moments that I can while I am here. And when I go, I will continue to do the same wherever the journey takes me. And that the end is just the beginning of something different.
An Endless Journey
Only those who have learned to die will survive the end of the world…
When I entered the apocalyptic state, I experienced death without realizing it. What died was the illusion of happiness I had been experiencing. The mask I fooled myself into believing, to avoid the dread that was living underneath. Following this death, I entered the apparent nightmare of the apocalypse. During which I convinced myself that I have to survive even if everyone else dies. Because only the weak die. To live is stronger. Because human life is so precious and it must continue at all costs.
When this apocalyptic state ended, it took away these ignorant baseless beliefs.
There is no strength in living for the sake of a belief.
And there is no weakness in dying without “completing” your “mission” or “purpose”. Those are the ideas and values we latch onto in order to escape everything we have repressed. In doing this we make ourselves miserable in life and in death.
No matter our beliefs about what comes after the death of our bodies. While we live, we die a thousand deaths. We die as a fetus and become a baby. We die as a child and become a teen. We die single as we enter a relationship. Our relationship dies and we continue living single. We get fired from our job and we live through our mid-life crisis. We retire and the old person comes to life.
And hundreds of other events take place in which our ego transitions from one state to another. Sometimes blissfully and other times painfully. In each transition, we have the choice to change our beliefs about our identity. Sometimes we are weak and sometimes we are strong, and the reality is that it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you lived and that you died, and that the story goes on…
I started appreciating the experience of life for itself. Even considering many consequences of being one of the few survivors of an apocalypse, I would still want that today, because now I am in it for the experience.
The ability to experience life, no matter how it is and where it takes us, is invaluable in and of itself. There is no need to add beliefs to it. There is no need to put conditions and increase the value of certain states such as being positive and blissful all the time, being a beacon of love and light, or any such arbitrary concept that we invent.
Learning to turn a terrible situation into an opportunity is far more interesting to some people than just being in a perpetual state of bliss. The real value of such states is experienced through their opposites. Accepting this duality is part of the journey.
If you would like to ask questions, have a chat, or take a guided tour into the depths of your consciousness, please feel free to connect.