In my podcasts, and in person, I often talk about the “God Shot”. We all want them and some of us have them. But what is a God Shot? I think it is when you have a spiritual experience so profound it affects, or can affect, the very underpinnings of our present lives. God Shots certainly help to catapult us to a deeper and more profound relationship to Spirit, or at least it can.
Some of us have had the luxury to travel for spiritual workshops. Some of us are fortunate enough to have great workshops in the places we live. The workshops, ceremonies, etc. often bring us closer to the divine. The question then is; what do we do after? Integration of our experiences is important, but how do we do that? Another aspect of the God Shot is to work with it. We are invited to be in the presence of the Divine but how do we stay with the Divine?
It can be impossible to be in a “touched by Grace/Divine Place” all the time. It is possible, however, to not waste the experience, rather learn from it, and move forward. The same, but nothing can ever quite be the same. If the work was particularly strong, there is a good chance that you experienced firsthand the unity and connectedness of our universe. But this unity is not immediately obvious to everyone in your life, nor is it easy to stay connected to as distractions and obligations pile up and time passes.
You may feel disconnected from your body. Quite often, glimpses of spiritual enlightenment can leave you feeling physically shaky, un-grounded, and a bit ethereal. The heaviness of our everyday world can feel totally dissonant with the peaceful, beautiful, artistic, synchronistic, spirit-drenched version of reality that you left behind.
Reality is not as it seems; the further along our path we travel, it becomes abundantly clear that everything in our world/universe is not what it appears to be. Time, energy, light, and matter all take on new properties that are illuminating, expansive, exciting, and beautiful. Spirit and Soul are more immediately accessible. It can be sad, frustrating, and even scary to “lose” the vision we have experienced; only to have it replaced with the oh-so-mundane world of cars, television, computers, and headlines.
You may be tempted to relapse into old patterns and habits. You might find yourself going back into ways of being that you thought you “cured” in your Spirit work. Even if you don’t intend to go down that path, you aren’t sure what else to do with yourself. This can create further havoc if you judge yourself harshly for these “slip-ups”.
The information and insight from your spiritual work may indeed leave you feeling pretty clear about who and what do/don’t belong in your life. It can be unwise to act on that information immediately following a God Shot, or series of ceremonies because all of the above may also be happening for you.
I encourage you to take time for personal reflection/meditation. I like to Journal, go on deeper shamanic journeys, or meditate. I find these excellent tools to help you understand and put words to what is initially a wordless state of knowing/seeing/feeling/being. Putting language/imagery/metaphor to it can help you make sense of what you saw/felt/knew and help you retain that understanding going forward. Meditation and journeys can help you continue to practice being a Witness to your thoughts and yourself. Learning to Witness (and not label or judge) your thoughts, behaviours, and yourself is a lifelong practice that will serve you in every. Being a “witness”, means you notice your thoughts without attaching to or identifying with them. You simply observe yourself. This observation practice keeps you from getting tangled up in your emotions, stories, and patterns. As an objective observer, you allow yourself to watch them as if you’re watching the sky change with the weather. With practice, you can notice and release judgements, allowing yourself to return to a state of compassionate open-heartedness toward yourself and all beings.
Other resources you may enjoy:
- Free shamanic music and drumming.
- Or if you’re new to journey work and wish to develop your own relationship with spirit, get started with journey work here.
- Our Meditations home page.
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Also published on Medium.
This article speaks to me. In 2009 I had a profound spiritual emergency, a sudden, rapid, chaotic psychological transformation that first appeared almost psychopathic but which actually had a healing trajectory leading to an expanded awareness of the unity of all life.
This deeply unsettling experience was literally a dark night of the soul. Nothing mattered or made sense, and there was a feeling of dread in the religious sense. I have never felt so spiritually abandoned in all my life. I certainly felt that most of what I thought was true was utterly useless in the face of the great mystery and yet I felt locked into a battle with myself as to what kind of God ran our universe…a god of love or a god of hell fire and retribution.
Nevertheless, out of this experience I began to paint mandalas with a passion and over the next 9 or so years produced not only abundant art but a kind of running commentary on many of the stages of the soul’s journey though its own underworld.
But now I find the old patterns have returned, the ego reasserted, and the desire to paint seems to have subsided. Despite knowing that there is a healing trajectory to what is happening to our species, I feel a sense of depression and personal failure as if maybe I have not fully grasped or metabolized the vision of the ordeal I went through.
There is no doubt that watching the rising tide of fascism, racism and the “us vs them” consciousness that is ripping the world apart, requires every ounce of strength and discipline to hold fast to the vision that our species is on the threshold of a breakthrough in consciousness and the birth of a new human. I struggle with fear, rage, dissociation and even indifference. At times I wonder if we are not but one of millions of similar planets at exactly the same stage in evolution, scattered like seeds around the vast universe. Despite my vision of the future survival of the species, I wonder if the earth seed will truly sprout or will it die. It seems incomprehensible that God should bring the entire species to this point and then watch from within each of us as we waste billions of years of evolution by being unable or unwilling to face the ordeal of transformation. So yeah, there is despair to accept and move past as well.
All this to say that your article is therefor very timely and I thank you for it.
Richard
Richard, I really appreciate your honesty and realness. I, as well, experience similar thoughts to yours. I think we are, but one, version of reality/people/planet. I cannot say with any conviction that our species will survive in the form we are used to seeing – ie alive in human form. My Spirits are not generally the coddling type, and as a result, I have little excitement for the future. Perhaps our evolution is to return to Source, share our successes and failures, and become the Ancestors for another race, perhaps in another place. I don’t think all is lost, I think all is in transition.
Kriket