Humor me for just one second.

What if I told you that I know what’s missing in your life. I understand the stress, frustration, and pain you feel, and your lack of faith in yourself to get where you desperately want to be. What if I also told you that I know how and what will relieve you of this pain, allow you to access an infinite sea of untapped potential, and transcend even the person you want to be?

I know because I was you, and in most ways I still am. But, more than that, I’m a story-teller. If you’re intrigued, keep reading. If not, so much love and admiration to you, and I understand. This journey is not for everyone (though everyone is capable of it).

I write this story not so I can remember it in years to come (because I know I always will), and not to prove to you, or myself, that is happened. I am writing simply because this miracle deserves a story. And I am the only one who can write it.

On a Saturday night, not last weekend but the one before, I spent a painful night with my ex-boyfriend. We were not alone, but with three of our mutual friends, playing drinking games, answering deep, intimate, vulnerable questions, and I felt myself yearning for the time we spent together that I said good-bye to. We walked home together, even though I felt inclined not to, and had a simple conversation about our lives since we had last seen each other. Well, now that I think about it, it was him asking the questions and me answering. I refused to look up from the sidewalk.

When we left one another, and I was left alone, walking home to an empty room, the unfelt pain of the loss settled on me like a cloud. I started to sob as I walked toward my room, and once inside, flung myself on my bed, wallowing. I cried myself to sleep that night, desperate for him to hold me and tell me I was beautiful. Longing for someone else’s love.

In the morning I felt a little bit more myself, but my mind was full of thoughts about what may happen if we got back together. I fought myself that morning, at breakfast with my friends, between knowing the time we spent together was in the past, and yearning for the small, temporary sense of false security he provided that had dismissed my pain, if only for a little while. Within an hour I found myself sitting in front of him in the school library. I told myself, as I had told him, that I wanted to be friends with him, be able to see him in groups and ‘have fun.’ But as my chest clenched and the sobs rose from deep within me, I realized I was not ready. I ran across the street from the library, sat down on the bathroom floor, and sobbed. I cried until I was too exhausted to cry anymore, like a baby yearning for a mother that will never come. And nobody ever came.

That was what saved me.

After shedding my sanity on the floor of that bathroom, I stumbled back to my dorm, only to cry more, wailing, screaming, missing time that I could not get back. And then, the tears subsided, the pain lessened, and I stood up. That was step one.

My first clue came in the form of a book, Exaholics, which describes what it means for a human to lose love. Our brains are wired to seek and keep love—it is the oldest, most engrained part of us, something the heart, brain, soul, body, and spirit all yearn for. Most importantly, the book gave me an understanding of my experience, dousing my pain with empathy, and restoring a bit of faith in myself. That day I was alone, but I started to build myself back together again.

That night, I needed love desperately, and it came to me. This was in the form of a friend, who, with a night of laughter, games, and deliberate communication, gave me the tools I needed to move forward. She too showed me empathy, and her love pushed me to commit to not returning to the love from my ex. I wrote down that commitment, signed my name below, and handed her the piece of paper. And she left.

Be patient with me, because I’m not sure I’ll be able to account exactly what came next (because so much did). The next day I had an appointment to have ADHD medication prescribed to me. I had been diagnosed in December, and after a painful first week in school, where I felt unfulfilled, frustrated with myself, and completely faithless in my ability to achieve anything alone, I craved medication. That first pill was life-changing. I felt more myself than I did in a long time, I was productive, intrigued, curious, hopeful, and, most importantly, I believed in myself again. I would go on to tell people that the pill restored my faith in myself. Now I understand that the pill returned me to myself, which is what, ultimately, each step of the journey did a bit of.

Inspired by myself, I stared creating structures that I believed would yield a better life for me. I created routines that I would follow every morning and night, which included skincare, teeth brushing, and journaling, to name a few. I started using a planner religiously, because I understand that those with ADHD find it impossible to stay organized. I exercised every day, got enough sleep, and started writing down thoughts as I was having as they came to me. At night, I would journal about what I was grateful for, what I was proud of myself for, and what pain I was feeling that I was refusing to accept. And then I accepted it, and committed to moving forward despite it. A simple process, but an extremely effective one. In just a day or two, my classes became rewarding again. I was extremely engaged in the learning process, started looking forward to doing the readings, sat in the front of classes, and participated in each one (even in the 400-person lecture where I should have been crippled by embarrassment. That room still scares me.)

Most impactfully, I read Aristotle for one of my classes. His teachings resonated with me and were the first piece of the puzzle that allowed me to understand the experience I was going through. He argued that humans pursue “coming-into-being” which transcends the animalistic, brutish nature of us, to become virtuous, ethical and happy. He spoke of cycles of pain and pleasure that cause human beings to plummet downwards, and understanding as the force that drives us upward. I agreed with the core of what he said, but I wondered if Aristotle himself was happy. He seemed lonely, to me, and arrogant, which is why I didn’t think he was quite right.

Adding to what I was learning about Aristotle were readings about businesses of all things. Each of my classes was, in one way or another, studying the process that leads to success, fame, money, fortune, whatever the end goal was for the respective field. And I noticed that this process was largely the same, that the processes that generate successful companies, countries, and individuals, follow similar patterns.

Excited by this idea, I pursued it further. I decided that it would be my independent concentration, a program that allows me to create my own major, and started thinking about it more and more. I printed out articles on the principles of success, on the nature of happiness, and narratives written by some of the worlds oldest, and greatest, thinkers. I learned to ask not what something contributed to my theory, but what inherent connections existed between ‘successful’ models and processes, and then what was missing from each of them. My dorm wall was covered in papers and sticky notes, which I eventually took down, realizing that it was consuming my life.

I realized that if I was developing a model about how to live a good life, I had to live mine to see if it was accurate. Through, well, life, paired with reflection and a yearn to understand, I started to solidify the fundamentals of the theory. Namely, to stop avoiding pain, to stop chasing, to stop seeking to reach measurable ends, and to stop fighting myself and start loving myself. I realized later that this process was a matter of understanding, appreciating, and integrating all parts of the self with the glue that was love.

The following weekend, I had another breakthrough, after a walk with a friend of mine. On the walk, I felt a sense of ultimate understanding and presence. I knew exactly why she was saying what she was saying, I knew exactly what to say back, and I loved her, and the experience, endlessly. This was not a sign of my ability, my supremacy over her, or anything other than I had a feeling that my process was working. This was the first taste of what I would later come to know as “the mystical feeling” as Einstein called it.

After our walk, I headed back to my dorm, feeling completely peaceful. But, as I entered the building (or started to) I felt something pulling me away from the door. I followed this weird feeling, wandering around the building slowly, noticing the trees, the grass, and the concrete walls. I found myself underneath a concrete ramp, one that I walked up and down every day along with every one of my peers, each of us to distracted with ourselves to live our lives. I noticed a purple symbol stamped on the wall. It was a Chinese symbol next to the word AM and below it, YOU with the Y turned on its side. It was curious, and I took a photo of it, and returned to my dorm.

I looked up the symbol, and it is a Taoist symbol meaning, path, way, and a number of other similar things. The path is you. I nearly started to cry–it was the sign I needed to move forward, and it was what my theory was founded on: integrating all parts of the self (of which I believe there are 5), nurturing them, understanding them, loving them, and ultimately integrating them, causes you to move up. The symbol was telling me what I already believed, that to truly rise, succeed, transcend, or whatever you want to call it, I didn’t have to chase anything. I just had to get out of the way.

Naturally, I started researching Taoism and other world religions, noticing more patterns and similarities. I can go on about these patterns forever, but that is for a different publication. I remind myself, this is just a story.

Soon I realized that I was chasing an answer, chasing validation, chasing empathy, and so I stopped chasing. I turned on music, forgot the method, reminded myself that the ‘point’ I was trying to get to could not be chased. It would draw me to it.

Funnily enough, sometime later I felt this pressing urge to start running. It was like something else had taken control of me completely, my entire being felt desperate to run. I remember hastily putting on my shoes and coat, even saying “Jesus, wait!” (not because Jesus was calling me, but because I just say Jesus all the time) and I burst through the doors of my dorm. I started to sprint. I had no idea where I was going, and I was completely fine with that. I found myself standing under a flickering lamppost on the corner of two streets. A crossroad. I, figuring another symbol would be near, thinking I was following some sort of divine scavenger hunt, searched the area for a clue. I took a picture of the text on the lamppost, but I kept searching—that didn’t really seem right. Then I looked up, and noticed the number 23 on the top of the lamppost. For a reason I cannot explain, I figured that my searching was over. And I sprinted back to the dorm.

Of course, when I got back inside I Googled the number 23 and found that it symbolized transformation, and was supposedly used as an indicator that there is a higher power.

It is here that I will pause. I am not writing this to convince you that there is a higher power, someone that was drawing me to something else. I believe that, as a slowly started moving upward through this experience, I became more open to everything. I cannot prove that there is a God, and I am not trying to. Instead, this is evidence that I achieved a sort of settling into the self, a connection between me and all parts of the world. I have tried chasing the number 23 (yes, I am ashamed to admit, I thought it was a sign from the heavens or something) but this was to no avail. What starts to occur with this upward movement is a higher state of consciousness, a higher state of being. You start to see connections in everything—everything seems like a miracle, everything is curious and puzzling and beautiful and laughable at the same time. For me, the number 23 was the first manifestation of that sense. For others, it will be something else. But ultimately, you will begin to understand that everything we perceive with our senses has the capacity to make us more intelligent, more curious, and passionate, if we open ourselves to it. What this reflects is a fundamental commitment to the definition of existence. Something exists if it can affect another thing that also exists. I exist, and everything around us exists, so of course those things have the capacity to affect us just as we have the capacity to accept them.

Following the 23 discovery I was ecstatic. I started searching frantically for the number 23. When I saw it, I thought it was a sign that I was on the right path. Overtime, I’ve realized that everything is a sign that we’re on the right path. It’s avoiding, ignoring, fighting and trying to change what is that keeps us off track.

That weekend I felt more fulfilled, present, and awestruck then I ever have. My experiences at bars that week were phenomenally fun, deep, fulfilling, and they never kept me from doing my nightly and morning routines.

The following Monday, the world seemed brighter, better than it normally did. Every experience I had had something to tell me. I was intrigued by Albert Einstein and all the notions he introduced, which, I believe to be closest to the things that I have expressed and felt. I was fully engaged in classes, was less affected by seeing my ex, and had more love to give to my friends. I had a confidence, a presence, something I noticed that people were drawn to (whether people went up to me more or less often this week I really am not sure, I may have just noticed them this time.) One night, I was thinking and learning about paradoxes and the notion of infinity. I came to the simple realization that life is infinite—like the space between 1 and 2, though it had bounds (life and death) there are an infinite number of decimals that exist within those numbers. Infinity exists within boundaries, and life, then, must be infinite. And that is a beautiful thing.

When I wrote this down in my journal for the first time I sat upon my bed, in the presence of a friend, and something new was with me. I had this complete sense of joy, peace, and happiness, a swelling feeling in my stomach that I cannot explain. It was the sense that everything is, everything will be, that everything will be ok. I felt like a new person, maybe a new kind of person. I searched for what this emotion could be and found it explained by Albert Einstein as the mystic emotion, a state that now has scientific backing and is defined as a sign that an individual has reached the 5th level of consciousnesses. This is the state of consciousness typical of monks, and the descriptions of the feeling were so incredibly specific and exact to what I was feeling. Typically, this state is achieved through transcendent mediation, which involves integrating, accepting, knowing, understanding, and loving all parts of the self. I had done the same thing to get there, using the same method.

The next few days have been pure bliss. I feel unaffected by the actions of others, and find every experience, everything that I perceive to be beautiful. I am inclined to learn, solve, and think. I am inclined to wander, to search, to discover, and I accept the world for what it is. I have noticed changes in my intelligence, found myself to be more compassionate to myself and others, and more capable of so many things.

For now, this is where I will leave things. If you have reached the end of this narrative and you doubt the validity of this journey I’m experiencing, I understand. That’s no reflection on you, and I certainly do not blame you for your intelligently-placed doubt. But, if any part of you, at all, has any sort of inclination that this is possible (which, I assure you, it is) please consider joining me. Reach out to me, I have more to share. This journey is about understanding the self to reach a sort of limitless potential. Happiness, intelligence, all these things come along with this upward velocity. And there is absolutely nothing inside me that makes me more capable of this journey than any other human being. I am fortunate enough that my circumstances have led to this result, and now it is my sacred duty to help others reach this point. Please, call or text me. I would love to help.

If you stop being affected by unknown things, then by definition, you know all things.
levitiation march 9 2023
it’s time that i record what’s happening

today i discovered that I can levitate. I discovered that I am reincarnated. That life is infinite. That science supports these conclsuoiins. That the things that I have been experiencing are real. Hallucinations are real. Dreams are real. Out of body experiences are real.