Spiritual Journey / not a straight line

Learning to belong.

This isn't a timeline of beliefs or a list of answers I've found. It's the story of trying different ways of connecting โ€” to my body, to practice, to nature, and eventually to myself.

I don't remember every exact date. That feels appropriate. This page is about the shape of the journey more than the calendar.
root โ†’ reach โ†’ return
01 / My Story

I started by trying to feel better.

Around a year ago โ€” I don't know the exact date โ€” this whole journey began because I was dealing with health issues and I decided I needed to do something about them. I wasn't looking for a spiritual path. I was looking for a way to help my health, feel better in my body, and find something that might actually make a difference. That search is what led me to Eastern medicine and medical qigong.

This is where it started: health first, spirituality later. I didn't set out trying to become more spiritual. That part grew out of what happened when I began working with my body, movement, awareness and connection.
ๆฐฃ
Root / beginning

Medical Qigong โ€” where it actually began

I started medical qigong because of my health issues. That was the reason I walked through the door. I wanted to do something active about my health rather than simply continue feeling the way I was feeling. Eastern medicine led me toward medical qigong, and it went incredibly well. My body started feeling better. I felt like I was healing and, at the same time, I began experiencing a deeper connection through movement, attention, breath and energy. What started as an attempt to help my health gradually opened a door into something much larger.

๐Ÿฅฌ
Experiment / listening

Raw veganism โ€” my body kept feeling better

Around that same larger period of change, I spent a few months eating raw vegan. Together with medical qigong, it felt like part of a period of healing. My body was feeling better, and that mattered enormously because improving my health was what had started this journey in the first place. Food became another way of paying close attention to what I was experiencing and how different ways of living affected me.

ใ€ฐ
Friction / sensitivity

When connection became too much

Then the thing that had felt like connection started to become overwhelming. Outdoors I felt intensely sensitive to vibrations and sensation. I had to step away. Something that had opened me up had opened too far, and I needed distance.

โ˜ฏ
Searching / adapting

Tai Chi โ€” something was there, but it became too much

I kept exploring through Tai Chi. I could feel something in these practices โ€” my body could feel better and I could feel connected โ€” but the intensity and sensitivity could also become too much for me. The answer wasn't as simple as finding a practice that โ€œworked.โ€ I was learning that something could genuinely help me and still become overwhelming.

โœฆ
Reaching / inward

Ananda โ€” connection and overwhelm at the same time

I also took an Ananda self-realization class. Like Tai Chi, there were parts of it that felt meaningful and made me feel better, but it could become too much. I was discovering a pattern: I could feel deeply connected through a practice and still need to step away from it. Stepping away wasn't the same thing as saying the experience had meant nothing.

02 / Growth Rhythm

I can see the five stages in my own journey.

Foundation, Adaptability, Persistence, Flourishing and Evolution aren't abstract ideas here. Looking back, I actually moved through them. Not perfectly and not in a straight line โ€” sometimes I moved backward, repeated a stage or carried several at once โ€” but this is the rhythm I can see in the story.

Foundation

My health issues were the beginning. I decided I needed to do something, found Eastern medicine and started medical qigong. My body began feeling better. Raw veganism became part of that same period of healing. I finally had a foundation: caring for my body and discovering that change was possible.

Adaptability

The connection became complicated. I grew intensely sensitive outdoors and began feeling vibrations and sensations too strongly. Tai Chi and Ananda could make me feel better and connected too, but they could also become overwhelming. I had to learn to adapt instead of forcing myself to stay with something simply because it had helped me.

Persistence

I didn't abandon the search when one path became too much. I kept trying different ways of connecting โ€” movement, spiritual practice, food, nature and simply learning how to listen to myself. Persistence didn't mean pushing through everything. Sometimes it meant stepping away and continuing by another route.

Flourishing

Then connection began returning in a form I hadn't expected. The canoe brought me physically back into the natural world. A survival and nature-connection class let me learn, notice, use my hands and participate in nature rather than trying to force a particular spiritual state. It felt good again.

Evolution

The deeper change was acceptance. I began realizing I didn't need to reject the sensitivity, the practices that became too much, or the strange route I had taken. They were all part of the journey. Spirituality started becoming less about finding one perfect practice and more about integrating my body, nature, experience and who I am.

ๅŸบ็คŽ โ†’ ้ฉๅฟœ โ†’ ๅฟ่€ โ†’ ้–‹่Šฑ โ†’ ้€ฒๅŒ– โ†บ
Foundation gave me somewhere to begin. Adaptability taught me to change course. Persistence kept me exploring. Flourishing brought connection back through nature. Evolution changed what I thought the journey was about โ€” and that becomes the foundation for whatever comes next.
03 / The Turning Point

Then came the canoe.

I was Hipcamping somewhere that had a canoe available, and I took it out on the water. While I was canoeing, something shifted. I felt the sensation and the connection that had become so overwhelming before โ€” but this time I realized I was fine. I didn't have to fight it, explain it or make it stop. I could simply let myself feel it.

That was the important part: acceptance. The feeling itself didn't have to disappear for me to be okay. Out on the water, moving with the canoe and surrounded by nature, I accepted the sensation instead of becoming afraid of how intensely I was experiencing it. I could be sensitive and still be safe in the moment. I could feel deeply and keep paddling.

That experience stayed with me. Connection stopped feeling like something I had to chase โ€” or something I automatically had to escape. For a moment, it was simply something I could allow.

Then I took a survival class centered on nature connection. Instead of trying to manufacture a spiritual feeling, I was learning, noticing, using my hands, being outside and participating. It felt good. Really good. The canoe and the class began showing me another way of understanding what I had been searching for.

ใ€ฐ water / acceptance
โŒ ๐– ฐ ๐– ฐ
๐– ฐ ๐– ฐ โŒ
feelโ†’allowโ†’accept

I felt the world move through me.
This time, I did not turn away.
The water held the canoe.
The paddle kept its rhythm.
The feeling was still there โ€”
and I was still okay.
I let the moment be what it was.
I let myself be there with it.
And somewhere between shore and shore,
connection became acceptance.

04 / Root to Sanctuary

The whole tree belongs to the journey.

My spiritual journey doesn't move through only a few big moments. I like thinking of it as the full growth of a living thing โ€” from finding roots, through new beginnings and experimentation, into contribution, wisdom and eventually sanctuary. I don't have to be only one stage at a time. Different parts of me can be growing in different places on the tree.

Click a growth stage to open my story inside it.
๐ŸŒฑ Rootโ†’ ๐ŸŒฟ Sproutingโ†’ ๐ŸŒฑ Seedlingโ†’ ๐ŸŒณ Saplingโ†’ ๐ŸŒธ Buddingโ†’ ๐Ÿƒ Leafingโ†’ ๐ŸŽ Fruitfulโ†’ ๐Ÿชท Thrivingโ†’ ๐ŸŒฒ Sageโ†’ ๐Ÿƒ๐ŸŒฟ Sanctuary
These are not ten boxes I have to check. They are ten ways of recognizing growth. Some describe where I've already been, some describe what is happening now, and some are directions I may continue growing toward.
05 / Still Becoming

I thought the journey might be about finding the right practice. It may be more about learning how to recognize connection when it arrives โ€” and letting it take a form I didn't expect.