Personal Transformation: Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual awakening and enlightenment seems to be part of religious practices. Spiritual awakening is a religious experience where the person who is enlightened had contact with the divine and supernatural. It has been part of different traditions and practices, encompassing different religions.

Enlightenment is subjective since it fits on the individual’s perception and understanding divinity and religion. It is also something which other people who do not share the same views may find different and sometimes frightening. Even though, different religions have different understanding of the divine and supreme being, awakening experiences seem to have commonalities, as well as their differences.

Different religions and traditions share that spiritual awakening and other religious experiences includes the person to detach from the world and unite with God or gods and goddesses. The person would have deeper connection to the world after the awakening. They would also attain innate knowledge and understanding of the world and other people.

Spiritual awakenings are not only experienced through religious activities and methods. It can also be experienced through peak experiences, life and death experiences and situations, psychic openings and past life experience. Those who have awakened would say that they would experience physical, mental, emotional and spiritual changes and difficulties. But the awakening, even with its turmoil and difficulty, has bee called blissful by some people.

It is a personal transformation and the awakened can experience different changes on their actions, habits and way of life.

William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, states that a spiritual awakening brings certainty and insight to truth which is unfathomable by usual sensory and intellectual means. The experience can change the outer behaviour, attitude, character and outlook of the person who have experienced the awakening.

For example, people who have a spiritual awakening would experience sudden waves of emotions. Food intolerances and allergies develop after the religious experience. Some traditions say that because the human mind and body is opening to the divine and the spiritual, it gets more sensitive. Getting more sensitive means that your body can have lower tolerance level to some things compared to how it was before the religious journey and completion.

The senses are in a high and can be extra-sensitive. Enlightened people would see auras around living things and some glittery particles. The colours would appear more vivid and even see shapes and brilliant colors with eyes closed. Hearing is also sharper than before. But some would testify that they would experience a decrease in hearing since they would hear different kind of sounds and have difficulty identifying the different sounds.

Smell, taste and touch are also enhanced. Which is why, some would be sensitive with food and smell. Rashes can happen on the skin that can happen in the same time with healing moments or completion of some memories or anything that could have happened in the past.

There would also be moments when the awakened person would feel a sudden rush of power. Some people would say that they would experience hotness running from their head to toe, while there are others who would say the feeling was cold.

Just to stress on the point, the transformation that a person undergoes upon a spiritual awakening depends on the how they see and understand divinity and religion. Not all of these personal transformations could happen to everybody who has experienced enlightenment. In some religion, some of these transformations are not acceptable while other traditions and religions would foresee these transformation essential.

Overcoming fear of flying

Despite all the safety measures and precautions conducted by the airline officers and owners, there are still a growing number of people who are having a hard time in overcoming fear of flying. Experts say that this fear may stem from the person's bad experience during one of his or her flights. Studies show that many that have developed fear of flying are the ones who are used to travel via plane before. This is because of the frequency, it is inevitable for them to experience an bad occurrence at some point. These bad experiences may include prolonged or heavy turbulence that is caused by natural phenomenon such as bad weather or an aborted flight wherein the airplane needs to take an emergency landing that is usually caused by mechanical failures.

Another reason for this fear is the person is exposed too much on media coverage on various tragic accidents in the air which instill a fear for his or her life. Studies show that people who have witnessed an extensive coverage of an aerial accident are prone to having aviophobia sooner or later.

Starting to overcome the fear

If you are one of those who have developed this fear and you would want to overcome it, here are simple step-by-step procedures that you can follow:

FIRST STEP: Conduct a thorough research. Indeed, knowledge is power. If you are aware about the basics of flight and air travel, your mind can tell you how to control your fear. Aviophobia stem from over anxiety about tragic air accidents. It is also a result of a misunderstanding and lack of enough knowledge on flights and the technicalities of the aircraft itself. If you are able to educate yourself on these things, it will be easier for you to understand and realize that some of your fears on flying could be far-fetched.

SECOND STEP: Clear your mind before and during the flight. Fear of flying is a phobia caused by untoward incidents that might happen in the air. Experts say that this fear is all in the mind of the person. So, if the person tries to clear his or her mind from things that might happen, he or she might be able to overcome the fear in no time. To clear your mind off negative thoughts, you can try practicing relaxation techniques before and during the flight such as breathing that is controlled, rejection of negative thinking by making a conscious effort, and indulging into distractions such as reading, listening to music or watching airline movies.

THIRD STEP: Learn about "desensitization." Experts say that this process is usually conducted during a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) wherein the person who has developed fear in flying is slowly exposed to the conditions of flying until he or she is able to face the fears and learn to overcome them.

FOURTH STEP: Seek professional help. Some people have deep-rooted aviophobia that is why they are having a hard time overcoming fear of flying. If you think that your phobia on flying has reached bigger proportions and it already affects your life in general, it is best to consult a professional to check on you. This professional can either be a psychologist or a psychiatrist who can check your emotional and even your mental health if needed. The doctor will recommend some treatment options such as drug therapy. If you have a mild condition, he or she will teach you relaxation techniques that you can administer at home in managing and controlling your anxiety attacks.

What is Performance Stress?

Performance stress is one of the most common sources of stress in the workplace. With a working environment that constantly subjects its employees to a given set of standard they'd have to meet, the amount of pressure can lead one to question his or her abilities on a given task. There's always this feeling of not being good enough in the standards of the company.

This is especially true when one has scheduled to make an important presentation for the company. Before the actual presentation, one experiences a sick feeling on the stomach. Sometimes, the pressure is too much that one's performance is impacted during these situations. For those who are incapable of dealing with the level of stress they are subjected to in these situations, the importance of coping and overcoming performance stress is more important to maintain your ability to deliver within the company's standards.

Performance Planning

Whether you are taking part in small or big events, creating a good performance is always important. One of the best ways to ensure that you perform well for a given project or task, you need to come up with a performance plan. This will serve to outline what you need to achieve and how you are going to do it.

The Performance Plan will include a list of things that must be accomplished since it will be useful during the performance. Here are basic performance planning tips, covering the physical and mental aspects of it:

• Check every aspect involved in your performance so you can make necessary adjustments in case some parts do not contribute to better performance; • If there is some travel involved, arrange them in advance; • Verify whether you have all the items and objects you need; • Come up with an alternate plan in case anything goes wrong at the steps you have previously outlined; • Keep your mind focused at the task at hand and as much as possible never entertain distractive thoughts. If possible, anticipate them before they happen so you can come up with a plan to counter its effects.

Reviewing Performance

One of the best ways to ensure that you always perform at the top of your level is to constantly aim for improvement. This is one way to combat performance stress knowing that you always re-evaluate your own standards when it comes to job performance. By doing a performance review, it gives you the opportunity for the next performance so you can do better.

Planning and reviewing your performance is a good technique to follow for effective stress relief. If possible, you can ask your superior or fellow officemates for opinion that you can use to improve your performance. Performance stress typically originates from your tendency to question your ability (or inability) to succeed at a given task. When you increase your confidence about your performance, you'd also be able to combat stress that is involved with it.

Creating Proper Mindset

Establishing a mindset that will effectively help you before, during, and after a performance will help get rid of the stress it brings. To find relief from performance stress, you can try the following:

• Learn how to take criticism well. Instead of developing self-pity, utilize your mentor or co-worker's opinion as a pointer for areas in which you can improve your performance on. • Never aim for perfection. While it is a good fuel, you must rather focus on the steps you need to make instead of the end result. This will also help you be able to have fun with what you are doing, which is another way to relieve yourself of performance stress. • Comparing yourself against your fellow workers will not help your cause to get rid of performance stress. Instead, focus on where you are and where you intend to go.