Conversion vs. Becoming

Conversion is such a deadly myth.

Here is the basic conversion story: Person was having negative experience. Person has amazing moment of seeing bigger truth. Person goes forth living in new reality forever.

I’ve heard many variations of this story:

• my church days - someone struck by the holy spirit

• eastern philosophy - enlightenment release from suffering

• ayahuasca ceremonies - any human disease, physical or mental, cured on the spot

I can’t say whether these experiences are true for those people telling the stories. I mean, why would they lie? It sounds amazing. One moment of clarity and -wham- life reorients instantly to a whole new dynamic without any further effort.

But for me, it does not happen that way. For every one moment of eye-opening ‘Aha!’ there are hundreds of moments of integrating and forgetting and recalibrating and trying to access that wiser knowing yet again.

Instead of a conversion moment, there have been thousands of moments of bliss and higher knowing.

I kept waiting for my magical transformation moment, until I realized that was wasting my time. The truth is, growth chips away in tiny little increments. Insights come through like a leaf on a wisp of air… delightful but often fleeing from my grasp.

I remember as a teenager in the church feeling cheated that I’d been raised Christian, because it seemed that those who had powerful conversion stories - from darkness into the light - were more deserving of the pulpit. Even then I wanted to impact others and give the gift of the wisdom I channeled. But because I had no “conversion story,” I felt like my message wasn’t enough.

I went into my first plant medicine ceremony certain (certain!) that I would come out as the powerful teacher I deeply desire to be. I had put in the work and I was finally going to receive my conversion moment. I was ready to face death itself and come through the fire purged and forged into solid gold.

I came out bitterly disappointed, having pounded on that inner door and finding it locked.

I turned away from my desire at that time. Disappointment felt like a judging finger pointing me to the back of the line. “How dare you assume to be someone special?” it said. “You have nothing to offer to anybody else. Get back to working on yourself.” It took me years to rekindle that desire, to see that indeed my desire itself is holy, a calling.

I am not some blessed recipient of a magic beam of light that dissolved all previous reality and set me undeniably on a course of spiritual leadership. I don’t have special psychic or shamanic powers. I am a regular person AND I am a leader. My path is revealed to me bit by bit, one step at a time. There has been no conversion moment. Instead there have been thousands of moments of bliss and higher knowing.

Who I am becoming is made up of thousands of tiny shifts, new awarenesses, new mindsets, new skills, that I practice over and over.

We are humans becoming.