I wrote the following for the 276th issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month.
Income from the guide helps me get by and ensures I can continue to offer free content, and every subscription is appreciated. The option to subscribe is given at the bottom of this post (learn about subscribing with cash/check here).
If you want to live your purpose, the first thing you should do is leave your comfort zone. Although it’s, well, comfortable, staying there can squash the dreams of anyone looking to pursue their passion. Especially if you want to succeed independently, choosing comfort over hard work will most certainly land you back in the rat race.
Obviously, it’s good to stop once and a while to rest so you don’t burn out. Everything has its place and time; but spending too much time resting will effectively prevent you from working hard or succeeding.
The following are five reasons to get out of your comfort zone before it’s too late. Continue reading →
I wrote the following for the 271st issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month. This is a preview of the article that appears in the guide.
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As spiritual seekers, sometimes we lose our way. It becomes harder to find the light, and we become insecure about the unique ideas that used to fuel us. The inspiration that was once available in abundance becomes scarce as we find that we just aren’t as passionate about life as we used to be. Continue reading →
There are a lot of things happening on our planet you wouldn’t really think are funny, but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh about them. Laughter helps us cope with the chaos, and being willing to joke about sensitive issues can make them easier to discuss collectively. Laughter is a universal language that can bring people together in even the most divisive circumstances.
If we’re going to resist the handful of corporate elites making decisions that hurt us all and devastate the planet we live on, we might as well keep a sense of humor about it. This is exactly what anti-fracking activists did in Washington, at an encampment they built over train tracks on which fracking materials are transported. Continue reading →
I wrote the following for the 268th issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month.
Income from the guide helps me get by and ensures I can continue to offer free content, and every subscription is appreciated. The option to subscribe is given at the bottom of this post (learn about subscribing with cash/check here).
The answers you seek live within you, in the consciousness that comprises who you are as a human and spiritual being.
We tend to search for fulfillment everywhere but the one place we find it in abundance: in ourselves. We accumulate external things in hopes that they’ll fill the void within, unaware that true fulfillment comes from exploring that sense of emptiness.
Spiritual seekers are no different, as we also avoid the emptiness with external things we believe will increase or enhance our spirituality. Crystals are a good example. We convince ourselves they help our spiritual growth, which they can if we don’t use them to avoid doing the difficult inner work that leads to evolution. Continue reading →
Open My Eyes is a song from American reggae group Soldiers of Jah Army, also known as SOJA. Featured on their 2006 album Get Wiser, the song’s slow, smooth reggae groove is infused with a powerful message about loving life no matter how rough it gets.
SOJA is a Grammy-nominated reggae band hailing from Arlington, Virginia. (1) On the band’s website, guitarist and lead singer Jacob Hemphill states that their goal is to speak for the voiceless, the defenseless, and the human race as a whole. (2)
“Our goal as a band is to stick up for the human race. We see the world and we try to make it better in the limited time we have here.” – Jacob Hemphill (2)
For those wondering where I’ve been or why I haven’t been writing articles and responding to emails, I’ve been struggling with a lot of things and my inspiration has been gone.
For various reasons, my plan to start writing daily articles has been continuously stalled.
When I do sit down to write, I find that I have nothing to say. Turmoil in my life has depleted my confidence and left me with nothing significant to share. But all that is (slowly) changing.
At the risk of sounding dramatic, I’ll say that I’m emerging out of one of the darkest and most difficult times in my young life so far. Struggle is a part of life, but my struggles have been intense and seemingly endless.
I wrote the following for the 263rd issue of the Weekly Awareness Guide, a written document distributed weekly via email that I offer for $11.11 a month.
Income from the guide helps me get by and ensures I can continue to offer free content, and every subscription is appreciated. The option to subscribe is given at the bottom of this post (learn about subscribing with cash/check here).
Spiritual awakening is the greatest gift you can receive, as it makes you aware you are a multidimensional being with a foot in all worlds. It helps you to see that the world is far more surreal than we like to think. Spiritual awakening is a treasure not to be discarded or misused, but cherished.
To “wake up” isn’t enough on its own, however. Once we’re awake, it’s up to us to do something with it. The universe doesn’t hand out enlightenment; we must pursue it and any opportunity for evolution our awakening provides.
We must do something with the gift we’ve been given.
The first question, then, is what to do with your awakening. Do you want to dive headfirst into the pursuit of a higher consciousness, or do you want to use what you’ve learned so far to help others? You could choose to forget about your awakening altogether, but why discard something so valuable?
You’re better off choosing one of the other options. Personally, I choose both.
I use writing to share what I’ve learned with those walking a similar path, and I use music and meditation to grow closer with the inner spirit. Writing also brings me closer to this part of myself, serving the dual purpose of expanding my mind while helping me to help you.
Although writing is undoubtedly a stern mental discipline, it feels good once you get the hang of it and the words start to flow.
Once awake, you can use writing, music, meditation, and plenty of other similar activities to become more aware while helping others do the same. With writing, you can research and share what others have said about the spiritual path or you can go straight to the source: your own mind, heart, and intuition.
The same can be said for if you pursue music, as creativity comes from the heart. The mind certainly has its role to play, but the heart lays the foundation.
In my opinion, the greatest thing you can do with your spiritual awakening is to return to the heart. Let your awakening redefine love as you know it. Awakening makes you aware of love and the importance of sharing it with a world that doesn’t know what it truly is.
Let the heart take center stage in your life. Share love with all, and let your love inspire compassion. After an awakening, your heart will break when you see how many people are suffering across the world. Don’t fear a broken heart. Let it fuel you to change what you cannot tolerate.
War, famine, and poverty are unacceptable. Tyrannical governments and dictatorships controlling, watching, and killing their own citizens is unacceptable. The suffering of the innocent angers and saddens the heart. In this way, you can see compassion as a source of power. Use it, and use it wisely.
One aspect of spiritual awakening people avoid is that it leads you to embrace what makes you uncomfortable. It led me to start exercising, for example, and to become a writer in this community. Despite that these things make me uncomfortable, they’re important to the path I’ve chosen.
My awakening has blessed me with a clear understanding of why I’m here and why I should pursue the path ahead of me. This doesn’t mean it’s always comfortable or I’m always satisfied, but it’s worth all the trouble.
Whether you want it to or not, spiritual awakening will take you out of your comfort zone. It will lead you to things you never thought you’d be comfortable with, like meditation or creative work in service to humanity.
Whether you cross that threshold willingly or unwillingly is up to you. But if you stick with your path after awakening, you will cross it.
Spiritual awakening is a gift, a blessing, and a pain. It’s not all sunshine and flowers, but if you can get past the hardest obstacles on your path, there will be plenty of sunshine to come.
Embrace all aspects of your awakening – especially what forces you to leave your comfort zone – and you’ll quickly go from awake to transformed. To be awake is great, but to transform is to realize the goal of the path on which your awakening sets you.
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I’m a twenty-something writer & blogger with an interest in spirituality, revolution, music and the transformative creative force known as love. I run Openhearted Rebel, a daily news blog dedicated to igniting a revolution of love by raising social and spiritual awareness.
I also have a personal blog, Wes Annac’s Personal Blog, in which I share writings related to spiritual philosophy, creativity, heart consciousness and revolution (among other topics).
I write from the heart and try to share informative and enlightening reading material with the rest of the conscious community. When I’m not writing or exploring nature, I’m usually making music.
By Wes Annac, Editor, Openhearted Rebel
By Wes Annac, Editor, 
By Wes Annac, Editor, 
By Wes Annac, Editor, 
