"Spiritual initiations are transitional; they leave you between worlds. Like a snake undergoing a brief period of blindness after shedding its skin, you're temporarily sightless: You're neither your old self nor a new one. This amorphous, transitional feeling can be challenging—and it can manifest itself in all areas of your life.
The feeling that your life is coming undone is the call to awakening that begins an initiation. The call can take many forms: illness or accident, betrayal by a spouse, the death of a loved one, an urge to enter psychotherapy or to begin a period of self-examination, the recognition of an unhealthy situation or relationship. This is an opportunity to transcend the lament "Why is this happening to me?" and to seek a greater purpose behind the crisis. During this acute phase you'll most likely experience a klesha called asmita, which is a disruption of the ego, or sense of "I am," and a tendency to cling to old definitions of Self: the Provider, the Responsible One, the Caretaker, the Black Sheep, the Boss, the Martyr, and so on. When you answer the call to awakening, you leave behind, at least for a while, this familiar territory and may feel unmoored.
You can counter this instability by centering yourself with restorative yoga and by connecting with your breath, either through formal pranayama (breath control) or by simply focusing on the inflow and outflow of your breath. Imagine that thread of awareness connecting your outer mind with your deepest inner Self; with each exhalation, descend further down that thread of awareness into the center of your being. This growing connection to your deepest Self will help during the most difficult parts of your awakening.
As you learn to recognize and accept the extraordinary power of change and develop the art of surrender, you'll be rewarded with an awakening of the natural alignment between body, mind, and spirit that already exists within you."
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