Dear Common Awakening Community,

You’ve likely read about Expanded Events in the media whether you’ve known it or not. They’ve shown up recently with the numerous clinical trials demonstrating the effectiveness of psychedelics to treat entrenched issues like trauma, addiction, and crippling anxiety where after even one session with these sacred medicines, people find lasting freedom (read more about these trials). Or, maybe you’ve heard about the Default Model Network, a system of connected networks in the brain that can be the source of can be the source of stuckness and ruminations that keep us from feeling our best. Learning how to quiet this system can help us to feel better and Expanded Events can support the quieting (read more for an overview of the DMN). When we use Expansion methods we can find freedom and this can shift our state in direct and powerful ways.

At Common Awakening we are focused on helping you engage Expanded Awareness and to have and notice Expanded Events in your life. These events help us know that we are more than our body and thoughts and directly connect us to a wisdom source that moves us beyond the thinking mind.

Many years ago now, I had a profound Expansion Event that connected me into the energy that moves within me and surrounds me.

As a psychotherapist and a skeptic about energy work, I didn’t have any expectation of something profound happening and was unable to even understand in the moment what was occurring. The experience was so compelling that it stayed with me for many years and led me to energy work as a pathway for expanding awareness in my life and my work.

Three critical markers emerged in that experience that are typical of Expansion Events:

• I felt my sense of self drop away and I felt placed or I emerged into a larger field that surrounded me (and held me).
• My subtle perception shifted and I started receiving information that was more than the thoughts of my mind.
• I felt a profound, direct connection to something larger than myself that was alive, not static, and interactive.

If you are interested in learning more about Expanded Events we’ve created a short training explaining how expanded awareness happens. Here’s a 30-minute teaching video that Annie and I offered about Expanded Awareness. If you’re interested in learning more and want to explore Watch the Expanded Awareness Video.

Get curious and see where expansion opportunities emerge in your life and consider joining us for one of our in-person retreats where you can have your own Expansion Event experience and activate these powerful circuits of change.

With love,

Annmarie