Addiction – The Absence of Spirituality


Addiction is everywhere you turn these days, affecting the lives of millions across all geographical boundaries and cultures. From food addiction, to gambling addiction, to sex addiction, drug addiction, and alcohol addiction, the addictions are as varied as the people inflicted with them. I happen to be one of those people and I have struggled with this crippling disease for the better part of my life.


My career as an addict started at the ripe old age of 12, at this time I became addicted to losing weight and starving myself, otherwise known as anorexia nervosa. Around the age of 15 my addiction shifted and I then became addicted to binging and purging food, otherwise known as bulimia nervosa. When I turned 18 that is when my addiction took another form and shifted to alcohol. As a result of my alcoholism I would often drink and drive, and one night I was in a major car accident and nearly killed myself as well as the other driver, thank God there were no major injuries but I got myself a DUI and a 3 year felony probation sentence. At 21 years of age my addiction switched one final time, this is when I became addicted to roxicodone, a very strong prescription pain killer, otherwise known as "Roxy's".

Although my addictions were constantly changing and taking on different forms, there was always one thing that remained constant; that was the emptiness that I felt inside me that I was trying to fill through my addictions. No matter what I tried this void would still be there and it seemed to be growing bigger and bigger with each addiction. Going through my numerous addictions I truly realized that it really does not matter what you are addicted to because the addiction is not actually the problem but merely a symptom of what is really wrong. So then what is the real problem? There are many people who will have varied opinions on the topic and also varied solutions to your "problem". If you were to ask one of my numerous therapists and psychiatrists this question their answer would be something like this: "Erika struggles with addictions due to her low self esteem that stemmed from the lack of attention that she got during her childhood." Their solution was to pump me full of as many anti-depressant pills as possible and to revisit every event in my childhood and process my feelings about them. Their recommendation was that I receive weekly counseling sessions for the remainder of my life. That all sounds fine and dandy and seems like a logical enough explanation but my question was; "Why do I still feel so miserable and still want to use when I am supposed to be getting better?" No matter how many groups , therapy sessions, and crazy pills I had I still felt as lost and confused as ever; that was until I discovered for myself the real problem behind all of this.


So here it is, the "actual problem" behind all of my addictions..... Spiritual Deficiency. Yes, a spiritual lack or a spiritual starvation if you will. It then dawned on me that the emptiness or void that I was trying to fill this whole time with tangible and external things, could only be filled with that which was inside of me, or reconnecting with the spiritual being that I truly am. I had never actually been craving food, or alcohol, or pills rather I was craving a deeper existence that comes only from your soul. Deepening my spirituality and reconnecting with Source led me to one of the most important discoveries of my life and it was this: any happiness that I may find externally or outside of myself can never last, there will always be an end to it and it will always leave you stranded desperately searching for the next "thing" to make you happy. However, any happiness that you may mind within yourself will last forever, for once you find this happiness that resides deep inside there will be no more need for you to search outside of yourself to find it. Amen to that! Thanks to my inner happiness source and my 12 step meetings I now have 9 months clean and sober : )

Posted in: , , , , , , , , , , on Friday, November 6, 2009 at at 11:52 AM 0 comments  

The Indigo Phenomena


The Indigo children are a group of highly developed beings who represent the next stage of our human evolution. They are hyper-sensitive, extremely intelligent, and highly intuitive beings whose sole purpose is to break down the old and corrupt systems and ways of today's society so that the new energy can be ushered in. The crystal children, who started coming in the year 2000, represent the new energy that we will eventually evolve to. These indigo children first started coming in great numbers in the 1980's. Many of these original indigo children, myself included, are just now becoming indigo adults and will eventually become our new leaders in all areas.

I am one of these children, now an adult.  I decided that I was going to share my story for three reasons; first for my own spiritual growth and self realization, second for any lost and struggling indigo children out there to know that they are not alone, and third to bring awareness to rest of society about these children and the struggles we go through.  My book takes you through a journey of exactly what its like as an indigo living in todays society. From psychic experiences, to eating disorders, drug addiction, and self destruction, I will walk you through my journey to discovering my true nature as an indigo. It was only then, once I was awakened, that I was able to turn my life around and harness my true indigo power.

The term indigo originally came from the belief that these highly evolved beings had an indigo color in their auras, however when identifying an indigo, it is now based on a set of specific characteristics that are unique to these beings. To determine whether you or someone you know is indeed an indigo, please take the indigo quiz below. Please note that many people will display some of these characteristics, but a true indigo will display most or all of them.



The Indigo Quiz:

Are highly intelligent though may not express it in "normal" ways, like school.

Were born after 1978.

Have large penetrating eyes that seem to stare right into the depths of your soul.

Creative and enjoy making things

Need to understand - always asking why, especially when being asked to do something

May have difficulties in school with control, repetitious learning, etc.

Often rebellious and resist authority, though they might not dare to express it

Have trouble with systems they consider broken or ineffective i.e. political, educational, medical, and legal.

They feel a burning desire to do something to change and improve the world.

May be stymied what to do. May have trouble identifying their path.

Frustration with or rejection of the traditional American dream - 9-5 career, marriage, 2.5 children, house with white picket fence, etc.

Alienation from or anger with politics - feeling your voice won't count and that the outcome really doesn't matter.

May have felt existential depression, despair, and helplessness - may suffer with the question "Why am I here".

Prefer cooperative efforts, leadership positions, or working alone.

Deep empathy for others but are often intolerant of stupidity.

Difficulties with mundane, menial jobs, especially in hierarchical authority structure

May be extremely emotionally sensitive including crying at the drop of a hat (no shielding). Or may be the opposite and show no expression of emotion (full shielding).

May have trouble with RAGE.

Have psychic or spiritual interest fairly young.

Have a strong intuition.

Random behavior pattern or mind style - (symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder), may have trouble focusing on assigned tasks, may jump around in conversations.

May have had psychic experiences, such as premonitions, seeing angels or ghosts, out of body experiences, hearing voices.

May be electrically disruptive to electrical equipment such as watches not working, electrical equipment malfunctioning and lights blowing out. May be disturbed by electrical radiations. And/or, may be addicted to electrical vibrations (computer, TV, cell phone)

Sexually are very expressive and inventive OR may reject sexuality in boredom or with intention of achieving higher spiritual connection. May explore alternate types of sexuality.

Seek meaning to their life and understanding about the world. May seek this through religion or spirituality, spiritual groups and books, self-help groups and books.




___________ : Your total answered “yes”

(23 – 25 yes, you are an Indigo soul)

Posted in: , , , , , , , , , , , , on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at at 8:23 AM 0 comments  

Thoughts on The Pain Body

I am currently undertaking a major personal project, I am writing a book documenting every aspect of my life and exploring the deeper spiritual meanings of the struggles I have gone through.  Being that I am also an Indigo child, a profound discovery that I made only a few years ago, (I will post more on the Indigo phenomena and their characteristics in my next post), my book comes from the perspective of an Indgo child in a diary format.  Writing my life story and even just writing in general has become a huge part of my spiritual discovery and growth.  At first when I started this major project I became very overwhelmed by the amount of work that is was going to require and thought that I would never finish it, however as I began writing I quickly realized that I was looking at this project the wrong way.  Instead of my ultimate goal being to just finish the book my goal now became to grow spiritually every time that I sat down to write, which completely took away any overwhelming feelings that I had about writing my story.  It's amazing what a simple perspective shift can do!

As I was doing my daily writing this morning I came to a point in my life that was particulary dark, this was when I was in the beginning stages of developing my eating disorder.  This eating disorder wound me up in 4 treatment centers, a therapuetic boarding school, and cost me many precious years from my life, by the way.  As I was recounting the events that took place the book "A New Earth" by author Eckart Tolle popped into my head, particulary the part where he describes the "pain body".

The pain body is an unconscious entity that exists in the body and mind formed by accumulated pain from one's past.  This entities only goal is to bring situations in your life that cause you more pain because it is that pain that fuels or feeds the pain body so it can survive.  As the pain body grows and gains strength it begins to completely take over and run your life and you become like a pain junkie always looking for your next "pain fix".  Because you are not aware or conscious of its existance you become identified with it and you believe that the pain body is you. 

As I wrote I felt like I was staring directly into the eyes of my pain body, and I saw with complete clarity just how this entity was using me to gain enough strength so that it could overshadow me and completely take over my life.  The whole time I always believed that this was all coming from me, that I was the origin of all of this need for pain that I had. I thought there was something really wrong with me and that I was a crazy person, which intern caused me to become even more depressed which fed the pain body even more.  As much as I would say that I didnt want to be miserable, deep down I loved feeling sorry for myself and sulking in my own misery, it was comfortable to me.  Any sort of happiness that I would feel would make me totally uncomfortable and I would quickly do something to sabotage it so that I could return to my misery and darkness. 

So how does one defeat this pain body?  As much as I wish there was some magic potion that you could drink that would get rid of it, unfortunately there is not and completely overcoming this ego-born entity can sometimes take many years.  Even though I have overcome much of my own pain body, I am still working to completely free myself from it.  In most cases, and definately in my case, a person needs to go through personal hell and a lot of suffering before they are truly ready to release their pain body.  The most powerful weapon you have against this dark entity is the light of consciousness.  When you become conscious or aware of this entity it takes away this entities ability to use you by pretending to be you.  Simply observe the pain body and become the watcher, you will then start to disidentify yourself with it and slowly unavel it's hold from you.  Darkness cannot exist where there is light so let your light shine and completely free yourself from the grips of the pain body.

Posted in: , , , , , , , , , , , , , on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at at 9:05 AM 0 comments  

My Spiritual Quest to Oneness


Hello my name is Erika Lyn Cook and I am a 25 year old student of life.  Since the moment of my conception I have been sarching for the tru mean ing of life and trying to find the answer to the question that has perplexed man since the beginning of time...where can you find true and lasting happiness?? 

For the majority of this lifetime I have searched for the answer to this perplexing question outside of myself thinking that if I did or had something that it would cure this vast void of emptiness that lurked inside of me.  I used every possible means imaginable to mask and numb this unexplainable pain I felt, from eating disorders, to alcohol, to drugs, to even men and sex.  Each one of my strategies though very different all had one thing in common, each left me feeling more empty and alone than before. 

To societal standards I was veiwed as a "self destructive person", but to me I simply veiwed myself as a person in pursuit of happiness, the same thing that every other human being on this planet was pursuing.  Perhaps maybe I was just looking in the wrong places to find it.  Since looking externally for the answer to my happiness dilema was clearly not working I decided to take a whole new approach.  I decided that it was time to look within myself for the key to unlock me from my prison of darkness.  I had avoided looking inside myself for so long because I thought that I would find nothing but a black hole of ugliness at my core, that if seen could then be exposed for the whole world to see.  However once I peeked into the core of my being I realized that this horrible monster that I had envisioned was nowhere to be found.  Instead what I found was pure, beautiful, and magnificent love residing there.  This love that is me is the same love that is God, there is no separateness between us, we are one.  I also soon realized that this very same love is at the core of every being in the entire Universe and that there is no separateness between us either.  All of the lonines that I had felt in my lifetime thinking that I was separate was merely an  illusion  that was created by none other than my ego.  So if God is perfect and I am one with God then that meant that I was whole, missing absolutely nothing therefore there was nothing more for me to find or search for because it was always right there inside of me. 

This realization of Universal oneness has opened my eyes to the depths and beauty of my soul and has set me on a spiritual quest to see through this egoic veil and into true oneness with the entire Universe.  This recent awakening has inspired me to document every step of this new path that I take and to share it with as many fellow travelers as possible. We are all together in this journey.  God bless you all.

Love & Light,

Erika Lyn

Posted in: , , , , , , , , , , , on Sunday, October 25, 2009 at at 9:04 PM 0 comments  

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