You are the Answer
CHAPTER FIVE: Wake Up Calls
B Y   M I C H A E L   J.   T A M U R A

EVERY MOMENT, OUR purpose invites us to join in its fulfillment. Sometimes it calls us to appreciate the beauty of a sunset, a rose or the song of a meadowlark. At other times, it may ask us to throw a party in celebration of our lives. Often our purpose encourages us to dig deeper, discover the truth of the situation, bring in new awareness and change our ways. But, whenever we fall asleep at the wheel of life and repeatedly ignore its prompts, its gentle appeals become urgent wake-up calls.

When my older son was fourteen, for no apparent reason, two local gang members tried to gun him down. As he waited for his mom to pick him up after school, they drove by him and opened fire. It was no movie. This was real ... his life running between the spray of bullets.

Later he shared a revelation with me. "When you walk away from a close call, where you could've died, it's because you have a purpose for being here. I don't know what it is yet, but I know I have a purpose in life."

Coming within heartbeats of losing our life or the life of a loved one, we bolt upright from our ignorance-sleep. Our awareness instantly expands, we return to the present and appreciate how precious life is. Then, as we glimpse the sacredness of life's own purpose, we may catch our breath. With time, the intensity of our gratitude may fade but somewhere in the background of our awareness, we retain the ineffable sense that Life truly has a purpose for us. We may not be able to explain it, but we know we have a purpose for being here.

Crises are sent to shake us out of our slumber, to re-awaken a sense of purpose. Too often, we become so preoccupied with our vested interests that we forget why we are here. We fall asleep. Then, Life gives us a wake-up call. We've all had them. Whether they've been life-threatening situations, financial disasters, emotional upheavals, or relationship conflicts, they remind us that we are ignoring, or have forgotten, what is most important in our lives. They make us ask again, "What am I here for?"

If ignored, these "I-could've-been-hurt" wake-up calls may grow until tragedy actually strikes. Failing to heed the warnings of a gathering storm, we find ourselves thrown ill-prepared into a tempest. Such a wake-up call broad-sided Rich, a friend of mine.

"You have cancer," the oncologist told him. Three simple words we hope we never hear. Then, he delivered an official death sentence to Rich: "You have perhaps three months left."

A wake-up call stops us dead in our tracks and commands our attention. It rattles us out of our mind-ruts and fixed behavior patterns rooted in ignorance and unconsciousness. If we've been selling our soul piecemeal to our fears and insecurities, burying ourselves ever deeper into trenches of resistance and denial, we can be certain the call will come again and again until we finally heed it.

No matter what form it takes (even a death sentence is a wake-up call from Life), this call is reminding us that we need to embrace some important aspect of our soul purpose. And when the call comes, how we respond to what happens is more important than whether or not we "caused" or "deserved" what happens. Life never dials a wrong number.

An unfulfilled soul purpose becomes a restless sleep, or even a nightmare in life from which we long to awaken. And since we all fall asleep in our purpose from time to time, wake-up calls are necessary and, unfailingly, they come. They call us to re-align our life's priorities to our soul purpose. And to do this, we must choose to wake up.

Waking Up: A Choice Between Life and Death
"Do you agree with my doctors that I'm going to die?" Rich asked me.

"Yes, I agree," I answered. "Just as I'm going to die; just as the doctors are going to die. What I don't agree about is when. That's entirely between you and your Maker. I have a feeling, however, that it's not going to be as soon as your doctors predict. You have too much to learn yet."

"That's for sure!" Rich laughed. "Well, I think I'm ready to learn. Can you enlighten me on what I should do next? The doctors are telling me that I'm going to die whatever they do, so should I seek out a naturopath or should I have spiritual healing from you instead?"

Naturally, the prognosis of imminent death shook Rich to his core. When the wake-up call comes, we often bolt upright in shock and react instinctively. A panicked survival response usually precedes a deep inquiry. We want to know what to do to "fix the problem."

"However you're approaching your healing, Rich," I said, "no matter what modality you pursue, it won't be right for you. You've been taught that if you do all the right things, you'll be okay, so now you believe that if you do the right things to your body, you can be cured and won't die."

"You mean that's not so?" he asked.

"No," I answered. "Although you're seeking the truth, you're seeking it outside yourself. You won't find it there because truth is within you. And besides, the cure is not the healing. But sometimes the healing will bring about the cure."

Rich was a gentleman and a scholar, a certified public accountant, an outstanding human being and well liked by all who knew him. His financial future was secure and he was happily married to a beautiful and loving wife. At sixty-nine, he looked like an athlete. He swam a mile every day and hiked regularly. He neither smoked nor drank and his diet was a model of healthy eating. He was conscientious and had done everything right. It would be easy for any of us to ask, "How could he of all people have cancer? Where did he go wrong?"

When faced with a threatening situation, we tend to criticize or blame ourselves, others or some condition. Yet a wake-up call is not an indication of some "wrongdoing" in a conventional or moral sense. Whatever symptom or circumstance snaps us out of our reverie, it is the cause or underlying purpose to which we must awaken. A wake-up call is a call to turn our awareness inward, to seek a deeper truth than we have been living. Truth, healing and all our "answers" ultimately live within us. As long as we seek them outside our own being, no amount of being "good" or "right" or even being "the best" is going to lead us to our true fulfillment.

For Rich, the time had come to turn within and examine his life until he achieved a shift in perspective that showed him how to make life-affirming changes in the face of impending death. He needed to discover the areas he had been neglecting all his life in order to do all the "right" things he had been doing.

There were questions to ask: To what degree had he been living for needs of others while leaving his own authentic needs unattended? (Selfishness is an act of taking away, whilst tending to one's true needs is an act of giving that benefits not only oneself but also everyone else, as well.) How had he been treating his inner self, his heart's dreams, his intuitive knowing and soul purpose while doing all the "right" things for all those years? To what degree had he been focused on his own and his family's material welfare, while neglecting his spiritual development in the process? These were the kinds of questions that needed to be asked.

We often bury ourselves in the graves of other's fears, borne of their ignorance and illusions, long before we are dead. Faced with a cancer diagnosis, Rich was now called to resurrect himself from that premature burial and tend to his own spiritual welfare.

Yet, Rich had not yet chosen Life; he was still desperately avoiding death. To begin to awaken, to be able to choose Life and begin true healing, he had to first confront and accept a simple truth: We all die. Then he could ask the question, "How do I want to face my death?"

This naturally led him to, "How must I live?" This profound inquiry enables us to choose Life at the deepest possible level. When Rich asked that question, he realized that he had been looking outside himself to the "experts" for the answers and that, no matter whose advice he followed, it was still he who had to make the decision. He realized that he had been looking for what he didn't have in his avoidance of death and that, in order to choose life, he needed to start with what he had, what he knew. So, he started with his area of expertise - accounting. He decided that he had to face death squarely. He would first take care of his business, prepare his will and settle all his financial affairs. He was no longer running from death.

Once he had gotten his business and finances to where he was able to let go of them, he seemed a new person. He knew he was going to die - not when but ultimately. Now he was living each day. Next he tackled his healing program. He realized that, in his fear, he had given an enormous amount of power to the doctors and health practitioners. He decided to take it all back and be the conductor of the symphony. After thorough research and listening to expert advice, he chose to trust his intuition and defined each step of his healing process. He was no longer asking whether he should follow the nutritionist, the doctors or the spiritual healer but was culling what he felt he needed in each step. At times, he refused certain invasive procedures while at others, he opted to have surgery. He carefully set up a nutritional program with a natural health practitioner and a program of spiritual education with a spiritual teacher. No longer did he try to enforce the "right" regimen on himself.

Rich lived not for three months but for two more years. Until his final days, he swam and hiked regularly. He renewed old friendships and forged new ones. He meditated and reflected on his spiritual growth and soul purpose. When the day arrived for his departure from this earthly existence, he took his leave with dignity and grace, radiating the peace he found within himself to all present.

After his physical death, Rich's spiritual growth accelerated and to this day, he stays in close communication with his wife, myself and many other spiritually aware individuals. Since his death, he has been instrumental in his wife's spiritual growth and she is quite aware of it. Rich has taught many around him both in his living and his dying.

Shortly after his death, Rich visited me in spirit while I was working on an earlier version of this chapter. I asked him to hold on a minute while I finished putting down my train of thought. Just then all the electricity in the house shut off for a moment. Naturally, the computer turned off as well. He laughed and said he didn't mean to short out the electricity but just wanted to make sure that I wrote about what he had discovered on the "other side" about his cancer. He validated that a major part of it had to do with the anger he had suppressed during his life while doing all that was "right" for everyone else. He wanted people to know the power inherent in our emotions and the kind of damage it can do if we unwittingly stuff them into our bodies. "It was mostly anger toward myself from my early life," he said as the lights in my study flickered.

And so even from behind the veil, we learn that blame and criticism, of self and others, are the first contraband that we must surrender if we would cross the border from survival into truth, healing and living fully. All blame and criticism stifle the clear, quiet voice within us, the voice of our soul purpose that guides us, like a North Star, to our ultimate destiny.

Our waking up process is the same as our dying process, for dying is an awakening to spirit. Whether we physically die or not, we each must face death in order to live and grow spiritually. A wake-up call is a death notice, but what do you have to die to? What must we release our hold from?

A wake-up call is always a crossroads where we choose between life and death on a spiritual level, whether or not our physical life is threatened. It gives us an opportunity to make needed course corrections. And any decision we make in response to this call - whether we answer the call and awaken, or groggily hit the snooze button again - will profoundly impact our spiritual well-being, and our future.

The wake-up call also presents a paradox: To choose greater Life, we must be willing to face our death.

Author Gregg Levoy tells us in his book, Callings, that in the Afghani language, the verb to cling is the same as to die. Facing our death shifts our perspective on life, and consequently our relationship to it. It reveals to us all the lies that we are living, all that we are clinging to with a "death grip." Most of us don't want to die. Yet few of us are truly living. We tend to be sleepwalkers, attached to illusions, people, beliefs and things that become substitutes for living. Choosing life involves a loosening of our death-grip on our attachments, a surrendering of the illusions we tend to snooze in.

Establishing New Priorities
The severest wake-up calls usually do change our priorities, at least for the moment. But it takes patience and perseverance to make these new priorities our solid foundation. When our child is seriously injured, or we're going through a painful divorce or a health crisis, all our "important" agendas may fade into insignificance. Yet unless we truly heed the call, we may slip back on "autopilot" once our child recovers, the divorce is behind us, or our health is reasonably restored.

Or, we may simply give up. But, a wake-up call is never a punishment sent by God for our past sins, but rather a loving reminder to make positive changes toward fulfilling our purpose. The painfulness of a wake-up call is not inherent in the call but in how much suppressed pain we are clinging to that it stirs up in us. And the more reluctant we are in responding to the call, the greater the degree of pain we end up enduring. So, a seemingly minor incident may provoke an intense reaction from one person while another person may take in stride what we would consider a major catastrophe. Also, the enormity of the wake-up call doesn't necessarily signify how asleep a person is. Sometimes a soul may choose to endure great ordeals and sacrifices not only for its own growth but to serve as examples to others. Some have been great statesmen such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela, or spiritual leaders such as Jesus, Mother Mary and Buddha, but many have also been children who have been born with a variety of illnesses or other restrictive conditions who show us the true priorities of life.

A Wake-Up Call Request
When I spend a night at a hotel before giving a morning workshop, before I go to bed I always arrange for a wake-up call. I know that I have a purpose for which I must awaken. Often I awaken myself long before the call. Sometimes, however, I need the help of the hotel operator. Putting in an advance request for the wake-up call before going to bed I always find is good insurance just in case I'm not wildly enthusiastic about waking up in the morning.

So remember, a wake-up call is a reminder that you arranged for yourself in spirit. Before you were born, you made a request of Spirit: "Please, don't let me waste this incarnation. Wake me up if I fall asleep!" And whenever you're asleep in this life, a part of you, the deepest part, sends out a wake-up call request.

Enjoy Waking Up!
Once each year, under a brightly lit tree, special gifts wrapped with love lie waiting to be opened with joy and delight by children who don't need anyone to wake them up on Christmas morning. Children are sufficiently aware of their purpose on Christmas day and, in fact, on most days. Being alive is childhood's purpose. And being in touch with this purpose, they tend to wake up bright and early, full of energy.

But, as we grow older, life becomes filled with obligations and demands, the multi-"purposes" foisted on us by others and by the world at large. Eventually, we cease to jump out of bed the way we once did as children. We become overburdened, harried and confused. We buy alarm clocks. And when the wake-up call comes, we tend to reach for the snooze button.

But when we find our soul purpose again, when our life is an answer to its call, we again become like children who jump out of bed on Christmas morning. We choose to awaken with joy.

Just What The Doctor Ordered
Each wake-up call is uniquely tailored to our specific soul-character and spiritual needs. It may be a call for us to love and empower ourselves or those around us, to serve life in some more meaningful way, or even through some particular vocation or career, to develop some untapped gift or potential, to devote ourselves to some spiritual path or practice, or to pursue any of innumerable other worthy purposes. Its primary function is to turn our attention to our spiritual self and remind us of the soul purpose for which we are here on earth.

And this call may take any conceivable form. We may require a grave illness to relinquish our total identification with the physical body and quicken our spiritual growth. We may need a miracle to remind us of the limitless power of Spirit. We may find in the experience of an abduction to be an opportunity to reclaim our power and faith in the face of terror. Or we may require a financial catastrophe before we discover the true treasure of our spiritual self.

Such was the case with Jim, another friend of mine. He was an enthusiastic entrepreneur and politician whose wake-up call to life was a devastating financial ruin. I met him for the first time shortly after his bankruptcy. Not only was he financially exhausted, he was also careening toward emotional bankruptcy as well. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong," he said.

As a soul, he was already a spiritual healer and teacher. He was here to bring awareness and healing to all around him. Yet all that had been buried in a casket of childhood invalidation and lack of family support. What was made important to him early on in his family life was to make it in business and in the world. To add to his confusion, Jim was naturally talented in business and politics, and as with Rich, he had done all the "right" things for everyone else. Then a series of inexplicable setbacks pounded him to the ground.

His call to awaken was not a choice between being a spiritual healer/teacher or a businessman/politician. Instead, he needed to put his soul purpose first in his life and then to use his entrepreneurial talents to help in fulfilling that purpose. He had forgotten how much of a healer he was. When I brought it up to him, he started to recall all the times as a child when he would simply place his hands on sick people and they would get well. Unfortunately, no one at the time realized his potential.

Once he changed his priorities, however, Jim applied himself to intensive spiritual and psychic training for several years and developed his long-forgotten abilities. Then he went on to establish a successful spiritual healing center of his own. Once he put his soul purpose first, his sideline health business also blossomed.

Sometimes a wake-up call can come as a sudden awareness of the conditions you have long been enduring. For example, a starving artist might realize that she wants to be an artist but doesn't want to remain poor. Ana was such an artist. Talented, energetic and beautiful, no matter how much she invested herself in her artwork, neither she nor her paintings were being recognized. And just as with Jim, she was very psychic and a natural teacher. She, too, had to first tend to her spiritual calling before she would find success as an artist. She enrolled in a psychic development program and went on to become a teacher. Putting together her love of art, her desire to reach out to other women and her psychic nature, she started giving psychic development workshops for women artists. Sixteen women artists, ranging from the struggling to the famous, arrived for her first workshop. After the workshop, one of the participants, a well-known, highly successful artist so appreciated what she'd learned that she wanted to know more about Ana. When she discovered that Ana was an aspiring artist herself, she insisted on seeing her artwork. Impressed, the woman offered to show Ana's work at her galleries in New York and Florida.

Of course, not all wake-up calls require you to develop your psychic abilities and become a teacher. But the true meaning of "psychic" is "of the soul" and, one way or another, we each rely on our psychic abilities to experience our soul purpose. And as a spiritual master once said, "If you want to learn something, study it; if you want to master it, teach it."

Wake-Up Calls Are God's Love In Action
My personal favorite wake-up calls come in the form of Magic, our cat. Her teachings are elegant and impeccable. First, her faint meow comes floating through the ethers, usually when I'm occupied with something "more important." Often, I choose to ignore it. So she increases her volume, prowling the house, seeking me out. Having secured my office door against intruders, I hunch over my computer (trying to finish this book!) and continue to resist her call. Soon it takes on a heartrending and somewhat annoying quality so I focus more grimly on my task. Her decibels increase, now coming down the hall. Then, she is at my door, her poignant but irritating yowling now accompanied by a light scratching.

"I know you're in there," she calls.

As I ignore her and continue my "all-important" work, the scratching becomes frenzied. It's a full-scale battle of wills. I know I'm out-matched but I refuse to give in. I wonder if I'll need to repaint the door. Suddenly, the scratching and yowling cease. There is an ominous silence ... the calm before the storm?

Too late, I realize that I have mismanaged my priorities. I should have heeded her earlier wake-up calls. Will there be heck to pay? Will I live to snooze another day? There it is, the loud "thump!" as Magic leaps up and body-slams the door, pawing the knob on her way down, as usual. The knob turns and the door flies open. Unruffled, she breezes in and leaps onto my lap to purr and massage me with love. (Why was I so resistant? Love was her soul purr-pose all along.)

This is the perfect analogy of a wake-up call. It is God's love seeking us out when we are lost in our illusions. Its purpose, ultimately, is love.

Love gives us yet another opportunity to receive love. It whispers softly in our hearts, first as dreams and intuitions. If we ignore them, it speaks louder in our thoughts and emotions. Then, it gets louder still by the aches and moans in our bodies. We may think that it is demanding. But, love never demands, it gives. And, it never stops giving of itself. Yet, often we resist for we are afraid. When invalidated in life, we tend to harden ourselves against love. There is too much pain in our heart, too many disappointments, too many losses. It is too painful to dream when we cannot imagine any way of ever fulfilling our heart's dreams. And, when love tugs at our scabs to heal the wounds that lie beneath them, that hurts, as well. So, we close the door to our heart and we listen to the incessant thumping of love giving life. And no matter how much we turn against it, love never gives up on us.

Become Your Own Wake-Up Call
No need to wait passively for the next wake-up call to come. Be pro-active and choose to wake up on your own initiative. (That's why you're reading this book, right?) Make waking up a spiritual habit, a way of life, a long-term priority. This doesn't mean you'll never receive another wake-up call. But you'll notice the calls sooner, and you'll know how to respond when they come.

You Are the Answer can be purchased from amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com.

© 2006, Michael J. Tamura