Suffering, Redemption, and Spiritual Fantasies

Releasing Control and Embracing the Dark

Oholomo and Jack explore the idea that much of our suffering comes from the desire to control, understand, and manage life rather than fully experiencing it. We argue that genuine spiritual growth is less about attaining some transcendent ideal and more about surrendering to uncertainty, embracing all aspects of experience, and becoming more fully human. Topics covered: * Letting go of the need to control life * Taking action without needing certainty * Intellectual understanding as a subtle form of control * Spiritual growth through surrender rather than transcendence * Trusting the flow of life’s unpredictability * How idealized notions of enlightenment can be a trap * Releasing attachment to spiritual beliefs and frameworks * Embracing suffering, darkness, and imperfection * Awakening as becoming more fully human rather than transcending humanity Connect with us: * Get the [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs]Awakening the Below [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] book [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] * Oholomo’s website [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com/] * Jack’s website [https://www.jackmorrigan.com/] * My Rising Rose YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@myrisingrose?si=m18sN3NraZ1egc0g] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.awakeningthebelow.com [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Integration, Being Human, and "The Middle"

Oholomo and Jack talk about how the Above and Below meet in the Middle, resulting in an integration of spiritual realization with ordinary daily life. Topics covered: * Present-moment awareness and memory difficulties * The “Above, Middle, Below” model of awakening * Witness consciousness and emotional detachment * Spiritual superiority/arrogance * Therapy alongside spiritual practice * Different people need different spiritual “medicine” * Monastic vs lay ideals and role models * Healthy expression of anger * Spirituality as embodiment, not escape Connect with us: * Get the [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs]Awakening the Below [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] book [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] * Oholomo’s website [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com/] * Jack’s website [https://www.jackmorrigan.com/] * My Rising Rose YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@myrisingrose?si=m18sN3NraZ1egc0g] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.awakeningthebelow.com [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Suffering, Redemption, and Spiritual Fantasies

Oholomo and Jack dive into the raw, real-time experience of redemption rising unbidden from the depths, and why the spiritual mainstream keeps getting suffering wrong. Topics Covered: * When the underworld comes to you — ancestral emotions surfacing uninvited and what to do (or not do) with them * Synchronicity as invitation: Netflix, a long-lost phone call, and the doors that are always opening to the below * Why sitting with suffering without an agenda is radically different from trying to heal, filter, or transcend it * The redemption that lives inside the wound itself — not beyond it * Feeling the unresolved trauma stored in the earth and the body * The savior fantasy: why thinking you’re the one who will heal the land or your lineage is just another ego project * Time-bending moments where personal, ancestral, and historical timelines snap into alignment * The identity game: why “I am awareness” or “I am God” are just versions of the same ego move * Why spiritual perfection is a myth — and authenticity is the actual goal * Honesty as the only prerequisite: being exactly what you are, rawness and all * How the “above” and “below” both become escapism if they don’t flow back into the middle — ordinary, everyday human life Connect with us: * Get the [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs]Awakening the Below [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] book [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] * Oholomo’s website [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com/] * Jack’s website [https://www.jackmorrigan.com/] * My Rising Rose YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@myrisingrose?si=m18sN3NraZ1egc0g] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.awakeningthebelow.com [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

The Body, the Emotions, and the Darkness

Do you find yourself waking down instead of waking up? Oholomo and Jack explore the rarely-mapped territory of descending into the body, psyche, and underworld — and why it may be the missing piece in modern spirituality. Topics Covered: * Why inner healing must come before unleashing the body’s energies * How even enlightened teachers can have dangerous blind spots around the body and desire * Above, middle, below: a three-directional map of spiritual awakening * Why Western spirituality is obsessed with transcendence — and what it’s missing * Tantra, shamanism, and other traditions that genuinely embrace the below * Sexuality and sensation as the body’s languages for spiritual knowledge * Meeting darkness on its own terms, not as something to transform into light * Ego-death, surrender, and learning to trust the descent * Why spiritual emergence is so often misread as psychiatric crisis * How two fellow travelers of the below found each other — and why this conversation needed to happen Connect with us: * Get the [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs]Awakening the Below [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] book [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] * Oholomo’s website [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com/] * Jack’s website [https://www.jackmorrigan.com/] * My Rising Rose YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@myrisingrose?si=m18sN3NraZ1egc0g] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.awakeningthebelow.com [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Awakening the Below, Radical Surrender, and Ego Death

In this episode, Jack sits down with Oholomo to discuss their shared experiences of “awakening the Below” — a spiritual path that moves downward into the body, the earth, and the underworld rather than ascent and transcendence. Topics Covered: * Oholomo’s kundalini reversal experience * When the mainstream spiritual frameworks don’t fit * The distinction between “Above” and “Below” spiritual paths * Reimagining the Buddha’s enlightenment story from a Below perspective * Awakening the Below vs. spiritual emergency * Integrating ancestry and intergenerational trauma in awakening * Ego dissolution through inclusion rather than transcendence * Why normalizing diverse awakening experiences matters * Liberating the body to be itself Connect with us: * Get the [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs]Awakening the Below [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] book [https://amzn.to/4vEgXCs] * Oholomo’s website [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com/] * Jack’s website [https://www.jackmorrigan.com/] * My Rising Rose YouTube channel [https://youtube.com/@myrisingrose?si=m18sN3NraZ1egc0g] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.awakeningthebelow.com [https://www.awakeningthebelow.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]