Why do we suffer from our own emotions, such as depression, lack of confidence, anxiety, or distress? Why do we often feel powerless over our feelings? Why are our brains seemingly running on autopilot without our conscious consent? 

Exploring these mysteries is the central theme of the spiritual journey, which revolves around two major facets: healing and awakening. 

Healing is about resolving internal conflicts—healing trauma, mending relationships, self-acceptance, and unconditioning harmful patterns. Ultimately, Healing is ending the fight with yourself and finding inner peace.

Awakening involves dismantling the self-framework that confines us, breaking free from self-imposed constraints, and, ultimately, seeing one's true nature. What’s the reality behind the veil of illusion? What is the so-called “self”?

The process of healing and awakening is not all cheerful and comfortable. It takes great courage since it can be frightening as we delve into our worst fear, face childhood pain, confront the darkest memories, or let go of feelings that tormented us. Probably nobody cheerfully admits that “I have a low self-esteem issue” or “my mind is full of negative and resentful thoughts.” Yet, stripping away the facade and acknowledging it is part of the healing process. 

When undergoing pain, our reflex is to retrieve and avoid it, like touching a sizzling hot grill. However, once you go through this painful process and emerge on the other side, you will find freedom and lightness as those feelings and thoughts no longer burden you.

There are a few aspects of healing. Foremost, know thyself—“Why do I have these feelings?”, “Why do I think or act in this particular way?” Drilling into those questions slowly reveals what “yourself” is – personality, thinking patterns, preferences, or habits. 

Taking another step further, do you actually love eating apples, or is it a biological setting to love apples? Do you have the volition to flip a switch and decide you don’t like apples anymore? The same principle also applies to things you don’t like or even hate. Could you flip a switch and shut off rage and sadness? Could you choose your personality? If not, do you have free will? 

Consider factors like biological mechanisms, genetics, brain functions, habits, thinking frameworks, childhood upbringing, beliefs, values, social norms, moral codes, or personal experiences. You might be surprised by the things that are not truly yours but given or acquired. Perhaps you inherit all the excellent traits from your parents and grandparents but also acquire a quick temper or stubbornness that troubles you greatly. 

This is the self-analysis part of the healing, carefully study yourself like an ethologist. Observe your own thinking, behaviors, and feelings. Sort out your emotional or thinking patterns and find cause and effect, then gradually unveil this mystery of self. Like peeling an onion, layer by layer, except instead of tears, you get... well, more tears through the process of uncovering the root causes before the final freedom. 

Emotion is an important clue to self-analysis. We learn about ourselves by identifying and categorizing our emotions and feelings. Emotions don’t just come out of thin air but are driven by reasons behind them, albeit not necessarily obvious. 

Healing is loosening patterns and breaking away from the self-restraining framework. Yet, the great challenge is that our brains strive to keep everything intact, resisting changes even when beneficial. Personalities, beliefs, or habits are part of the self, like limbs or skin—changing the existing pattern could cause agonizing pain. Like tearing ourselves apart or self-destruction. 

Healing demands strong willpower; however, we leverage various healing techniques to make things more manageable, including eye movement, hypnosis, meditation, guided relaxation, and more. 

As the spiritual journey deepens, questions like “What is the self?” start to roll out. “What’s the basis of this so-called reality?” or “What’s an illusion, duality, self, reality…?“ or an itchy feeling that there’s just something beyond. You can’t help yourself but conduct a philosophical and metaphysical inquiry—a starting point of the awakening process. 

Awakening is peeling away facades to discover the reality behind them and realizing that the so-called reality is not what you thought it was. The so-called reality you live in, what you see, smell, hear, feel, think, and take for granted, is a grand illusion. Finding Maya behind a veil creates this realistic yet delusive reality. 

Here, we share our personal journey experiences and connect the dots of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, Zen, and a comprehensive map to comprehend the "self" and how it operates. Although this map won't spare you from the hardships of the journey, walk the path for you, or predict the obstacles you might encounter. However, step by step, we wish to help you find a way home.