Play & Book Excerpts
Everyday Awakening
(Amplify Publishing)
© Catherine Duncan
THE WAITING ROOM OF THE University of Minnesota hospital children’s oncology clinic was packed. I looked around and saw other kids—kids with no hair, no arms, or no legs. I could hear more kids screaming and crying behind the doors of the medical rooms down the hallway. Terrified, I pretended to not be one of them as I adjusted the bandana over my wig. I looked down; I still had both of my legs. I purposely tried not to touch anything. By not touching anything, I could somehow feel like I wasn’t part of this horror show.
The nurse called my name, and I walked into the grim medical room. I lay down on the hard table, and a doctor and nurses walked in, wearing white coats and carrying a tray with multiple large syringes. They gave me a peppermint to suck on as they started injecting chemotherapy agents into my arm. A chemical taste suddenly started running through my mouth. My mother stood next to me, holding my hand, and I could feel fear running through her body. There was not a sound in the room; everyone was staring at me.
As we left the hospital, my mother opened all the doors because I refused to touch anything.
At home, early evening, the nausea hit me. I went to my bedroom and started throwing up. It was the 1970s, and there were no anti- nausea drugs available. My mom slept next to me, holding my head every time I got sick.
I spent the next day on the couch, watching TV, as my mom was busy doing things around the house. All my older siblings were off to school. I felt weak, shaky, and full of fear. I didn’t know if I could muster enough energy to get up to go to the bathroom.
No one was talking with me. My mother’s love was comforting, but no one had said anything about what was really happening to me. I was walking on a tightrope between life and death. I could see over the cliff into the abyss.
I don’t want to die.
The thought rushed through me. In that moment, I decided I wanted to live.
Out of nowhere, I started to pray: Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old. I thought that if I lived to be twenty, I would see the world.
Until that moment, faith and God had meant nothing to me. My family attended a Lutheran church with some regularity, but we did not talk about faith or God—ever. There had been chaplains at the hospital, but no minister or counselor had come to speak with me while I was there.
I told no one of my prayers. I just kept praying. Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old. I kept saying this prayer for days, maybe even weeks, as the chemotherapy and radiation appointments continued. Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old.
One day, while I was praying, a feeling of peace and warmth suddenly flooded my body, followed by a pulsing aliveness. I felt a sense of something beyond come into me. Something not of this world was present with me.
I felt comforted. I was no longer alone. A knowing came to me: I am okay. I stopped questioning whether I was going to live or die; I knew I was going to live.
This childhood experience cracked me open. I was eleven years old. I’d been given only a 20 percent chance of surviving cancer. Yet I had lived. And I had awakened to the preciousness of being alive.
This first awakening experience set in motion my passion for understanding what it means to be fully alive. This passion followed me into adulthood. During my first career, in corporate advertising, I had a near-death experience, and afterward I quit my lucrative, successful job because my heart just wasn’t in my work anymore. I changed direction and became a chaplain. Serving in a level-one trauma center and then in hospice, I walked with thousands of people as they navigated the rough terrain of upheaval, loss, and death. Many of them were searching for meaning as their lives were upended by trauma or a dire diagnosis. Again and again, I saw people who, facing their death as I had, felt the acute aliveness of just this moment. Walking with them, I learned even more about what awakening looks and feels like.
In 2016, I started my private practice as an integrative spiritual consultant so that I could help people who, like me, are seeking answers to the question of what it really means to be alive. Each of my clients comes from a different background and is facing their own unique circumstances, yet they have one thing in common: all of them are experiencing a wake-up call, and it has started them on a search for more.
My client Jill, for example, was a leading doctor at a well-known medical center and had achieved and surpassed her career goals. But in her first Zoom meeting with me, she said, “I feel nothing. I feel dead.”
She echoed the same sentiment another client, Rick, a longtime entrepreneur, had shared just that morning: “I have a great wife, two kids. I’ve achieved a lot, but I feel a gnawing inside. Something is missing.”
Later in the afternoon, I saw Susan, a successful attorney for a large national law firm, who had pushed herself hard throughout her life and now, in her early fifties, had just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. “There has got to be more to life,” she said. “I want to feel peace and ease.”
The next morning I met Nate, who’d recently lost his wife. “I’m trying to make sense of my life. I need help,” he told me.
Then I meet with Nicky, a woman in her mid thirties who was a two-year covid long-hauler and still dealing with challenging symp- toms. She said, “I want to find balance and heal. I want to feel more.”
Like the patients I saw when I was a chaplain, Susan, Nate, and Nicky were experiencing external wake-up calls. A painful loss; a difficult health condition; a sudden, unasked-for life change—these are just some of the external circumstances that can lead us to question whether more is possible for our lives. For others, like Jill and Rick, the call is an internal one. From the outside, it may look like they have it all, but inside they feel numb and empty. They feel like they’re living on autopilot—going through the motions of life but not feeling like they’re actually living it. They might even feel bored with life. Others in this situation may feel overstressed, anxious, depressed, or exhausted. Driven by their thoughts, which never seem to shut off, and by feelings of being less than or not enough, they often experience a constant pushing or striving, and they can find little rest and ease.
They are all on the cusp of awakening.
Whatever form their wake-up call takes, people who find their way to my practice usually have an innate sense that what they need is something in addition to and beyond standard physical and mental health care. That’s where I come in: I work at the intersection of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, which is exactly where awakening happens. Awakening is a whole-being experience. I blend my clinical knowledge of neuroscience and Western mental health care; my professional training in ministry, chaplaincy, and complementary healing modalities; and my personal experience living on the edge between life and death and learning what it means to be alive.
The nurse called my name, and I walked into the grim medical room. I lay down on the hard table, and a doctor and nurses walked in, wearing white coats and carrying a tray with multiple large syringes. They gave me a peppermint to suck on as they started injecting chemotherapy agents into my arm. A chemical taste suddenly started running through my mouth. My mother stood next to me, holding my hand, and I could feel fear running through her body. There was not a sound in the room; everyone was staring at me.
As we left the hospital, my mother opened all the doors because I refused to touch anything.
At home, early evening, the nausea hit me. I went to my bedroom and started throwing up. It was the 1970s, and there were no anti- nausea drugs available. My mom slept next to me, holding my head every time I got sick.
I spent the next day on the couch, watching TV, as my mom was busy doing things around the house. All my older siblings were off to school. I felt weak, shaky, and full of fear. I didn’t know if I could muster enough energy to get up to go to the bathroom.
No one was talking with me. My mother’s love was comforting, but no one had said anything about what was really happening to me. I was walking on a tightrope between life and death. I could see over the cliff into the abyss.
I don’t want to die.
The thought rushed through me. In that moment, I decided I wanted to live.
Out of nowhere, I started to pray: Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old. I thought that if I lived to be twenty, I would see the world.
Until that moment, faith and God had meant nothing to me. My family attended a Lutheran church with some regularity, but we did not talk about faith or God—ever. There had been chaplains at the hospital, but no minister or counselor had come to speak with me while I was there.
I told no one of my prayers. I just kept praying. Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old. I kept saying this prayer for days, maybe even weeks, as the chemotherapy and radiation appointments continued. Please, God, I want to live to be twenty years old.
One day, while I was praying, a feeling of peace and warmth suddenly flooded my body, followed by a pulsing aliveness. I felt a sense of something beyond come into me. Something not of this world was present with me.
I felt comforted. I was no longer alone. A knowing came to me: I am okay. I stopped questioning whether I was going to live or die; I knew I was going to live.
This childhood experience cracked me open. I was eleven years old. I’d been given only a 20 percent chance of surviving cancer. Yet I had lived. And I had awakened to the preciousness of being alive.
This first awakening experience set in motion my passion for understanding what it means to be fully alive. This passion followed me into adulthood. During my first career, in corporate advertising, I had a near-death experience, and afterward I quit my lucrative, successful job because my heart just wasn’t in my work anymore. I changed direction and became a chaplain. Serving in a level-one trauma center and then in hospice, I walked with thousands of people as they navigated the rough terrain of upheaval, loss, and death. Many of them were searching for meaning as their lives were upended by trauma or a dire diagnosis. Again and again, I saw people who, facing their death as I had, felt the acute aliveness of just this moment. Walking with them, I learned even more about what awakening looks and feels like.
In 2016, I started my private practice as an integrative spiritual consultant so that I could help people who, like me, are seeking answers to the question of what it really means to be alive. Each of my clients comes from a different background and is facing their own unique circumstances, yet they have one thing in common: all of them are experiencing a wake-up call, and it has started them on a search for more.
My client Jill, for example, was a leading doctor at a well-known medical center and had achieved and surpassed her career goals. But in her first Zoom meeting with me, she said, “I feel nothing. I feel dead.”
She echoed the same sentiment another client, Rick, a longtime entrepreneur, had shared just that morning: “I have a great wife, two kids. I’ve achieved a lot, but I feel a gnawing inside. Something is missing.”
Later in the afternoon, I saw Susan, a successful attorney for a large national law firm, who had pushed herself hard throughout her life and now, in her early fifties, had just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. “There has got to be more to life,” she said. “I want to feel peace and ease.”
The next morning I met Nate, who’d recently lost his wife. “I’m trying to make sense of my life. I need help,” he told me.
Then I meet with Nicky, a woman in her mid thirties who was a two-year covid long-hauler and still dealing with challenging symp- toms. She said, “I want to find balance and heal. I want to feel more.”
Like the patients I saw when I was a chaplain, Susan, Nate, and Nicky were experiencing external wake-up calls. A painful loss; a difficult health condition; a sudden, unasked-for life change—these are just some of the external circumstances that can lead us to question whether more is possible for our lives. For others, like Jill and Rick, the call is an internal one. From the outside, it may look like they have it all, but inside they feel numb and empty. They feel like they’re living on autopilot—going through the motions of life but not feeling like they’re actually living it. They might even feel bored with life. Others in this situation may feel overstressed, anxious, depressed, or exhausted. Driven by their thoughts, which never seem to shut off, and by feelings of being less than or not enough, they often experience a constant pushing or striving, and they can find little rest and ease.
They are all on the cusp of awakening.
Whatever form their wake-up call takes, people who find their way to my practice usually have an innate sense that what they need is something in addition to and beyond standard physical and mental health care. That’s where I come in: I work at the intersection of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, which is exactly where awakening happens. Awakening is a whole-being experience. I blend my clinical knowledge of neuroscience and Western mental health care; my professional training in ministry, chaplaincy, and complementary healing modalities; and my personal experience living on the edge between life and death and learning what it means to be alive.
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Catherine Duncan, MA, BCC, is passionate about whole person healing. Her focus as an integrative spiritual consultant is emotional and spiritual health. With a reverence for the sacredness of life, she companions individuals who are struggling with chronic illness, life transitions, grief and loss, and those searching for more meaning and purpose. In 2016, she founded Learning to Live LLC to guide individuals on their unique journeys.
In her work, she draws on her experience as a board-certified chaplain and certified spiritual director; her training in positive neuroplasticity; and her education in a range of alternative healing modalities. As a public speaker, she frequently delivers talks on stress and resiliency, self-compassion, self-care and awakening to organizations and companies in person and virtually. Catherine has served as a spiritual care provider with multiple healthcare and hospice organizations. She is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. In addition to her professional background, Catherine teaches from her three personal awakening experiences, including a brush with death that opened her gifts as a mystic and intuitive. These spiritual gifts, which include the ability to see spirits, support her work of helping people open into their souls. |
Photo Courtesy: Catherine Duncan
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