I Awoke to Complete Presence

A spiritual search took Anette Carlström far and wide across the landscape of spiritual teachings. But in the end it was an encounter with an atheist, an egg timer and a journey to India that led to the extraordinary shift in consciousness that today allows Anette to live in a constant state of peace and joy.

By Sannie Burén, featured in Magasinet Psykologi 06/2011
Photos Christina Hauschildt

When Anette Carlström was a little girl, she was very curious about how religion worked. Who was God? Who was Jesus? And were you supposed to believe in both of them, or just one?

Already at the age of three she started attending the local Sunday school on her own initiative. She did not want simply to believe — she wanted to know.

For years she searched for answers. But it was only when she encountered a method that focused on listening inward rather than following an external authority that things truly began to make sense. And after a journey to India in 2003, her consciousness opened into a state of presence and boundless acceptance.

With her fair Nordic appearance and generous radiance, she resembles the prototype of an angel so much that when we meet, I instinctively find myself looking for wings. But there are no wings on Anette Carlström’s back. Despite her extraordinary state of consciousness, she is a very down-to-earth woman.

And although she is always dressed in white, wears an Indian bindi on her forehead and is in the habit of chanting mantras in Sanskrit, when it comes down to it she is just as Swedish as forest lakes, lingonberry jam and Emil of Lönneberga.

Anette grew up in an academic family with a scientific approach to life. There was much love in the family, but perhaps not a great deal of understanding for Anette’s spiritual interests.

“Ever since I was a child I have searched for a meaning to life and longed to find inner peace,” she says.

“Even in Sunday school I never really found answers to my questions. I loved the stories about Jesus and told them to everyone I met along the way. I also learned how to pray, and that is something that has stayed with me ever since. But there was still so much I did not understand.”

As a teenager she was bullied and often felt like an outsider. She was also very shy, and during confirmation classes she never dared ask the many questions she wanted answered.

She simply longed to get away. At eighteen she travelled to Los Angeles as an au pair. The plan was to return to Sweden after a year and study chemistry at university. Instead, she ended up staying in L.A. for thirteen years, stumbling through an attempt to create a career as an actress and model.

“For me it was a way of trying to overcome my shyness. I thought that living the great Hollywood dream would make me happy. But I never quite succeeded — neither in overcoming my shyness nor in breaking into the film industry.

“In fact it only made things worse, because I did not have much self-esteem to begin with. You need sharp elbows to survive in that business.”

Yet in a way it was thanks to Hollywood that she began to find answers that were actually useful, because it was there, she learned to meditate.

“Every Thursday I attended a meditation course, and it led to something in me awakening. It wasn’t there all the time, but I could feel it when I meditated — my heart.

“I was also guided to make contact with my higher self. ‘Aha,’ I thought, ‘so I actually have a higher self!’ Something was beginning to make sense.”

“At the same time, I wondered where it was the rest of the time, because I could only feel that presence during the meditation itself. I was searching for a permanent peace.

“But I did not want to sit in a cave and meditate for the rest of my life or live a monastic life, even though I was often tempted by the thought. I had married and had a son, and I felt that it must be possible to live in the world as an ordinary human being and still live in peace. That was what kept driving my search.”

She missed being closer to her family in Sweden and eventually moved back to Helsingborg. The following year she had a daughter, but the marriage did not last.

Suddenly she found herself a single mother with two children — a baby and an eight-year-old.

She had no job, but slowly she built up a practice offering alternative therapies. And at the beginning of 2002 she had an experience that would change her life.

One evening Anette attended a meditation seminar led by a declared atheist.

The man who held the seminar was a deaf farmer from Halland in the south of Sweden. He prefers not to have his name mentioned here, but he came to play a decisive role in Anette’s life. He had found an inner peace and was happy that it was not tied to any belief or to following a particular master. His wish, she explains, was simply to give others the opportunity to discover the same thing within themselves.

During a meditation exercise, where the participants were guided to make contact with their inner selves, she had an experience of light, presence and love.

“Every part of my body knew that this was what I had been searching for all my life! Here it is!”

“And then I became so annoyed — angry, actually! That I had to wait so long for this experience when it had been within reach all the time. I raged inside — imagine that it should happen NOW, and in Helsingborg of all places! Through an atheist…”

We laugh. Then Anette continues her story.

“A voice inside me said: ‘Do not be afraid to meet your inner suffering.’ So, I allowed the feelings of anger, rage, fear and shame to be there and realised that all my life I had tried to get rid of them, to run away from them.

“When I relaxed, something released in my body and I felt a rush of bliss.”

When the deaf farmer from Halland held another course the following week, Anette arrived with her notebook ready.

“The first thing he said to me was: ‘You can put the paper and pencil away.’”
(She speaks slowly and somewhat deliberately, imitating the farmer’s voice, and we laugh again.

“‘This is about experience! There are only two things you need to know,’ he said. ‘One: make contact with your inner self. And two: do not be afraid to meet your inner suffering.’”

“I nearly fell off my chair. It was exactly the same thing the voice inside me had told me the week before. So I completely surrendered.”

After the course, her new teacher gave her the following advice:

“Buy an egg timer. Every day when you come home, set the timer for the number of minutes you want to feel the emotions you pushed away during the day. Practise being with the feeling.”

For a year and a half Anette sat down every evening and allowed herself to feel.

“I started with small annoyances and irritations — embarrassment about something I had said or fears about things that might go wrong. Gradually I learned that it was not so dangerous to meet these feelings.

“Later I moved on to more fundamental or existential issues, such as feeling betrayed or not loving myself. From time to time I received help from my friend the farmer, but the only thing he ever said to me was: ‘Boil in the feeling!’”

“Gradually I learned that when I stayed with the feeling, it loosened its grip on me. My mind slowly began to change and I started experiencing periods without thoughts — but it came and went.”

In 2003 Anette had the opportunity to attend a ten-day intensive course at Oneness University in India, where her friend the farmer had originally found his inspiration.

On the last day — literally with her travel bag in her arms — she received, as one of the first people, what later became known as a Oneness Blessing: A form of healing or transmission of energy that creates balance in the chakra system and prepares the receiver for higher consciousness.

“When one of the assistants placed his hands on my head, it felt as if a ball of light entered me. There was nothing to hide, nothing to run from — everything simply was what it was.

“And I felt a prayer in my heart that I would never lose contact with my inner self.”

But it was not until she landed at Copenhagen Airport that she truly realised something was very different.

“No matter what was happening — thoughts, stress, children crying — there was an indescribable peace.

“And in my heart, I could feel all the people around me. I could not read their thoughts, but I could feel them.

“It was a beautiful feeling, but also very unfamiliar in my body, and I thought: ‘How will I function in everyday life like this? How will I be able to work?’”

“So, I went to my doctor and said: ‘I feel so good! I don’t know what to do.’” The doctor looked at her in confusion and sent her to a psychological consultant, who understood that she needed time to find her footing in this new state — and granted her five weeks of sick leave.

Anette felt her love for the people around her — not least her family — with renewed strength.

“My daughter was eight years old at the time, and I could see how much she had missed her mother, because I had needed to work so much. And I realised that it is never too late to heal a relationship.”

“I have always had a warm and humorous family where there was room for everyone. But I was probably a bit difficult to be around before, because I was searching all the time. Whenever I found new answers, I wanted to change the others.”

“When I discovered a new book, my sister would get it as a Christmas present the following year.”

She smiles.

“It was hard for me to let them simply be who they were. When I found inner peace, I could finally allow them to be themselves — and suddenly I discovered how wonderful they are.”

“Now I love being with my children, my parents, my sister, and simply seeing what happens. I think we all have a deep wish to be allowed to be exactly as we are.”

Gradually Anette’s body grew accustomed to her new state of being.

When she began seeing clients again, they asked her what had happened. But since she did not want to spend the time they paid for treatment talking about herself, she arranged an evening where she would tell people about her experiences in India. A friend announced the event on his website.

“Before I knew it, ninety people had signed up. We simply could not fit into my living room, so we had to rent a place. People came from near and far. A couple even came from Copenhagen with a video camera. It was all very overwhelming.”

“I was still extremely shy. Suddenly I was standing right in the middle of my worst nightmare — ninety people and a man with a camera! — and I was supposed to talk about one of the most personal and profound experiences of my life. I was convinced it would be a disaster.”

“But I had learned to be with whatever is there. So I met what was happening inside me openly and decided to experience the disaster. And the strange thing was that in the middle of all the terror I felt free to tell my story — and I even began to sing!”

The evening turned into a great success and became the beginning of the many workshops and lectures Anette has since given, not only in Sweden but also in other parts of Europe, the United States and Russia, where she inspires others to connect more deeply with themselves.

“It is not that I am finished now and will never be challenged again. There will always be new situations, new relationships, things to feel and experience — I am alive, after all. The difference from before is that now I can meet everything with presence and a feeling of inner peace. For example, when I have to be photographed I still feel uncomfortable — but that is okay. I do not mind feeling it. Reality is as it is.”

Whether there are thoughts in the mind or not is not something Anette places much importance on. They come and go as they please, she explains. And there is something beyond the mind — something greater.

She calls it divine grace, not from a religious conviction, but as a way of describing the possibility of experiencing the world without opposites. Both sides of a paradox can be true at the same time.

“When I live with an awareness of the divine — that I am part of the whole and can connect with something greater than myself — it makes a great difference. But we do not have to call it ‘God’, and in fact we do not really have to believe in anything. That is my experience. My friend, the farmer from Halland, is an atheist and would never use that word. But for me it makes sense to call the whole of existence divine. For me there is no contradiction with God.”

We sit in silence for a moment. The interview is coming to an end, and the words fade away on their own.

It feels good simply to sit quietly together — without words, without real thoughts. Anette’s ability to be present has a gentle, contagious effect, and the silence itself feels comfortable as time seems to pause for a while.

Then Anette smiles and says:

“You can find this silence anywhere. In the queue at the supermarket, while driving your car, washing the dishes, or when someone is angry with you. It is about daring to be present — to be here. When we are present our relationships become harmonious. We can listen to our children. We can meet people where they are. That, to me, is spirituality. I do not need to analyse, suppress or understand everything.”

“Many people see spirituality as an escape — as something you flee into when life becomes too difficult. But my experience is that it is exactly the opposite.”

Anette Carlström, born 1961, works as a craniosacral therapist based in Helsingborg, Sweden. After attending a retreat at Oneness University in India in 2003, she experienced a shift in consciousness that she describes as a constant state of peace and joy. Today Anette holds workshops and lectures throughout Scandinavia, Europe, Russia and the United States. She is the author of two books and has released several meditation CDs.