At some point… after I began speaking from that place… something started to shift in a way I hadn’t expected.

Not all at once. But gradually… through experience.

This wasn’t just a different way of handling thoughts. Or a better way to manage emotions. What changed… was the relationship I had with myself. And more specifically… with whatever this presence was that I had started to recognize.

Because for most of my life, everything I did was based on one idea: That I needed to change what I was feeling in order to feel better. But this… was different.

Instead of trying to change the experience… I began relating to it. Engaging with it. And over time… that changed everything.

Why do so many people struggle to create lasting change—even after years of therapy, coaching, meditation, spiritual practice, and personal development? In this introduction to Gateway Spiritualism, I share the personal journey that led me to create the Gateway Experiment, a 30-day exploration of a different possibility. Instead of asking the conscious mind to create a new experience of life, what if its real role is to begin a relationship with what I call the Subconscious Spirit—the greater aspect of consciousness that quietly influences our experience?

This video explains why I stopped trying to change myself and began testing a different approach through direct experience rather than belief.

If you've ever felt that you've done the inner work but something important still hasn't changed, this channel may resonate with you.

The Gateway Spiritualism channel explores:

• The role of the conscious mind

• The Subconscious Spirit

• The Gateway Experiment

• Personal transformation through direct experience

• Consciousness, awareness, and lasting change

If you'd like to participate in the Gateway Experiment, you'll find a link to my Substack below, where you can receive the free Participant Handbook and future updates. If these ideas interest you, please consider subscribing, and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Link to Substack - Subscribe and Receive the Experiment Participant Handbook https://rosalcojen.substack.com/p/gateway-spiritualism-my-story-and

At some point, just staying with that presence didn’t feel like enough anymore.

Not because something was missing. But because something in me wanted to respond more directly.

Up until then, my engagement had been quiet—a kind of turning toward it. A recognition. A felt response.

But this was different.

In this episode, I explore the moment that relationship began to shift again—when it started to feel like there was something to say. Not in the usual way I talked to myself, but as if I was speaking from within that connection itself.

What happened wasn’t about finding the right words… but about where those words were coming from.

And that changed everything—from simply feeling the connection… to actively participating in it.

Once I began to sense that this presence was already there—and already responding—something in me started to lean toward it.

Not out of effort. But out of recognition.

At first, it was inconsistent. I would feel it… respond to it… and then lose it again—pulled back into the same reactions, the same urgency to fix what I was feeling.

But something had changed.

Even when I lost it, I knew there was somewhere I could return to—not a place, but a way of relating.

In this episode, I explore what happened as I began returning to that connection again and again… and how, over time, it became something I could stay with—not just in difficult moments, but in the ordinary ones too.

At first, it felt like I was the one doing something new.

Turning toward that presence. Engaging it. Noticing that something shifted when I did.

But I still thought of it as my action.

Something I was choosing.

Until something changed.

In this episode, I explore the moment when that experience stopped feeling one-sided—when it began to feel like something was responding back. Not as a dramatic event, but as a subtle, undeniable shift in how I felt in my body.

And with that… my focus began to change.

Less about fixing my circumstances. More about the emotional state I was living in.

This was the first time I didn’t try to fix myself.I noticed something else was there — a presence — and instead of changing the feeling, I engaged it.That changed everything.

As I began noticing a presence that didn’t come from effort… I tried to understand how it fit with everything I had learned from Joe Dispenza and Pema Chödrön.

But what I was experiencing didn’t match either approach.

I wasn’t trying to change anything. I wasn’t trying to accept anything.

And yet… something was shifting.

That’s when I started to wonder:

What if the change wasn’t coming from the technique… but from something the technique was engaging — without ever naming it?

To begin exploring this more directly:

Start here

In this episode, something begins to shift in a way I didn’t expect. After stepping out of effort, I start to notice that the experience I’ve been trying to change… isn’t happening alone.

There’s the anxiety. The patterns. The familiar weight.

But there’s also something else.

Not reacting. Not trying to fix anything. Just… aware.

And the more I notice it, the more I begin to wonder: What if this presence is what I had been missing all along?

To begin exploring this more directly:

Start here

At some point, I began to see that all of my effort had something in common.

Every approach I had used assumed that what I was feeling needed to be fixed, removed, or escaped.

But when that effort stopped working… a different question appeared.

Not “How do I change this?” but “What if I’ve been relating to this the wrong way?”

This episode explores what remains when the attempt to get out of what you feel comes to an end.

To begin exploring this more directly:

Start here

The harder I tried to change how I felt… the more I stayed in the same place.

And that’s when I began to question something deeper— whether effort itself was keeping me stuck.

To begin exploring this more directly:

Start here