Why do we seek self-help books, consultations or the spiritual path?
Maybe something has happened in our life to trigger the pixels of our isolation, our neurosis of separation or the maddening pain and confusion of life’s depths.
Perhaps we seek a psychedelic journey, enroll in a course that promises us change and transformation, or buy a few books that we intend on reading.
Maybe, we simply crash on our bedroom floor and look up at our ceiling or to the sky outside and curse at Life itself.
Maybe we do all of these and more.
Most of us have found ourselves on the path of our Soul because a great pain arose in our life. There was struggle and conflict, loss, rage, grief, confusion and in ways and places within that we couldn’t have imagined.
It’s really this, that we are learning isn’t it? The strength of the luminous Human Spirit to rise over and over again through unimaginable pains.
Walking our path, finding our Spirit to guide our way does not have to be wrought with pain and suffering. It can actually be rather delightful. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t gone through it myself.
Before it becomes delightful though, we may have some trials to move through.
We have been taught and it has been reinforced that pain and discomfort is something you resist and push away, denying it and when that doesn’t work distract from it in any way.
It is this practice and habit that always keeps us enslaved to pain – whether it is physical, emotional, psychic, spiritual or ancestral. It sounds horrid, but we get really comfortable here and indeed form an identity from this place, that again, reinforces us here.
Here’s the thing with pain though, especially pain that is non-physcial: it’s timeless.
So maybe, someone broke up with you or you lost your job and you find yourself on your living room floor, head in your hands, rather broken up by the experience wondering what went wrong. For some people in some situations, they experience grief or confusion or sadness in the moment for the moment and then it passes.
For others, and certainly for me, pains of certain kinds trigger pains of a similar frequency from my childhood, and sometimes from other lives. Their pains exist in time-less-ness.
If you’ve ever seen Star Trek of a sci-fi show where someone is in a wormhole that is collapsing, you see these variants of timelines, the same person in different worlds and universes having different experiences all existing in the same moment. That’s a little what it’s like. But there are fewer flashing lights (for me at least), and more around experiencing those really deep emotions all at the same time.
It sounds like I’m describing insanity – and perhaps I am – where we experience great love and great absence of love in the same moment.
But all things in the universe, even our darkest moments, offer within that darkness the way through.
When things happen that we simply cannot understand or fathom, I was taught to Trust and Believe.
This isn’t about trusting an external source, but rather it is closing our else’s and jumping into the thing we have been taught to deny, because the strong currents here make us stronger swimmers. It is trusting in Life itself that pulses within our organs, muscles, blood and bones and through the entire fabric of the Earth as well – One Rhythm, I have heard it called.
If you’ve witnessed a person have a panic attack ever, you may also have noticed that everyone tells them to breathe. The thing is, the person is breathing, just very shallow and the level of anxiety or stress that they hold comes in the way of Life, or breathe. So, they are told to slow it down, because in the end, Life is about Breathe.
I’ve lived with panic attacks, and this same teaching of Breath, and in-fact, relearning how to Breathe fully and well, got me through some of these ‘timeless wormholes of pain’ moments.
It’s actually amazing how simple the solution to many of life’s problems can be, if our minds would just allow it – Breathe, Slow down, Trust in Life, it is okay!
This is because of what Breathe allows us to access. The way I have experienced it, it that we access consciousness through the air and ethers.
The cynic in us may ask: If someone is yelling at me for something that isn’t my fault, breathing isn’t going to make them stop, so obviously that’s not what I will be doing. I’ll bloody well yell back??!?!??!?!?!
The wisdom in us though, knows and remembers who we are and this is what Breathing and Slowing Down breath and counting to 10 actually enables. It gives our nervous system more space and time to process what is actually occurring.
Is this person yelling, because they had a shitty day and this is the only way they know how?
Maybe we remember what it’s like to feel an utter lack of control and support in our life.
Maybe this person has truly never been in the presence of compassion.
Maybe this person is used to crossing boundaries because no one loved them enough to show them what boundaries are.
So maybe the wisest decision for us, is to use the fierce voice of kindness within us to express what we will allow and will not consent to in this conversation. Maybe, we decide that we will express the pure fury of our Spirit, or that we will witness this anger with love and patience and breathe slowly for ourselves and this person who clearly cannot right now.
Either way, we now give ourselves the gift of options and choice.
Here we realize that we move from the reactive, pain-controlled reaction to Life, people and experiences and we move into intentionality, response and even if fury is what we express, it holds the undertone of Love.
This is one of the greatest acts of self-love to me. Giving myself the choice, freedom and space to respond in a way that is authentically me, rather than a pre-programmed reactionary transaction.
It starts with Breath and then moves into Belief and Trust and moving in our own Spirit Rhythm. This takes practice in the beginning, and eventually we attune more and more to it, until it’s the main music in our heads and not the sounds and voices of others.
None of this is possible if we continue to deny, delay, distract or deflect from whatever pains us – big or small. Sometimes, I actually prefer going through this process with the small things, because we are getting used to this way of Being, of Living and Loving. Maybe it’s the frustration of a train that we missed or a plan that fell through, maybe it’s the judgement of someone’s weight or life choices, or maybe we just hate the scent of lavender because a cruel aunt used it a lot in her house and we were forced to stay there as a child.
We are learning to Delight in life.
This means coming to acceptance of what Life is presenting to us in the present moment – all of it, no exceptions.
For those looking for or in partnerships, perhaps you want someone (or your existing someone) to love you for who you are.
So, my question-invitation to you is: Do you love yourself truthfully for all that you are, all the parts even the ones that feel inadequate, unworthy, failed, rotten, low, corrupt, arrogant, obsessive, distracted and abandoned?
Hint: This is not a yes/no question. This is a hand on your heart, light a candle, seek the answer from within your bones journey; on which you are not alone, my friend.
All the love and stars….
While all my writings are original content and I often receive perspective from my Inner Guidance, I’m blessed to receive inspired words from other connected and brilliant people. In the Spirit of We-Are-Not-Alone, I would like to honour the following messages that inspired this piece. Thank you!