November 12, 2024 — We are creatures of habit. We walk the same paths and make the same choices day in and day out. It’s comforting in times of stress, like we are living in now. Or, if you are trapped in pain, it feels easier to surrender to misery than to fight for relief in ways that seem to drain precious energy reserves. But I am here to urgently encourage you, dear reader, to stop doing that. The only way to heal, grow, and evolve is to break free of the chains of existential suffering and live for yourself. Live for what you need and want, not for what is convenient and familiar because doing less feels kinder. Escaping agony can mean temporarily enduring it in seemingly more expansive ways in order to banish it forever. I have intentionally broken all of my pain patterns over the past year, and it has led me to magical places. It was profoundly scary sometimes, and even brutal as well, but always worth it in the end. I am in a place now of strength and resolve, to the point where I am fairly desperate to try and inspire others to find that for themselves. So many in my life are leaning into defeat in ways that will only lead to more entrenched misery.
When the world or our environment is in turmoil, we like to envelop ourselves in the labels and choices we have crafted to explain who we are, even to ourselves. It feels safer to think we know who we are at the deepest levels. But you really never know what you’re capable of until you dig down deep and test things out in new ways. Sometimes we have to walk straight forward into the most intimidating thing imaginable and discover through lived experience that we are not only still okay, but we are each of us stronger than we could have ever dreamed.
If something about your life no longer fits or makes you comfortable, please pause and meditate on that. For a little while at least, ignore the news. Ignore your friends and family. Ignore expectations, especially those from places like your job. Sit with your soul in a peaceful way and really ask yourself what it is that would make you happy. It might surprise you.
Our society loves, loves, loves to try and tell us what it is that will make us happy. That is usually things like popularity, money, possessions, glamor, attention, accolades, etc. But guess what? The people who actually attain those things are some of the most miserable ones on the planet. Happiness is a choice. It is something we are fully capable of giving ourselves without anything else from the outside world contributing. Philosophies and religions like to condition us into thinking that life as humans defaults to suffering. It doesn’t. That’s a lie meant to enslave us and make us more obedient to those in power. If we don’t realize we can provide our own joy, we DO look outward for it and will be led along with several carrots on a stick toward stupid things that mean nothing. Suffering can be overcome. You are not shackled to it. Even in the darkest of times, you can find ways to make yourself laugh, or hope, or love. Please do that.
As an American, I can say that we tend to catastrophize about a lot of things, including weather, politics, financial issues, etc. Again, I invite you to set down those massive things that don’t belong to you and which you did not at all cause. Those are not your responsibility if you feel you are in crisis. Choose to devote your attention to your own being, your own emotional health, and what you are able to change through conscious choice. There is always something there waiting for you to attend to it, which can and will provide you what you are actually looking for. It might be seeking fresh air with a walk in nature, or doing something creative that reminds you of the beauty of life, or reaching out to someone you yearn to connect with. It might be pursuing new love or friendship. It might be daydreaming about the kind of future you would most like to have. It might even be in providing your own pleasure, whether that’s physical, or through food, or dance, or music, or many other things we can access on our without money, power, or help.
There are powers above us that are working to shepherd us into a kinder life, but we have to be willing to listen to guidance in order to get there. If you stick your head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore the gifts spirit is waiting to give you, you won’t get them. Things do not just fall into your lap. You do have to make an effort to get them. You have to try. Please try.
Love and blessings, friends.