Staying in the flow - Accepting where I am

I have felt on the up swing the past week even with hearing the news that in didn't get for the Master Gardner program. They said  they had double the usual applicants since they didn't have it last year. I am sure I am probably one of the few with a full time job.  I didn't take it personally and figured that the timing wasn't right.

Since I started my spiritual journey I have focused on flow. Someone described this as putting your boat into a stream and letting the water do the work. You can only do this when you can resist wanting something and trying to force it to happen. In the old days I spent every waking hour trying to manipulate something or worse trying to manipulate someone working every angle.

I thought this was being smart and worse I thought I was helping people. You can't really help people learn what it is they have to learn. You can support and comfort them but no one can go down the road we must travel we have to go alone. We long for it to be easier or to know the future but we this isn't possible. We can choose to let go or we can exhaust ourselves preparing for the wrong thing. It is never what we think it will be.

I been in mourning the past month and I feel some deep inner changes occurring. I heard someone say that life's natural rhythm makes changes every seven or ten years.  That has been true for me re-inventing myself or sometimes being forced to re-invent myself. 

I have accepted the mourning period and know that we are always dealing with the reality of where we are and with age we can see clearly what we have lost and acceptance is slow. We can decide not to waste anymore time on the past and decide what to do with the rest of our lives. This is freedom.

I feel like I am preparing for something spiritually. I do think that subconsciously we are always working things out. Our inner spiritual self knows what needs to be dealt with and our conscious self never gets to whole picture. We have to trust God or the universe that we are going in the right direction.

We have to take care of ourselves and not judge ourselves. What we know about energy and how we don't have clear boundaries between us makes it easy for me to understand why we feel the ups and downs without knowing why. 

The turmoil of the what the whole world has experienced the past year effects us all. We are all in it together and the only way to find peace is to focus on inner peace. Be kind and respectful to those you interact with every day especially the ones closest to us. We can't know when our time together will be over.  

Dark night of the soul - starting again - who am I now? exhausted

I wrote a post yesterday that didn't make the cut so here I am today.  I listened to a message today that I felt brought up some things for me.  It was really about suffering and the growth that occurs during suffering.  When I had my "dark night of the soul" a glamorous way of describing an emotional breakdown I had to decide where to go from there.

I wish I could describe the freedom I felt when I finally let go of the outcome of my situation and accepted my state of mind. I was trying so hard to not feel bad and trying to be the person I was before that I was exhausted day and night. I was barely operating and I was amazed the not too many people really noticed or maybe they did by mostly avoiding me.

When something rocks your world for me it was the loss of the life I thought I would have it can be too much. It manifests itself spiritually, physically and emotionally. It is a deep sadness that goes beyond emotion to the point of feeling nothing. 

The coping skills I used in the past didn't work anymore.  I couldn't be busy enough, work harder or even use the spiritual search to get through it this time. It terrified me and in the morning I would look in the mirror and did not recognize the person staring back at me.

I thought I was unique in this experience but this is a story of many spiritual seekers the absence of faith and what to do with this emptiness. The desperate need to be rescued when you are at your bottom and you feel abandoned by everything that feels familiar. Where are you God?

I didn't really have the strength to believe in anything. I had to just let go and quit trying or believing and I had to quit running. I remember the day it happened to me a calmness came over me. I surrendered to who I had become in that moment. I thought "okay this is who you are now so just accept it" I immediately felt relief from trying to fix myself. I started just walking through each day without expectation.

It was a long walk and it changed me forever. I am not the person I was before because I can see that all the things that I thought were important don't really matter. When I had dinner with my neighbor it made me realize I am no longer interested in seeking anything but peace. I am not looking for the for the meaning of life. 

All I could think was "I use to be that person but she is gone" I don't miss her because I know it was me that was seeking something more than those things and I have found that for myself. What doesn't kill you will make you stronger and happier if you let it. I had to stop trying not to feel bad it was the resisting that really hurt.  

The mind gets locked into "I don't want to feel this way" I rejected every part of my life during my dark night of the soul. I didn't take care of myself while I was resisting. When I let go I slowly came back to life and started to love and take of myself. I am changed forever and find it hard to relate to the things people worry about today but I know I am complete and whole from my experience. 

If you feel like you are alone in your sadness and suffering don't give up hope. It is in the struggle to remain the person you were before that drives the suffering. It is the running that drives addiction of all kinds. We have to stop running and turnaround and face the enemy in our thoughts. 

We have to face the false beliefs we have about ourselves and see them for what they are lies we have been listening to all our lives. It is our belief in these lies that keep us stuck and once we are stuck our minds just wants to go there. To a place that is familiar a suffering that is familiar. The thought that "I am broken and can't be fixed" this is where we feel the most comfortable. We can choose to be the past or we can choose to start again this moment and be who we want to be.