Restoring my soul.

There has been a lot of reflection over the last few entries and some realisations, what do we do now? I have limited experience in being able to sustain an enlightened state of being. Life likes to throw curveballs as soon as you begin to feel comfortable in your position. The same way adding another pose into your yoga flow causes some imbalance or lack of coordination, adding a new way of thinking or feeling into our ordinary day can cause discomfort and doubt.

We can take this feeling of unease to mean something is “wrong” or “not quite right” with us. We tend to try and fix what is “wrong”, rather than sitting in the feeling of disquiet and learning about our new state of being. It is important to realise in these moments that we; our minds and our bodies, are not puzzles to be worked out but complex sentient beings that require acceptance and love beyond all else.

We have discussed our monkey brain, our limbic brain that’s only job is to keep us alive and out of danger. A brain that sees the negative in every situation as a defence mechanism against suffering hurt and pain both physical and emotional. How do we mindfully and respectfully fight such evolutionary wiring? This question has been posed by scholars, religious leaders, philosophers and people much smarter than I am for centuries. Each of these have many different ways of accomplishing a higher peace. Yet all of them have one central theme and that is “Faith”.

Either faith in our own strength and durability, or faith in a higher power or deity. It actually doesn’t matter which path we take, as long as we believe wholly and fully in the healing powers of faith and hope.

Søren Kierkegaard:
“Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”

Faith must be cultivated, romanced, enticed out of our inner cynicism and doubt. It must be teased into being and it must be practiced minute by minute in every situation. The faith we need must stand and fight side by side with our limbic brain in keeping us safe from the potential hurt we may experience in life.

Have faith and all good things will come to you, now I’m paraphrasing one of the Biblical Saints – and yet it is advice that has gotten me through some of the toughest times in my life, alongside “this too shall pass” and “for everything under Heaven there is a season” and in each situation they were proven true. Even if the outcome wasn’t what I wanted or expected the outcome was always beneficial to my life going forward.

Sometimes faith can desert us and in those dark times it is necessary to remember that even in the darkest night there is light. The universe is never fully black there are stars even when hidden by clouds and in these tiny pinpricks of light there is hope.