This is great advice if we are living a linear life with the expectation of definite results, but modern science tells us that we live in a hologram with everything happening NOW. There is no end, no past, no future. If we get lost in the concept of an ending we are limiting ourselves to our vision of possibilities. In the holographic world we have infinite possibilities with endless potential, therefore our best option is to set goals, create targets, cultivate dreams and have all those things without end.
In my life journey towards spiritual awakening for a big part of it I didn't even know that I was going anywhere. As a younger person I felt like a pin ball, bouncing from one drama to another, rebounding from other peoples drama and regularly finding myself in a repeating loop of self destructive behaviour and pain.
I didn't consider an end other than suicide, which occasionally seemed like a very viable possibility.
As Oprah says, "When we know better, we do better."
Inspired by Z Egloff's blog
http://lifeinzd.com/how-ben-kingsley-changed-my-life/ I got thinking about what impelled me to go from stress and struggle to the life of bliss and unconditional love that I have now. At first I couldn't see any kind of a golden thread, but as I reviewed my journey I began to see that after each low I would recover and seek something different from life. I would read another self help book, attend another class, meditate a couple of times always ultimately falling off the spiritual wagon and diving headlong back into lack, limitation and stress.
Something deep within me had been calling the 'more' of life, as August Gold describes it, through me from an early age. I had been a spiritual seeker in high school, but back then I couldn't find any support for the things I felt inside me and having zero self esteem I decided I must be wrong and stopped searching.
I bumbled along from one drama and crisis to the next until September 11th 2001. In the destruction of the twin towers something in my head broke, the flood gates opened and I was finally diagnosed with clinical depression, prescribed anti-depressants and sent home. I walked away from an executive job in local government and didn't work again for 18 months.
The paradox in this is that ultimately this experience was the catalyst for my deepest healing and from where I am today I say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
In many lives we somehow have to hit bottom before we can be transformed. In the first few days after my diagnosis as the world was in shock over the events in America, I was numb, partly with drugs and partly through the thick fog that had consumed my mind and my body. In this place I was forced to surrender, I had nothing left, my soul was empty and my mind was incapacitated. I was all out of options and could only hide under the duvet and cry.
I know you're reading this and thinking how can I be so grateful for this experience, but it really did change my life. As I emptied myself of all that I thought I knew about life, all that I had been taught about strength and power and simply surrendered to the Universe, or God, or Spirit, call it what you will, I was able to start a healing process that was deep and wide.
With my cup completely empty the universe could pour in new wisdom, it could reveal and remind me of the things I 'knew' as a younger person and it could allow me the time I needed in quiet contemplation to start the rebuilding process.
The thing I knew when I was in high school was that I was connected to everything, that the concept of God I was being taught didn't fit me, I was born knowing that the kingdom of heaven is within. The days, weeks and months following my collapse allowed me the time to explore this more fully, to discover that other people had written about it and believed what I knew. In the depth of my depression I learned that I wasn't mad. Another of those mystical paradoxes.
Depression and stress remain 'secret' assassins. Ten years on they are more prevalent than ever, but are still not discussed openly. If you are experiencing any level of these things I invite you to know that you can recover and rebuild your life to greater heights. If I can do it, trust me, anyone can.
It wasn't a quantum leap to becoming 'The Metaphysical Motivator', it remains a journey and a practice. I recognise that I am the only thinker in my mind, that there is only the infinite now and in that now moment I am creating my life with every thought, feeling, word and deed in partnership with the Infinite Presence of Life and Love.
No matter where you are in life and how bad things are or have been, you can return to wholeness. Trust the process of life to support you, surrender to the infinite potential to deliver the perfect solution and practice radical self love, you are worth it and you deserve a magnificent life.
So yes, I say thank you for this experience and each day I practice radical self love and deep gratitude for the magnificence of all life.
In love
Juliet x