Learning to Live beyond Stress… Or anger… Or anxiety… Or depression…
Do you know what Spiritual Crisis is?… Would you know it if you ‘bumped’ into it?…
Spiritual Crisis is a term used when people are abruptly impacted by emotional upheaval – so powerful, it can disrupt their entire existence – some call it a ‘mid-life crisis’… Though it has nothing to do with middle age – it can happen at any time. It can be quietly brewing in the background (ignorance is bliss) at least for a while… Then the ‘explosion’ or ‘implosion’ happens, and we ask… What happened?!… Spiritual Crisis often happens after a major adverse circumstance (but not necessarily). The force of a stressful situation just reinforces the urgency for inner change – something we’ve been ignoring. Many will go through life looking and searching and wondering why nothing keeps them happy for long – and many will be diagnosed with depression, burn-out etc… From a spiritual viewpoint, depression stems from loss of our spiritual identity – any wonder it’s called a crisis! Yet self change doesn’t have to be so drastic. Spiritual Crisis simply awakens us to something more substantial, that can no longer be ignored.
As time ‘appears’ to speed up people at any age are experiencing this ‘awakening’ – why?… Because we are in a time of the word cycle when it’s time to ‘wake up’, it’s necessary and actually rather beautiful. Understanding that we’ve been living in somewhat of a vacuum is being recognised world-wide. No longer satisfied with all the externals that have long been distracting us, we are looking for something deeper, something ‘real’, more fulfilling and sustaining, more meaningful… Spirituality means to live life with meaning. So if there is no meaning in your life, or all that you thought had meaning, no longer does – you may be experiencing a Spiritual Crisis. See this as a positive, not something to be feared!
You know, time can’t really speed up, it’s our perception of it. Time is change and neither time or change can speed up. What DOES speed up is the pace of change. It’s like watching nature through a movie projector that has been fast forwarded. Nature itself doesn’t speed up but our perception through the fast forward button does! Staying light and open to life proves difficult, when my perception is one of worrying about lack of time or resources. If I believe that I don’t have time, don’t have inner resources and can’t ‘keep up’ with change, I will definitely get stressed out and depressed!
Everything we’ve been taught appears to be upside down and we are now trying to turn ourselves the right way up – with that will of course come some upheaval… All our ‘pillars’ of believing something to be ‘right’ may actually be wrong, so how do I deal with these distortions? How do I start living inside out and no longer live outside in?… I need to stay open, trusting and change my beliefs that no longer work for me – via changing the way I think… Albert Einstein says – we can’t change any problem with the same kind of thinking that created the problem in the first place. So we must change the way we think!.. Changing the way we think will change our perception (belief), it stops us trying to keep up with change, instead quietly working to change ourselves to reclaim our original beauty and power. Because you know what, we are all good enough just the way we are – our authentic real self is perfect 🙂
Question: Do I believe time is speeding up?… Do I say ‘I don’t have any time’?
Consideration: Why might I be experiencing stress or anxiety or depression?
Activity: Over the next month bring ‘Traffic Control’ into your daily routine… Traffic control means that I stop every hour for just 60 seconds! Set an hourly alarm on your watch or phone and STOP when it goes off! STOP the traffic in your mind and just breathe… I that 60 seconds I can check myself and I can change the direction from negative into positive… Traffic control allows me to wipe the slate clean every hour – that’s a pretty good deal! Even if I only do this during an 8-hour working day – that’s 8 minutes for myself… If I think I value myself but can’t find 8 minutes a day (that’s broken up into 60 second lots) for quiet reflection, than I need to really question my belief and value system!…
Happy April EveryOne, Love Annemarie