You can do it

I know what it is like to give up hope. I have done it more times than I would like to count. I have battled depression and anxiety. I have been to all the different styles and brands of spiritual and self-help people and programs.

All this while having a life that was really good. I was working my dream job, and have a wonderful family. The pain was coming from my thoughts and beliefs. It took me a very long time to see that clearly and act accordingly.

Spirituality was a wonderful path for me to follow. I was chasing the light. I had a very powerful spontaneous awakening. That deep knowing of the perfection of all things and being held in the loving embrace of my higher power. However, that didn't last forever. Life intervened and pulled me out of it. The whole while I was fighting to hold onto it. Much like struggling in quicksand, it only intensified the process and the feelings of loss.

Following that experience I was deeper into the morass of chasing the spiritual. That was when I started my first retreats, listening to all the teachers, consulting with all kinds of spiritual coaches. In that time I heard "you are already awake, and just don't see it" and other platitudes countless times. I also had moments of clarity, but they are not to be sustained. Another classic that came across my desk too many times is that the story is not real. I really liked that one, since there was an unhappiness and discontent in my story.

In the end I have found the story is very real. It is a playing out of my higher consciousness. Also known as subconscious. To ignore the story or keep pushing it away is a deep resistance. In my experience it only deepened my suffering in the long run.

I started to discover that I had to look into and work on my deeper patterns. I was not going to escape the doubts, fears, patterns, habits, thoughts and false beliefs that would continually bring me back down. Without clearing/looking at those patterns, I would continue to receive the same lessons.

Once I stopped resisting and began accepting and looking into myself I began the good part of the journey. I was able to receive my lessons with greater ease and gratitude. I am learning to love the world as it loves me. I saw that the people I had worked with were pulling me into dogma traps. What I mean is they have their biases and know what worked for them. They tried to help me by getting those to work for me. What I have found in working with other people is we each are at different places in our journeys. Throughout that, different truths are predominant. Without connecting to those truths and leveraging where a person is at that moment I am not truly helping that person. Only by being present and open with deep and rich connection can we begin to lose the baggage and truly soar.