Any spiritual practice: yoga, meditation, energy work has a whole host of amazing benefits as you learn & grow & heal. But the path is not all love & light, dancing through the daisies in a white linen dress. Sometimes it can feel more like crawling through the trenches. And this is all really normal & part of the path of the Spiritual Warrior!
When we slow down, get still & silent in meditation or by practicing yoga or mindfulness initially our minds can seem very loud & busy, this is completely normal, we just weren’t aware how busy our mind was until we stop & turn inwards. And sometimes the stillness & quiet amplifies things inside of us that we maybe don’t like that much. Meditation & yoga may show you things you don’t want to see, work that you need to do on yourself. And this work is never done, there is always something to work on – we’re a bit like the Forth Bridge: when they get to the end of painting it, they need to start all over again. So it is with spiritual healing.
When I lived in Bangkok, I met a wonderful woman, Violaine. A French lady & practicing Buddhist. I could literally melt listening to her talk. Up until then my meditation & mindful journey had been a self-led journey. Violaine ran Buddhist meditation courses & I couldn’t get started soon enough.
I loved our sessions & learnt so much. One day, chatting about meditation & the spiritual journey Violiane said to me in her beautiful lilting tones, ‘Alex it is a work it is always a work.’ (you can of course insert your own ‘Allo ‘Allo accent here, trust me it adds to the exotic-ness of the message!).
You know what it is a lesson that has stuck with me & one I have shared with my own clients ever since. And whenever I do, I think fondly of my time with Violaine & this wonderful inspiring woman’s influence in my life.
Spiritual progress is like detox-ing – things have to come up in order to be released. As humans’ we habitually push away uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, behaviours we don’t like. Pushing it away feels ‘easier’ than dealing with it. Many of us prefer the comfort & familiarity of the discomfort of whatever is happening to us rather than doing the work to heal which feels frightening in it’s unfamiliarity & uncertainty of the outcome.
But, here’s the thing: we have all ‘chosen’ to incarnate on this planet to learn the lessons we need to learn to grow, heal & transform. If we keep pushing these lessons away, the universe will keep giving us the same one until we learn it & can make things really uncomfortable to guide towards that lesson. Healing & growth isn’t always love & light, sometimes it’s hard work but that’s a good thing & it’s always worth it because you are evolving & transforming.
The path of a Spiritual Warrior is not always peaceful & blissful. Self-discovery can be a painful path & often growing & healing from painful patterns is more uncomfortable than staying stuck in them but ultimately the effort & pain is worth it because who wants to be stuck?
In the summer I was lost & a bit broken & I felt stuck. Then one day I was I struck like a lightening bolt with this reminder: that there is no end point, we are always a work in progress & I actually felt an amazing sense of relief. There is no end point, no destination, just a journey & I found that amazingly comforting.
We will always be challenged & experience painful moments, it’s part of life. But we can choose to dance through life more easily if we choose to embrace all experiences as an opportunity to grow & healing. These moments become miraculous moments of change & transformation.
When I remembered this & made the choice to accept it & appreciate that life is all about dancing through the pain & suffering towards the healing & growth, transformation & change I felt excited, joyful even, relieved for sure & comforted. In some way it let me off the hook: I knew life would keep challenging me, there would always be blips but there would always be breakthroughs, learning, growth & healing too.
So yeah sorry to burst your bubble but the healing, growth, lessons & learning never ends, no-one is ever finished, it is a work, it is always a work, the path of the Spiritual Warrior is ever evolving. And that’s kinda the point!