The wise ageless one within. It’s there…aching to emerge.
***
Happiness can coexist with despair. It really can. We need to stop having such narrow view of what happiness is. The clearer we get, in fact, the more this sort of thing occurs. When we are clear we can feel anything on the emotional spectrum and it flows straight through…we get stuck in some of this stuff before we get clear because we’ve never been allowed to be who and what we are.
Moods, mental states, emotions, feelings (negative and positive) exist on a spectrum. Human beings can experience any and all of the spectrum. It’s not an illness to feel shitty, even really heinously shitty, sometimes. It’s also not abnormal to get confused about the vast content of our psyches. This confusion can play out in numerous ways. Our society likes to pathologize these varieties of confusion. The DSM might be considered the book of pathologizing the human experience and the confusion we often deal with in the face of the chaos of what we humans have created on this planet at this time.
In fact given the state of humanity and the planet it’s a healthy sign to be struck quite heavily at least some of the time by the seriousness of our times. We need only learn to be with ourselves — body, mind and spirit. That is what, as a species, we’ve forgotten. It’s what we need to relearn and it’s what we need to teach our children.
It feels appropriate to again share my favorite Krishnamurti quote: It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
***
In the face of all of this:
I give up. I surrender.
(that life-force might show the way)
***
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Hi Monica,
I just want to say how much I value your blog and learn from it and feel confirmed in what I’m feeling from my clients. I work as a spiritual care practitioner at an agency that works with people with mental health and addiction concerns. In talking with clients I have been so impressed by the depth of their wisdom, insight, and compassion. I also hear of their genuine spiritual experiences and see the meaning (most of the time, my skills are limited) that these experiences can have for them, and all of us. Clients so often display a sensativity that is varied and deep, that is misunderstood, seen from within a closed box of medical perspective and diagnosis, and that deserves exploration rather than inhibition.
An example is the blog on ‘transforming despair.’
I have to be honest in that I am conflicted in terms of the use of medications, and there are clients I’m referring to tend who to agree. We also agree that the use of medications is too relied upon, over done, imposed without client sanction, and used too exclusively at the expense of other, what might be termed ‘more human,’ forms of engagement and healing.
Anyway, I really support your work. You provide a vital voice for the unheard. I almost wrote voiceless but this isn’t always true. Clients can and do say what they feel, they are to often not heard or understood beyond their ‘diagnosis.’
I’ll leave you with a favorite quote from Lily Tomlin.
“Reality is the lead cause of stress for those who are in touch with it”.
“The best mind altering drug is the truth.”
Thanks so much, Monica. Keep up the excellent work,
Craig Matsu-Pissot
PS. The Buddha and other masters have clearly stated that we are all deluded.