“We are not Human Beings having a spiritual experience. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
You may not think of yourself in the spiritual sense, but every day and every minute we’re spiritual beings having a human experience. While many of our choices are based on the human body’s needs and the human mind’s desires – when we sit down to meditate and quiet our mind, our perception on life becomes a lot more clear and peaceful.
During my early twenties I often found myself creating drama around a specific situation or daily occurrence eg. Something not going my way, or someone said something to me I didn’t like. I found myself reading ‘The Power of Now’ by Eckhart Tolle and realised that the drama I saw was of my own creation and I found myself slowly overcoming personal obstacles. As time went on, I remained on this ‘spiritual – self development’ path, was quite confident with myself and had a solid tribe that surrounded me. However, I slowly started to make ‘adult choices’ that would lead me to doing less things that my soul enjoyed.
- I was spending majority of my time with people I didn’t get along with
- I had stopped most of my hobbies (Reading, journaling, yoga, dancing)
- I had gained weight
- I had lost my self confidence
- I would cry a lot
- I would often find myself not breathing! (Weird – I know..)
- I found it hard to focus
I had anxiety.
At first, it was something I was ashamed of having. How could a ‘black, independent, woman’ like myself have anxiety?! I had everything a girl could ever want: A loving husband, a loving family, awesome friends, a house to call my own, the best looking fur babies, had travelled quite a bit and had a stable job.
It’s not something I like to talk about often as the more often it’s rehashed, the more often my brain rethinks of those emotions and I found that it was a long journey to stop being so anxious (and is a continuous journey), however I thought I’d share my story here in case you’re going through something similar. So, what did I do?
- I went to see a Psychologist a couple of times
- I took 3 months off work to focus on self and set some actions in place to work towards my goals
- I re evaluated my life and showed gratitude for all that I had (Even my challenges!)
- I re implemented my hobbies into my daily and weekly routine
- I spent more quality time with my friends and family
- I used Hypnotherapy (in particular Rapid Transformational Therapy)
- I went back to eating an 80% healthy diet and exercising regularly
- My self-confidence started to return
- I still cry but for happy moments and an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for what and who I have in my life!
Now it wasn’t an easy journey and I honestly thought “Am I going to feel like this for the rest of my life?!” But with tireless persistence and a great network of support I’ve pulled through and have made ‘soul centred’ activities a MUST in my life. This is the only way forward for me and will continue to be something I’m an advocate for. Anxiety is not something to be ashamed of, but instead a way for your soul to communicate that you’re going against your soul’s desires.
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