Imagine everyone at some point of their existence would have pondered and struggled with the world sufficiently to the point of having a clear individual perspective on how life “more or less” works. An original personal philosophy that would inevitably be inspired and impregnated by society, culture, religious and spiritual traditions, and all of your personal life experience and traumas, but it should be checked individually for mind-heart-body coherence, besides being carefully fact-checked for truthfulness, while being flexible and ever-evolving.
Our life on earth is a gym for the soul, a school for the spirit that inhabits us, and every mistake, disappointment, heartbreak, … should be regarded as a golden opportunity to learn a lesson, build some spiritual muscle, and move forward. Battle scars are sexy. “Kintsugi” is the is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with “urushi” lacquer mixed with powdered gold, to accent the cracks and symbolize that something that was once damaged can be built back stronger and more beautiful than it was.
I’m currently going through unexpected challenging times that come after one of the happiest seasons I have experienced in my life. “A blow to the heart is rocket fuel for your ascension” is a quote that recently helped me to gain perspective and come back to my growth mindset during a dark period.
As I grow older and wiser, I recognize the patterns and find myself being more able to separate the stories and reactions that my mind, my heart and my body tell me when triggered by events affecting me. Our ego is the self-defense mechanism that protects the stories we tell ourselves about our own identity, which develop in our younger years and many times we become attached to in a pretty unhealthy way. The ego resides in the mind, and uses narratives to try to lock us down in a false sense of safety – the familiar and predictible. Ego hates uncertainty and risk, and will avoid it at all costs. One of its favorite strategies to do that is lying to yourself, coming up with some bullshit excuse on why doing this or that which somehow appeared in your realm of curiosity and desire, is not the right thing for you.
Cultivating consciousness and self-awareness are among the most important tools we have as humans to navigate the ups and downs of this emotional rollercoaster.
But let me stop rambling and get to the most vulnerable and probably most important insight of them all: Everything is impermanent, everything shall pass. We have a perception that so many things happened in the past, and we mourn the losses and bad decisions. We have dreams, desires, and hopes for the future, and we can’t wait for them to come soon enough. Other times we have fear, doubt and anxiety about what the future will hold. While we worry about all of that in the inmutable past and uncertain and impredecible future, we miss out on the only true tangible thing we haver: this precise moment. The immediate present is where life is happening. As much fun as it can be to plan for the future and reminisce in the past, let’s try to be present in this moment focusing on our current state and planning only for the next small actionable step that will bring our soul peace of mind and joy.
That is the theory, I try to practice to the best of my abilities, and continuously fail because I’m a human of this real 3D world and even if I sometimes touch the sky and the land of dreams, I have decided to accept the fact that the biggest gift of being alive, is to be present for myself, and for the people who I love, and honor the journey, experience the positive and the negative while staying focused in the importance of protecting my energy and keeping my vibration high – a lot easier said than done.
I study, experience, and work tirelessly trying to ease this existential discomfort, and here are some actionable steps that I found extremely helpful:
1.- Prioritize rest, hygiene, and a healthy routine.
I recently stopped using a wake-up alarm, and instead I make sure that I go to bed before midnight, knowing that my body likes around 7hs of good sleep, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more. I let the body decide when it’s time, and then go up and straight with my routine: wake up, get ready, make my bed, and off for a meditation/study walk with a workout as intense as I can. Sometimes I’m specially moody or dealing with a lot, and the workout is just a longer walk and some basic stretches. I was a lot fitter and stronger when I was working out harder, and I know I can always get to that, but if my mind isn’t in the right place, I know I won’t enjoy and I have even injured myself from pushing too hard.
Shower, get cleaned, and get dressed. Staying in your pajamas all day may be ok on a lazy Sunday here and there, but it is counterproductive in the long term. Get ready for life.
2.- Understand what mind-heart-body coherence is. Alignment in your thoughts, your emotions, and your “body talk”.
Through meditation and self-observation, focus on your thoughts, how many conflicting ideas are coexisting in your mind now, how many voices, how many stories… observe and listen, don’t do anything with them.
Focus on your chest area, your heart… are you feeling expansive, or contractive? Is there a particular emotion or flavor to the emotion that you can recognize there? Just observe, label, and don’t do anything with it.
Lastly, focus on your physical body and try to translate its feelings. Is it tired? Is it in pain? Is it tense? Does it feel like it wants to move, dance, or swim.. or is it stale and asking to lie down? Try to interpret what those physical sensations mean and send love and softness to them.
3.- Take the blindfold out, recognize and accept reality. We tend to either victimize ourselves, idealize situations through assumptions that are not completely true, or dissociate and numb ourselves to soften any pain we are experiencing. Below some questions from master Cory Muscara that may help you to slowly identify what is real, so that you can slowly channel self-compassion and love to get through it with less friction:
“In what ways might I be trying to move past an emotion or pain that needs to be more fully experienced before it can be released?”
“What do I know is true right now that I don’t want to accept?”
Thank you for reading, I hope any of this resonated with you and brought some wisdom and solace to your journey. Please send me your comments, questions, or requests to mail@jorgemadden.com and I will continue creating relevant content.