The Only Certainty is Now

I just finished the first day of a  two day workshop about spiritual practice and psychology with a delightfully down-to-earth teacher and guide, William Bloom. So far I am enjoying the focus of the workshop and I am learning a lot about myself and my patterning.

I came away from today struck by the difficulty I have, and most other human beings have, of living with uncertainty.  It is really clear that we all want a happy ending, but I see that if I can't have a happy ending to all the narratives in my life, then an unhappy ending is better than an unknown outcome.  The unknown causes the limbic brain to go into panic mode and do whatever is needed to calm the brain and ensure survival. This creates so much anxiety in me that I just want to pull blankets over my head and hide at times. It would seem this is not an easy pattern to unravel, but if it has been set, it can be unset.  I just have to work at creating a new pattern, at cutting a new neural groove of behaviour.  Easy...hah!

A few years ago, during the dimly lit winter months, I went to my GP because I was extremely depressed. I was exhausted and sleeping about 14+ hours a day.  I had no motivation at all, was weepy and very anxious.  Not a great state to be in day after day.  I could see no end to this, thus the doctor visit.  My GP suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a way of changing or re-framing the way I interpret events. The National Health Service inthe UK was now offering a set of CBT sessions to chronically depressed patients. I jumped at the chance of a series of free therapy sessions as an alternative to various anti-depressant meds I have tried and that have failed in previous years.

After about five or six sessions my doctor asked if I thought the therapy was helping me to be less anxious and live with more uncertainty?  "No" was the simple answer. The therapy sessions helped identify lots of sticking points and intellectual ways of re-framing thoughts, but it did not engage me in such a way that I took action to change those thoughts.  I don't blame the doctor or myself.  I wasn't really ready to let go of the depression at that point.

Since then I have discovered that there are ways I can use to influence my limbic brain and the emotions stored there. I love singing and chanting. There is a quality in chanting (or Bhakti Yoga) that bypasses my thinking, judging mind and connects me directly to the purity of my heart and the greater and higher consciousness that is always whole and healthy. 

In writing these daily blog entries I have sometimes been able to stand back and see me. It's meant that I am more able to view myself and my flaws with much greater compassion.  It's clear from what I experienced and heard today that I am much more loving, compassionate and forgiving of things in other people that I cannot or will not accept in myself.

Healing myself, healing others always needs a compassionate heart and maybe I am at the start of that road and maybe I can bring some wisdom to myself. Life is uncertain, it is not easy to be with that state and in this, I am not alone.

Workshop Day 2 is tomorrow...