Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.”     Wayne Dyer

There have been several times in my life when I have been utterly derailed. And undoubtedly, so have you. Sometimes there are life events and the way things unfold, whether good or bad, that weave a profound and metamorphic imprint upon our soul.

We may have hoped for the best. We may have intended the best and we even prayed for the best. Despite all our good intentions and habits, despite all our visions and dreams, there are times that what comes to pass takes our feet out from under us – or profoundly derails us. These moments are so disorienting that it can sometimes take months to re-group, find our feet and get back on our life’s path.

And when these moments happen, our path is never quite the same. The vision we once had has now changed colour and texture. The destination we thought was our heart’s desire quietly shifts. Our world is different. And no matter how hard we may try or intend for the old path to return, it doesn’t. It can’t. To return here would disempower our heart in some way.

Indeed, in these moments healing needs to happen and as much as I know about the healing process (while acknowledging there is a dynamic mystery to the journey of soul healing), it nevertheless takes incredible courage to be attentive, present and compassionate with one’s own affective process. Feelings of anger, grief, sadness, and emotional pain may seem endless and immense, and powerful enough to finally wipe us off the planet.

Regardless of how much we know about something in our rational cerebral cortex, healing doesn’t happen here. Healing happens in the limbic (middle) and lower part of the brain, in the heart and in the body-limbic connection. We are not spared this affective healing process, regardless of how ‘together’ we appear, or how many retreats we have gone to, or what we have worked through in previous upsets. In this moment, that does not matter. In this moment, we need to decide again to heal, to face the affective experience, the emotional fallout of this life impact. The wisdom of the past assists us in the courage and strength and faith to face this moment, but we can’t skip over it.

One of the most difficult parts to this healing process is telling our truth, being honest about our actual experience of what has derailed us or taken out our feet. We are so accustomed to telling the story others prefer to hear, or which aligns with the spirituality of the day or of past ‘doctrines’, or cultural mental wellness trends that are ‘in vogue’ – we fail to be with the actual experience and to speak the actual words we need to speak.

And so our healing becomes a surface healing. It doesn’t touch the ‘soul of the derailment‘. It doesn’t speak to the grief of the dream that is in the fire to be re-born in a new way. A dream you barely recognize because you now have to recognize it with new eyes. This path of healing and re-orientation is not easy. It requires great courage and affective strength. It requires compassion and forgiveness. And lots of faith!

No matter what you do or who you are – a corporate executive, a leader of others, a highly sought-after professional in your field, a parent seeking to do the best they can, etc. – we are not exempt from life, from the issues of our times, personally or globally. Perhaps our roles and responsibilities in life make it difficult to find a safe, confidential and fully respecting place to heal, but our souls still call us to heal.

Such honest acknowledging does not mean that you are not ‘staying positive’ or that you lack the capacity to re-build your life. It doesn’t mean you are un-spiritual to fully acknowledge the truth of your grieving heart, your lost soul, your vision desecrated. What it means is that in this moment of honesty and self-compassion, the Universe, The Sacred Mystery, The Great Wisdom, etc, can meet your soul and through Its Love and Power and Light, re-vitalize your heart and inner self to a new orientation, a new path with new destinations. The essence of your soul’s vision is given new life.

To move forward in life means we need to heal. In the words of Socrates, if we don’t first heal the soul, we cannot heal the body. Healing must include the whole. If our healing is symptomatic and ‘of the part’, we will find ourselves becoming stuck once again, depleted, circling around the same emotion, drinking from the depression of our anger or fear.

Acknowledge what has happened. Heed to the beckoning of your soul and heal. When you choose to truly heal, your path takes on a whole new dimension of vision and peace and health that becomes a joy to live and contribute to the well-being and healing of the whole.

Namaste,

Shirley Lynn