Letting Go for a New Year

Flickr by ptaxlmtd

What does the New Year represent in the contemporary western world? Time to work on our New Years resolutions. Okay, so we lived another year and I am sure if you were participating in the year you probably picked up a lot of junk. We keep pushing through life, never resting, and always feel we need to do more the next year. Well, what if we have no room to allow anything new in?

I have been thinking since the winter Solstice has come to pass and the New Year is almost here what does this time of year signify? Winter is symbolized as death, as release, reflection. The nights get longer the days shorter. The world freezes over, life slows down, and there is stillness; it's the dead of winter. In other words winter is a time to reflect on our year and really see where we are in our lives. The New Year should be about letting go of things that no longer serve us. How can we add more to an already full cup?

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” 
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

I challenge you to begin the New Year by giving up something, letting go of something that doesn't serve or benefit you. One of the greatest accomplishments I did last year was let go of toxic relationships. Abusive in-laws, friends, even neighbors; letting go of the relationships that didn't serve for my progression in myself and life. Relationships that triggered the crazy to come out; literally! My husband is now working on the same thing.

A lot of energy goes into maintaining relationships whether they are healthy or unhealthy. This goes for relationships with other people, ourselves, the physical world, spirituality, etc. A relationship is anything that there is an exchange going on. With our partners we exchange love, gratitude, acceptance. With work we exchange our time and services for money. We exchange money for items or services we want. Life is a never ending cycle of exchange. Unbalance comes from giving our energy with little to nothing in return.

This is a time to look at where we are putting our energy and if we are getting anything back. This is not a selfish outlook, which is a deeply rooted belief in our culture. We are taught to give and not expect back. Does it feel good to constantly put time, energy, and love into someone who gives no thanks, complains and puts you down? Unless your a masochist I am assuming the answer is no. Then what is the point of exchanging energy? If no good comes of it, why bother?

A very good friend of mine set this in motion in my own life through her example. She did something that still many people frown on which was ending her relationship with her mother. She tried to work things out, she desperately tried to cultivate a stable relationship with her but it never happened. She was left exhausted after each visit or talk on the phone. She became unsettled and angry for days after each interaction. The relationship drained her for so long she just couldn't do it anymore.

After letting go of the relationship she found she was able to let go of the resentment and hate she had for her abusive mother. She could finally breathe and move on with her life. She was then able to create new better relationships with others, she learned to set her boundaries with others and became more empowered in doing so. Her journey was an inspiration for me because all the years I had known her her greatest growth happened when she let go. I admired her for her strength.

“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.” ― Ann Landers

You may not want to make a move like this just yet. Take this time to reflect about your relationships with others and the world around you. When you realize how you give your energy to people or things that deplete you your able to start reserving yourself. This means for example, that lets say your sister is negative and she calls you to complain about her endless list of woes, instead of feeding into her own drama half listen. Cut the call short if you feel yourself being pulled into her black hole. This is a mental health blog anyways, I am sure you have enough problems dealing with yourself! Giving yourself to others who may or may not intentionally drain you will not help bring about mental well being. I'm just saying.

In this New Year realize you do matter. You are important and deserve to live as you desire. It is your call your life to let go of the things and people that you don't find fruitful. Believe me it is well worth it, your mental well being depends on it!

I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Reality Check: We All Experience Hallucinations

In a normal persons mind the sub-conscience and conscience mind are separate, or at least appear to be. Our deepest parts of ourselves are hidden in the sub-conscious mind, just out of reach. These hidden aspects of the self can be reached either through dreams and or meditative states particularly that of shamanic journeying. Lets say we have a redundant dream about someone following us. Depending on the person and circumstances it could signify a hidden fear. Imagine your mind had no filter, no wall between the conscious and sub-conscience mind? I believe this to be schizophrenia. There is no difference between any sort of consciousness, their mind is open to all realms. Their hallucinations are no more false than a dream and we can find a lot of helpful information in dreams. This can be true of schizophrenia or any psychotic mental state.

Flickr by Lorrainemd

I do not believe for one second that mental problems like that of schizophrenia are illnesses that need to be medicated. The person experiencing the problem needs to learn how to navigate and function in these states. It is absolutely possible and successful. I have done it and many before me. Seth Farber talks about this in his book The Spiritual Gift of Madness: The Failure of Psychiatry and The Rise of The Mad Pride Movement. I listened to an interview through a pod cast at Why Shamanism Now (which by the way has great tools and resources through their pod casts) talking about the gift of madness and how and why psychiatry has gone the route it has. I am not an anti-psychiatrist but it has failed us. I will not focus why in this post but I believe that medication can be useful for acute crisis moments. For long term use it is disastrous and more damaging then the illness itself.

Why is looking at mental illness as a gift such an important statement? We are at a turning point in our history, I believe mental illness to be the next evolutionary step of humanity. Our minds are becoming more open to other realms, wider ranges of consciousness, places the normal everyday person could not reach unless in an altered state; we experience it without even trying. Imagine you wake up one day and every moment you flip flop between waking reality and dream reality, that would be horrifying! But that is what is happening. People who were called to shamanism most often than not always have a spiritual crisis like that of a psychotic episode or break from reality. The difference is that they see the psychotic break for what it is, the need to transform themselves mentally, spiritually, physically, and emotionally. They interpret and find meaning in their waking reality and psychotic reality and learn through discipline how to walk between both worlds in a balanced way.

Transpersonal psychology is the closest arena in professional psychology that closely comes to the truth with mental illness. This aspect of psychology tries to explain human experience, understand the need for spirituality and human growth in a scientific way. They bring age old wisdom to our contemporary world. What comes out of this is the realization that there is a need for us to understand our true reality, our consciousness, and how to maneuver in it in a balanced way to create well being in our lives. This is done through guided meditation, music therapy, peak experience, spirituality, etc. It is still obviously very under practiced in our western world.

Understanding it as a whole

What is the difference between someone who hears voices and one who does not? How loud they are. We all hear voices. We all have voices in our head, our inner critic, our ego, our imagination, etc. Some people just have the volume control all the way up. Some voices are louder than others, for example we have all experienced an angry voice. One that gets so fed up with others and yells at them in our head. Your voices are no different than the person on the street that talks to themselves.

There is no difference between you and someone who sees things that others do not. Their filter is off, they are reaching states that you yourself can reach anytime you want either by dreaming or meditation or even taking hallucinogens. If you can learn how to induce those states, to reach higher states of consciousness than you can surely learn how to tone those states down so you can function day to day.

The first step I went through to learn to control these states is by accepting I had a problem. Then I began really thinking about what is the truth, what voices speak truth and what are lies. The voices that rung true, that spoke of beauty, love, goodness, things that nourished me I listened to and fed energy to. The ones who told me I was worthless and nothing I ignored them. Just as John Nash did in a Beautiful Mind, he figured out what was a lie or hallucination and what wasn't. He started to ignore the bothersome hallucinations and focused on the brilliance of his ability to get inspiration for his mathematics. He was able to function, he still saw his hallucinations, but they didn't trip him up anymore.

There is an epidemic on our hands in our modern world. The more advanced technologically and “civilized” (whatever that is) the more our society devalues spirit and the more we become unwell and unbalanced. Being spiritual does not mean religion, dogma, or a belief system, but wisdom. Truth. The essence of our true nature. Awareness of our self and how we fit into the world. It isn't even about sitting around philosophizing about reality, it is wisdom gained from direct experience.

This is why I share this with you, because I have been there, I have gone through madness and back and have lived to tell about it. Walking away from traditional therapy and really taking it upon myself to master my mind was the best thing I could have ever done. I hope my articles have been helpful and I encourage any feedback good or bad. Thank you everyone for reading!

Resources:

Why Shamanism Now: http://whyshamanismnow.com/ 

Interview with Seth Farber: http://whyshamanismnow.com/2012/06/the-spiritual-gift-of-madness-with-seth-farber/