What have you been reading lately?
I’ve been reading, yet again, one of my all-time favourite books: Something More; Excavating Your Authentic Self by Sarah Ban Breathnach. The book is based on the premise that “the authentic self is the soul made visible.”
Alas, as is often the way with matters pertaining to the soul, it is a book I find to be more unsettling than encouraging—but in a good way. For the author’s candour cuts to the core of some deep truths about our lives, particularly about the danger of settling.
“Our choices can be conscious or unconscious,” explains Ban Breathnach in Something More. “Conscious choice is creative, the heart of authenticity.”
But when we fall asleep at the wheel of our own lives and begin making small but significant decisions—ones that serve to keep the peace but aren’t necessarily for our own highest good—on auto-pilot, we can run into trouble.
I suspect this happens to most of us at some point. So how do we prevent it? By pulling over to the side of the road, of course, and taking a time-out. And this pandemic has offered many people the opportunity to do just that.
But just because we can’t go to the pub doesn’t mean we are doing much in the way of meaningful reflection while stuck at home. Rather, we just distract ourselves in different ways. Why? Because to truly stop means we might have to think…and that could lead to reflecting and that could lead to change…and that could lead to all sorts of uncomfortable things for all sorts of people in our lives, ourselves included.
And so, on some level, it often seems wiser to remain distracted—and keep the status quo intact.
But here’s one problem, among many, with that strategy: “When we lose touch with our true natures,” explains Ban Breathnach, “we become unable to create boundaries that protect, nurture, and sustain our self-worth.”
Been there, done that, got the (very expensive) t-shirt.
So how do we know when we’ve veered off track…away from our soul’s authentic path?
By how we FEEL.
The soul is here for its own joy.
– Rumi
But here’s the thing (which I think is particularly pertinent to our current pandemic restrictions):
“Many of us confuse happiness and joy,” explains Ban Breathnach. “Happiness is often triggered by external events, events we usually have no control over—you get the promotion, he loves you back, they approve your mortgage application. Happiness camouflages a lot of fears. But joy is the absence of fear. Joy is your soul’s knowledge that if you don’t get the promotion, keep the relationship, or buy the house, it’s because you weren’t meant to. You’re meant to have something better, something richer, something more.”
If you know, deep down, that you need to make some sort of significant change in your life, here is a passage from “Something More” that you might find of help:
The medical-intuitive Caroline Myss…tells us that when we know we are supposed to move on or out of a situation that is stunting our soul growth and we consciously refuse to do so because the uncharted terror of choice and change scares us, a celestial clock starts ticking. “If you’re getting directions, ‘Move on with your life, let go of something,’ then do it. Have the courage to do it. This is the way it is. When you get guidance to let go of something, it’s sort of like a time warning that says, ‘You have ten days left. After that, your angel’s going to do it.’ So the desire to hold on is not going to stop the process of change.
If I had read that when I was 17, I would have thought it ridiculous.
But now that I’ve experienced life on this planet for more fifty years, I know that a mere desire to keep things the way they are is NOT going to stop the process of change.
However, I do think we get plenty of sweet—and not-so-sweet but still small enough to be ignored—little nudges from the Universe to help us make the changes we know we need to make, in ourselves and/or our lives, before A Big One (health scare, loss of a loved one, financial crisis, divorce, pandemic etc) arrives in all its heartbreaking, life-altering, soul-waking splendour.
But here’s the good news:
If you can learn from hard knocks, you can learn from soft touches.
– Carolyn Kenmore
I don’t know about you, but I much prefer receiving—and acting upon— the gentle nudges sent my way, versus stubbornly waiting for The Big Ugly Wake Up Call.
Been there, done that…got that t-shirt, too. I don’t recommend it.
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Previously Published on Pink Gazelle
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