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Connecting with your Soul
Meditation is the key to connection. But reaching a state of Nirvana isn’t going to be achieved overnight (if ever!).
If you’ve never meditated, start small. Take time out for reflection and contemplation, distraction free. Hold space for yourself to contemplate any questions or concerns you have.
Find the way back home to yourself with grounding and centering.
Shadow work is another key element of connecting, connecting to your soul and what is higher is accomplished when you can accept the whole of who you are. Finding that balance, loving the parts of you that you have always hidden away in the darkness is where the light creeps in, and that’s where the magic happens.
Finding Joy
Finding the joy in every day was something I used to feel was impossible in a world where we live for 5pm Friday, or the next night out, or a holiday, or the sound of wine pouring after a tough day. I never thought I would feel that same sense of relief at 7am each day when I first opened my eyes and the joy of taking my first sip of coffee each morning.
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By connecting deep within my soul I’ve learned how much I didn’t need the things I thought fulfilled me. The immaculate home filled with faceless, characterless possessions, artificial plants that I could keep alive all the time without the need to spend time nurturing them – because they were messy dropping leaves and soil, and what if they died? But where is the joy in a dusty plastic plant? The joy to me now, is having learned how to nurture all my plants, and if all fails and they die, then we buy another, and the cycle starts again.
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I used to wear outfits that were far from comfortable, that I’d have to constantly go hungry and watch what I ate to wear, because they were fashionable. Hairstyles that took hours of straightening, colouring and chemicals, to keep my hair from showing its true grey and completely wayward curls, to hope to look professional (and young!). When a lot of the time my only real happiness came from stepping on the scales and seeing the number going down, and I won’t even mention what it took for that to happen.
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This would be the basis for my life, then the constant worries: were my children eating the right foods, achieving the best grades, did they have enough friends, was I a good enough mum? Was my career successful, what did people think of me, and how on earth could my husband actually be happy with me. These questions ran through my mind on a constant loop and I was constantly working on trying to be better; a better mum, better professionally, a better wife, but I never checked in on me. Never slowed down and took the time to ask why I constantly strived for perfection. I didn’t even take the time to ask what perfection meant to me, I just took it as everything society told me it was. Everything I wasn’t.
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It took me to a place of not rock-bottom, but definite darkness. Burnout, in fact.
I had to slow down because I had no choice, it felt as though I was in quicksand and my feet wouldn’t take me on. It felt like my mind was trapped in a black room with no door to exit. I had no choice but to sit and examine my own mind, to stop, metaphorically get out the scales and weigh up my life, what I really wanted and what could possibly get me out of this cycle.
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When you slow down and learn to cultivate a life of patience (I went through A LOT of houseplants for this!), fulfilment from the tiny day-to-day pleasures, such as a plant you rescued from the half-dead bargain shelf growing a tiny new shoot, or the sunlight catching your beautiful, natural moonlight silver hair, or slowly devouring a piece of cake and not giving a rat’s fart about the calories or what the scales might say tomorrow.
When you go to bed happy just because you’ve had a nice day doing nothing special, or you’re looking forward to getting up in the morning to watch the sun rise and slowly drink your coffee, and you know everything is going to be okay because there is almost always a way to solve things, with time, and patience and reaching out if you need help.
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When you connect with yourself, you become authentic. You find what really matters, what really lights you up and brings you joy, not what you’re told will bring you joy or what you think ‘should’ bring you joy.
And when you connect with your true authentic self it leaves the cracks wide open to connect further, like roots of a tree running below the earth and stars throughout the sky and the entire universe that’s all around. That’s where connection is.
Being Present
Most of what is written above is about living in the present. Not worrying about yesterday because that’s happened and you’re not going to change it. Not spending your morning commute ruminating over an argument you had three years ago and being mad all day because you just thought of a better comeback. Not worrying about tomorrow, or next week or what might be ten years from now, because what will that solve?
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That might sound easy enough to say but if you’re someone who functions 99% of the time in a cycle of anxiety, it’s not easy at all. But confronting that and recognising it for what it is can help you break that loop and become more present. It really is a muscle which when used correctly will strengthen. Reframing your worries, reprogramming your brain, basically, ‘not worrying about the hangover while you’re at the party’, (you can thank the late, great Paul O’Grady for that one).
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Replacing the doom thinking or the doom scrolling with something else, take up a new hobby to do with your hands. I recently tried crochet and I’ll be honest, I’m not great, but it’s giving me something new to swear at and while I might be failing miserably, my mind is definitely in the present while I’m trying!
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If you’re spending your time worrying about death or dying or impending disaster, try focusing on something living. You! (and buy houseplants, then focus on them).
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Find something you enjoy so much, you get lost doing it. Maybe that’s reading or painting, walking, singing, writing, dancing, playing an instrument; but express yourself and your fears and worries through your creativity. Pottery is a fantastic art therapy, actually creating something that you’ve poured real actions into, if you can kiln fire it, even better. That visceral notion of sending your creation to the flames for it to re-emerge even more beautiful.
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It’s learning to cultivate a path to walk in which you can reach your heart, hear your inner self speak and switch off all the internal chatter that is incessant and loud, where your heart’s words can be barely more than a whisper but are only filled with love and truth. I find this comes more as a feeling than words, it’s contentment, happiness and the buzz of excitement that is so much louder than the mental chatter of worry.
There is nothing to gain from worrying about bad stuff happening, it’s going to happen anyway, but so is the good and I don’t remember a night I’ve spent lying awake worrying that something good might happen in the morning.
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Practice being excited for that, inviting your life to be filled with happiness. Buy yourself the best coffee (tea, cacao, orange juice, whatever!) you can afford. Make it your treat – that one drink a day that you can look forward to. Start small and drink that one drink a day where you’re present and happy.
Then build bigger.
Intuition
Tuning out of the mental chatter leaves a silence, a void. When you’ve cleared that space, done your ‘soul gardening’ for want of a better term, trimmed back the trees to allow them to grow, cleared the undergrowth and now delicate flowers are beginning to poke through the earth reaching for the light that you’ve allowed in.
Intuition is not a voice that shouts from the rooftops but a feeling so strong it can’t be questioned, because often all roads will lead back there. It’s felt in your gut, it’s the instinct that can stop you from entering somewhere you ‘know inside’ you shouldn’t go, turning down a road when you’re driving for no reason other than ‘just knowing you should’, and finding out you’ve avoided an accident, it’s knowing when you’ve just met someone who will change your life for the better, or someone who you should get away from as soon as you can. It’s knowing when someone is lying, when someone may wish you harm, your intuition is your spiritual communication system, it’s the real ‘knowing’.
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It is so important, however, to recognise the difference between intuition, and anxiety or paranoia. Once you’re truly grounded, centrered and connected with yourself, and can recognise the differences in your own energy you will start to recognise the difference.
You can do exercises in releasing energy attachments and meditations to help connect with your intuition. Here are some on Insight Timer: Guided Meditations.