Soul Sickness: Misery or Enlightenment?

My continued absence from the blogging world has not been by choice, but necessity. The last few months have been a really rough time for me, but I have come out of it feeling like – and thank you for this metaphor, lindalitebeing! – The Phoenix from the ashes. I am pleased to report that my current outlook on life is optimistic. Full of hope, determination, excitement, and dreams becoming fulfilled.

So let me take you back to the beginning – and explain what I mean about ‘Soul Sickness’.

Have you ever had an event in your life that seemed utterly depressing? Where you felt that you were at the bottom of a well with no ladder? You sit and brood, thinking all is lost, feeling hopeless, useless even, devastated… And then, somehow, after a while, you come out of it – and find a new lease of life. A completely new direction, a wholly new you, and you think, ‘wow! This would never have happened if that horrible event hadn’t happened first.’ This is soul sickness.

What do I mean by that? The Inner you, your soul, knows what you really want – or need. It knows where your life should be going. But the Outer you, the physical you, is happy to pootle along in that boring job, or in that drab relationship, or in that drug or drink induced befuddlement – because this easy and comfortable. Changing, even if we know it is for the best, is HARD. It requires effort. And it’s SCARY. But sometimes, events force our hand. All things happen for a reason. If devastation did not happen to us – we would not have the impetus to make the changes we know we want/need to make. Our Soul takes a hand in life’s events to lead us to where It knows we should be.

Don’t call it Luck. Don’t call it chance. Don’t give the Kudos to other people – thank yourself. YOU made the change, whether you know it or not.

For myself, this is what happened: As you may know if you have read previous posts, I have been battling with ‘low mood syndrome’ for quite some time. I was doing ok, too, refusing to let it beat me, despite the hold it had on me and my life. Then the place where I worked made changed my job without any due care or consideration to personal requirements, needs, feelings or anything else. I – and others – were really angry. I went home and ranted, then, as normal, went to work the next day. Imagine my surprise then, when, on logging in to the system, I had a panic attack. This was the first time in my life I had experienced a panic attack, and it was truly frightening. Again, the managers seemed unsympathetic and again, did not handle it well, until I eventually just told them I was going – walked out of the office.

Thank goodness I have an empathetic, understandable, GP, who saw me the same day and signed me off straightaway. This was at the end of May. I am still off work now. It has taken me until now to recover – and I am still not wholly healed. Since being off work I continued to experience panic attacks, then a continual sense of heightened anxiety. I’ve been constantly tired, sleeping too much, and my concentration has been shot. All this because of a job!

I have done a lot of thinking, a lot of reviewing. Throughout my time off, despite all this rubbish going on with me, I have achieved more than I have in the last few years: I’ve completed something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and am awaiting a reply (I don’t want to say any more yet as I don’t want to jinx it!), I’ve applied for new jobs, mainly with charities, AND… I AM NOW SET UP AS A REIKI HEALER! Something I have yearned to do for years, but never felt that ‘the time was right’. I have my insurance, I have a clinic to work from, and Neometheus and I are designing business cards and a website! I am So excited about this, I have more passion in me than I can remember having in a long time. I have a GOAL, a FOCUS, a REASON for Being!

And none of this would have happened if things hadn’t gone wrong at work, and if I hadn’t felt so down. The idea of being down and feeling rubbish for the foreseeable future was loathsome to me. I didn’t WANT to feel like that. And I didn’t WANT to keep working where I was – something I knew several years ago, but just never bothered doing anything about.

I am now at the place that I should have been a long time ago. It took a great big push and shove from my Inner Self to get me here. I never had the courage to follow my mind, heart, and soul. And now I do.

Experiencing Soul sickness is miserable and terrifying – but it is a cleansing of the Self, and if you listen to your Self and have the courage to follow your instinct/heart/dreams – then you will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, and begin to see the world anew.

Wishing you all the courage and strength to follow your life’s path.

Light & Blessings