Most of the time, I spend my days trying to chart the world outside of me and help others when I can. Lately, I’ve spent a lot more time exploring my own subjective reality and trying to help myself. The experience has been surprising.
On the surface, I believe that I have a very thorough understanding of my personality, preferences, regrets, and the general story of my life. After all, I did get my degree in psychology and have worked in the mental health field for over 7 years. And yet, when I have gone into deep prayer and meditation (of late), I have uncovered what feels like previously unknown fragments of thoughts and emotions. Things I suppress because of their intensity, destructiveness or just feelings I haven’t given myself the time to process.However, some of the experience doesn’t cleanly map to anything I’ve seen or feel during my regular waking life.
I know some of the above sounds like regular staying in your bed and thinking about things but I can only say assuredly that it is not that. This place felt very alive with what I can only describe as a very dynamic energy. I could still think clearly but it also felt like talking to someone else. Aspects of myself that are friendly, neutral and adversarial but not able to be discretely categorized into those boxes. Like each aspect was composed of a spectrum of those traits.
Typically, I have extremely strong safeguards in my mind to avoid having to deal with any sort of negativity directly. I can feel in a bad mood but I use lots of psychological logics and cognitive heuristics to avoid anything potentially destructive from surfacing. When things get very bad, I also implement prayer as a sort of last defense. Nonetheless, deep within me, I don’t have these protections; its very raw. There, I can’t out-debate or stalemate these thoughts. Trying to lie or spin a narrative is pointless in this place.
What I will say is that it seems abundantly clear to me that at least some of what I think and feel do not feel like actual parts of me. There are things I absolutely do not want to identify with that, for lack of a better description, seem to try to attach to me. For more than a few moments, I was highly disturbed by these ugly thoughts. I’m like, why am I thinking or feeling like this, I unquestionably do not want this. It even felt foreign to me. A different aspect of myself requested that reach out to them and pray. After prayer, it felt like I was told that evil spirits try to attach themselves to us to separate us from God and to not feel any identification with it because they want you to feel that negative energy to distract you from serving others. It said that we are children of God and that our true selves are extensions of Him, not of those lies. It seemed to tell me that I needed to hand those negative thoughts and feelings to Jesus so that I can focus on the work that’s ahead for me.
Later, I start feeling somewhat negative and it seemed that inner aspect of me returned to ask me to think about it as a mandate. That I owed God that negativity and was not allowed to hold on to it. In exchange for relief, I need to help others find that sort of peace inside. I also was lead to read some more bible. Something wants me to grow my money and travel to help those in need as well. Consciously, not really wanting to do any of that but it seemed more than a fleeting thought, felt like a mandate.
I get that many reading will have the inclination to believe that all that happens occurs within the brain and out in objective reality. Even assuming this is true, any real scientist worth their salt will concede that we are closer to ignorance than full knowledge. I won’t go further into that since I already covered that ad nauseam in past entries.
A part of me is tempted to try and connect this all back to what I know about neuroscience, psychology and physics. After, all, trying to link the subjective to the objective is kinda intrinsic to what this whole blog has been about. Though I continue to feel protective over some of the details I have put together and experienced. I just can’t see a good outcome in delving into it. Us humans have a tendency to corrupt information in a manner that results in the harming of others.
As I look ahead, I know I need to step it up in a lot of areas. I am grateful for the blessings in my life but to me, feelings aren’t enough. I believe one shows appreciation by paying it forward as much as they are capable. Anyways, talk of action isn’t action. I need to actually implement my gratitude to God. Even if somehow, someway, there is no God, I always feel better giving than receiving. This wasn’t always the case, but I am happy that this has been increasingly true. If you’re not there now, maybe one day you can be a step closer. Remember, the very richest in this world are not even happy but instead, just obsessed with wanting infinitely more. Like being hungry but never being able to be full. What a terrible way to be! Still, I pray that they soften their hearts or at the very least, be made to inadvertently help those in need.