Bittersweet

Life is so bizarre - sweet, bitter, beautiful & overwhelming at times.

Trigger Warning! This blog goes into detail regarding my personal experience with depression.

I've just been for a short getaway in Scotland (hence the photo)

at a time of feeling sadness for the loss of another beautiful soul taken too soon,

with a simultaneous appreciation of how we must fully embrace this short life & all it throws at us.

What a cocktail (mine's an espresso martini btw)!

I also experienced a beautiful & overwhelming wave of self-compassion (a tender trait the former version of me lacked considerably) for my own journey over the past few years.

This was triggered, of all things by The Hairy Bikers!

No, I am not referring to people watching in Scotland!

I am referring to an old episode of the beloved culinary duo Si & Dave’s cooking programme.

I have always admired their spirit & passion, their authentic & jolly approach, goodhearted nature & love of promoting community-based projects, good people & produce.

In this episode they were visiting the Growing Well charity in Cumbria, not a million miles away from where I live in Lancaster.

I felt sadness for the loss of Dave & all he meant to so many of us.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as the people on the programme spoke from their heart about their mental health challenges & shared with vulnerability.

It’s happening now as I write this, healing salty droplets of compassion.

Si talking about his own challenge with depression & Dave expressing empathy for his friend at that time struck a huge chord in my chest.

I understood, not out of sympathy or grasping the idea of it, but from knowing that depth of pain & imprisonment, something I will never forget.

Tears of compassion gently flowed as I experienced a shared connection with people I didn’t even know.  

In the past few years, I have been through what I can only describe as an internal hell.

I am also a very positive person whose laughter / witch like cackle reverberates around a room!

I have somehow managed to hold both truths at the same time.

Some would refer to this internal hell as depression.

In spiritual terms; a dark night of the soul,

(I've had more dark nights than a winter in the North Cape of Norway in the last 3 years)!

Here's my interpretation of the most painful experience of my life:

It is the equivalent of a colonic irrigation for the emotional body!

Depression is an invitation to let go of who you think you are,

to let go of control & the tension that comes with trying to force life to be the way you need it to be,

to release attachment to the idea that anything or anyone outside yourself is more powerful than you,

to renounce false forms of security that you believe validates you,  

& release all the cr@p that has been blocking the soul's path!

Depression is not for the weak!

It is a process for cleansing the outdated & making space for the new.

It is the graveyard of uncried tears,

the valley of death of the ego,

the pathway of unprocessed emotions & grief.

I couldn't have gone through this level of pain without being strong.

Nor could I have managed without the spiritual understanding that we are so much more than a brain & a body,

There is a part of us that is greater than all our thoughts & emotions & our physical ailments.

I took comfort in learning that my soul & my spirit are the strongest parts of me.

At times I had to desperately cling to this faith to pull me through.

Now I choose to know it in a state of peace & clarity.

At one point this dark process left me without an ounce of purpose or seeing any value in my existence.

I know this sounds bleak, because it was.

At the same time, I knew this wasn't entirely true because I am a loving person with many people in my world to be grateful for & I have helped so many through my work.

Ironically there is purpose in the very phase where purpose seems to have taken an impromptu vacation!

The purpose of lack of purpose is to experience the vacuous void of nothingness & emptiness.

Why do we assume this is a bad thing?!

Because we want certainty & control, not powerlessness!

From being bottomed out of the old ways & the insistence on perfectionism, true purpose can be seeded.

Then what you find seeks you, there is no chase, no manipulation.

Life is so full of interruptions & avoidance strategies that we must get to the stage of completely losing interest in any of the tempting distractions & to be still long enough to allow the truth to appear.

In the void, I found a spiritual connection & learned (against my will much of the time!) to rebuild myself without the false foundations of who I previously thought I was meant to be.

In this space the memories surged & healing was present.

The shocker was, that this didn't just involve memories of this life!

I must have signed up for one hec of a ride because mine involved a plethora of past life memories!

Something I was very much not on board with considering I was a sceptic!

Because I was so extremely sceptical, it seemed that a subtle approach would be no match for the logical, strategic & rational part of my brain that had long been the dominant task master within my consciousness.

A full-on cosmic sledgehammer would be the only method for cracking this resistance wide open…and it did.

It was suggested by someone close to me at one point, that I consider seeing the doctor, because it affected my physical health as much as my mental & emotional health.

My energy levels were at an all-time low for over 3 years.

I walked down the stairs every morning like an old woman twice my age! I didn’t sleep for a long time.

Some part of me knew that medicine was not going to fix this.

I know that wine wasn’t the answer either, but hey I can cut myself some slack!  

I do wonder how the conversation at the GP’s office might have gone…

“yes I am experiencing peri-menopausal symptoms alongside psychic downloads, past life memories and I appear to be developing ‘the gift’ of connecting with energy beyond this reality.”

Not sure what the prescription for that combo would have been!

What this void did provide, was an uncomfortable space to face my fears, see the truth & learn to be unconditionally present.

How do you really learn to love yourself?

We must love ALL of ourselves – that is how we become whole.

Much of the time we only really want to love the pretty, well behaved, socially acceptable & successful parts.

We must develop self-awareness so we can see where we deny our power & talents and where we reject ourselves.  

Then our greatest challenge is in learning to be unconditionally present with our darkest emotions – that is unconditional love.

I had become somewhat of an expert in avoiding & suppressing emotions in my younger years.

The healing power of depression takes a bizarre combination of surrender, resilience, guts, courage & sensitivity, vulnerability & reverence.

It can be a raw & relentless experience, but sometimes the pathway to integrity & an open-heart is a mysterious one.

Depression is not the end; it is the dark tunnel towards a beautiful new beginning.

One where you no longer need to push down (depress) parts of yourself but can learn to express & honour them.

I have also experienced so much learning, awakening & positivity on the journey.

It hasn’t all been doom & gloom, but I am a truth teller, so I won’t avoid the hard stuff to make it sound more palatable.

I have been taken to the edge repeatedly…but it is there we can find inner freedom.

The choice to let go of the illusions of imprisonment.

I have also appreciated the immense amount of love I have from the people around me.

That is what life is about, genuine connection,

not the relationships built on patterns of avoidance, superficiality & unhealed wounds,

nor the manufactured friendship, what looks good for a photo or transactional relationships,

but reciprocal care & love that comes from the heart.

That is what matters.

I know the worst is over now,

I am closing a heavy & ironically enlightening chapter (the more you develop spiritually, the more you understand duality).

I am becoming who I am meant to be.

It’s not who I thought! But there you go & here I am!

So, what now then?!

Turning lead into gold!

Transforming pain into power & purpose.

More Joy, more love & even more laughter!

A lighter phase of development & discovery! Hurrah!

Loving those who are in spirit who we will see again & can feel in our hearts at any moment, as well as those in the here & now.

Being more me.

A mystic, a teacher, an open-hearted guide here to share spiritual intelligence with those who are curious.

I also operate with a great dollop of discernment, because since I have cleansed my own BS, I can smell it a mile away in others!

I don’t judge btw, I have boundless reservoirs of compassion, but the greatest error people can make with me is to mistake my kindness for a weakness or my spirituality for delusion!

I am here to own my spiritual gifts & use them with the greatest integrity to empower others.

I cannot hold back because that would be a wasted life!

I am not interested in converting anyone to my beliefs. Your beliefs are none of my business & I respect your sovereignty.  

I didn’t believe the things I now know to be true just a few years ago!

I found an enormous sense of purpose in the place I least expected, doing work I never imagined I would.

This is how magical, mysterious & downright bonkers life can be.

Whether you believe in eternal life or not, we are here in this incarnation right now & that is to be cherished, through the good times & the bad.  

I am grateful the motivation to focus on my physical health now has now started to arrive!

Whilst this shenanigans has transformed me on the inside,

my body has quite literally taken the weight of it with an extra 4 stone & depleted muscle!

I am doing my best to love & support myself in the small steps I am taking..little acorns & all that.

I aim to rebuild my physical health so it can be a match to the strength of my spiritual heart.

Huge Heart Felt Love to the breaking, broken or healed hearts out there, it’s big work & you are a brave soul, Amanda G xxx

#spiritualintelligence #depression #awakening #heart #transformation