The Box and the Road Untraveled.

If I stop to think about how I would describe a box, I guess I would describe it as a container with 3 or 4 sides that you would use to hold stuff. Not too complicated. Boxes can be useful things, but when we box ourselves, our Spirit suffers. Sometimes we box ourselves on purpose, sometimes we do it unconsciously. We can box in different things, for different reasons, I imagine it's different for everyone. For me, the main way I've found that I box myself in is Spiritually. This road to recovery ignited in me the realization that I had lost myself, and I was clueless as to where to find me. My whole life, I've invested into these roles I've been playing with such finality, that I had forgotten that they were just that...roles. In order for me to grow and evolve as a person, I would need to break down the walls of these very roles I've succumbed to. Break free of the expectations and preferences of those surrounding me. To truly discover myself, I would need to deconstruct the road I've been on, in order for me to forge my very own path. In essence...that is what this post is going to be about. 

If you read my last blog post, you'll recall me talking about needing to to discover who I am without mom. That's all still true of course, it's something I have to work on daily, but until quite recently, I've failed to really take a step back and examine the Spiritual side of my life. I kind of just settled into what was safe. Rather then ask myself the hard questions and create a spiritual practice that was uniquely my own. I went straight into what I knew, what was easy and most accessible...what I felt mom would want. That, obviously, would be Christianity. I threw myself into the fold with everything I had, doing all the things common to a Christian practice. Praying, going to church, submitting to God's will and control, reading the Bible, etc. etc. No matter how much I tried to connect and do things the way I was 'supposed' to, the more empty and disconnected I became. Neither of those feelings are particularly beneficial to a recovery journey. Instantaneously, I began to slide backwards. After months of hard work, and slow progress, old habits and attitudes were creeping back into the fold, and I began to finally ask those hard questions. I had to pick apart and reflect on every aspect of my thoughts and beliefs through a completely pure and unfiltered perspective, not letting the expectations or preferences of others sway the answers. It was at this point that I discovered the magnitude of the box I had created...and how much that box was extinguishing my spirit. 

The idea of having to go through a personal and spiritual crisis at the same time just seems almost unfair, but the two can't be separated. My spiritual identity is my sense of self. So no matter what it is I believe, my need to connect to the Divine Source is at my core. 

Now, I'm not going to go into any of my new spiritual journey in here, because it shouldn't matter what I believe or don't believe. I am still me. I am just trying to achieve the highest form of myself and to connect to that Divine energy, same as most everyone else, just in a different way. I think this life is about constant personal and spiritual evolution. I truly believe, that as we as people grow and change, so do our spiritual needs. To me, there are no fixed set of dogmatic beliefs, but that is just me. 

Since starting on this whole journey five months ago, my life has come to resemble an onion, very layered and complex, but who said life was supposed to be easy? Change is hard, but it is good. So at the start of a brand new chapter of my life, I say goodbye to the box of my past...and hello to the new and untraveled road of my future! 

As James Redfield said; 

"Our greatest mistake, in my opinion, is to think that human spirituality is somehow already understood and established. If history tells us anything, it is that human culture and knowledge are constantly evolving. Only individual opinions are fixed and dogmatic. Truth is more dynamic than that, and the great joy of life is in letting go, in finding our own special truth that is ours to tell, and then watching the synchronistic way this truth evolves and takes a clearer form, just when it's needed to impact someone's life."