There’s this idea in some spiritual circles that we all live in perfect mental health, but simply don’t know it.

I’ve entertained it for some years, and I cherished it.

It’s a really beautiful and very hopeful idea.

But it’s also a really unhelpful, even quite damaging one.

I’m absolutely convinced that this notion about perfect mental health is not true, that it’s actually very confusing, and I know for sure that you know I’m right.

Sometimes you feel good, sometimes you don’t.

Sometimes you’re on top of the world, sometimes you’re lying on the floor.

That’s never gonna change.

We all, ALL of us, live in the raging mess that is our minds.

Every day we get to be there, fully immersed in it, and we’re confronted with its insane ideas, its judgments, its negativity, and its endless limitations, from really subtle to totally outrageous.

You know what I’m talking about.

Sometimes you feel good, but when you don’t, the old fear creeps back in, so it never really lasts.

Trying to get back to sanity by believing that it’s our essence is never going to work, because it’s nothing but a hopefully romantic idea.

The psyche will never leave us be, not in a million years.

And because of that, every single day we wake up in the same distorted world, with its vast amount of judgments, its self-criticism, its fear, its shame, and endless different ways to point out that we are not good enough, that we don’t deserve anything, that we are flawed and need to work more on ourselves.

Even the idea of ‘just surrendering and letting go’ will not hold.

And you know that too.

This is human reality.

This is our personal world.

This is the hellish, frantic creation that pretends to be who we are.

Denying that notion is detrimental and undermining and distorted.

You can’t wishfully think yourself into infinite mental health.

And you know that I’m telling the truth.

You live in your world, with your oh-so personal doubts, your shame, your pain, your mental self-harm, your lack of confidence, your worries, and all the other obstacles and rules and boundaries and aches that play out all the time.

You are IN that universe every fucking day, you know the harshness of your mind, the darkness of its predictions, you know how mean and unreliable it is, how it can make you do and feel the shittiest things, so don’t pretend it’s not real.

And of course, there can be days or even weeks that it’s all fairly good, but the old ways of doubt and worry always come back.

Fortunately, there’s some really good news (and I’ll be writing about this a lot).

There IS a solution.

And it’s to go in the opposite direction.

I am utterly convinced that our healing is not in trying to get back to our blank mental sheet or presumed freshness by whatever lofty ideas we have about that, but in accepting that we’re essentially fucked up.

Because we are (and you know it).

Our mess is exactly what we need.

Our daily struggle in all its devastating details made us strong beyond reason.

Our pain is our power!

Every second of your life where the psyche kept you in the dark, where it punished you, challenged you, scolded you, limited you, and made you feel utterly miserable and small, essentially helped to build up your strength, your resilience, and your stamina.

There’s no ultimate transcending of the mind.

But there’s acceptance, cooperation, and relaxation at our core that will dissolve the strictness, the limitations, and the fear that comes from not trusting life.

We’re totally fucked up, all of us.

And we’re also incredible.

We’re incredible for so many reasons, but the biggest and mightiest one is that we have to live in our self-created totally distorted world every second of the day, and we somehow managed to survive.

You’re still alive, you’re reading this, so halle-fucking-lujah to you!

Let’s not be the hopelessly naïve ones who try to think their way into freedom ‘because we’re innately healthy’.

As long as we’re bound to a psyche, to deep, lifelong programming, we’ll be living with incredibly twisted ideas.

Don’t fool yourself, but instead use your unique power and your glorious scars to explore and integrate the old fears and misunderstandings of childhood.

We’re NOT living in mental health.

And acknowledging that will turn out to be our ticket to freedom.

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(Does this confuse you? Are you up for exploring the possibility that you’re stronger, WAY stronger than you ever thought? Are you fed up with acting spiritual while feeling like shit? Contact me and let’s connect with your superpower!)

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(Photo by @fairytailphotography, for Unsplash)