Through the passage of life, we experience a vast and colourful array of triggers that push us and pull us in directions that reveal to us our driving force. It is the corners that we find ourselves in that offer us the quiet moments of desperation to find a way out which lead us to our inner voice, revealing what is really important. We find the deep desire burning within when we are faced with deprivation, oppression and struggle…which is the very birthplace of the seed of insight into that which we are called towards and what matters most.
I have found that through the valleys of darkness, we connect with a clear whisper that persists with determination to keep moving in the direction that is most challenging, because that is where we will attain the most fulfillment and reward. Where there is void in our lives, we are drawn to create abundance and where there is challenge, we are drawn to create simplicity. We are explorers by nature, designed to hunt for triumph, who seek to fulfill that which is most missing in our lives. In my own mountainous trekking through the ups and downs of life, I have discovered my own values through the forests of voids, where a thirst began to fill my soul, to replenish what I found was missing. It was a discipline that had been destroyed in complete abandonment of self care by my mother, my father and even my siblings.
Awakening my soul to what really mattered, the jungle of my journey was the very mother of the realisation of what was important to me, opening my eyes to the pitfalls and pains of what it was the I did not want…a life of illness, drugs, crime and deterioration. The road my family had taken had a dead end sign, that lead them to their premature graves. All four of my drug addicted family members had been devoured by a world of darkness and danger that I grew hungry to rise above.
Often we seek what we have little of. For me, it was a sense of wellbeing, order and self care. It became clear to me that what I desperately wanted more than anything, was the ability to know how to transcend emotional pain and disturbance, so as not to “need” the pillar of substances that would destroy me from the inside out. The word “important” means – that which we wish to “import”. It means we seek it, because it is not already there. I have discovered through the valleys and the shadows of my own personal transformation, that it is the voids we experience, which determine our inner most prominent “values”.
When one’s outer realm becomes intoxicated by the poison of injustice, illness and destruction…we seek to transcend, where there is no other way out but up, through the spirit of hope, surrender and grace. It is in the darkness that we have little other way but to develop our own inner light by following the voice within. We learn what is most important to us through the adversities that shape our desire to overcome the barriers to our natural balanced state of peaceful appreciation. Our perception of what has been taken away, gives us a purpose in life to replenish the thirst of the soul by fulfilling that which is empty. When we have been abandoned and neglected, we seek to share nurturing care with others, in being called to do so out of understanding and identifying with the needs we see so clearly.
We see other’s needs where we have experienced them for ourselves. It is our very wounds that reveal to us our purpose. By learning the pain, we seek to heal and help other’s do the same. And in being of service and value to others in ways that we know are needed, brings us purpose and “fulfillment” in knowing that we are making a contribution that “matters” and has meaning. When we are on such a path, we are living our mission…and there is no greater more spiritually rewarding position to be in, than to give of yourself to a cause you feel is worthy.
