‘If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
–William Blake
Going through unexpected and life-changing trouble has a way of confronting all of us. We wonder why life needs to be so challenging, especially when it seems we are making real progress towards our goals.
Thankfully, most troubles are small and manageable. Other times trouble such as an unexpected job loss, a painful divorce, or financial hardship can bring us to our knees.
No matter how many positive steps we take toward our goals, our progress is almost always followed by being pulled one or two steps back.
It is natural, therefore, for us to wonder why life has to be so challenging and why so many of life’s questions go unanswered.
Traditional Approaches To Well-Being
In our mental health section, we covered conventional approaches to mental and emotional health, such as counseling, psychotherapy, and psychiatry.
The topics we explore in this section focus on inspiration, empowerment, and the transformational side of our emotional, physical, and mental well-being.
Here we cover topics such as the mystery of consciousness, the promise of inner growth, and the better angels within us waiting to support and assist us on our life’s journey.
The Promise of Self-Discovery
Socrates believed that the path to all knowledge is through self-examination.
Socrates believed the path requires a committed and passionate pursuit of the truth – an almost obsessive need to understand the inner workings of our minds and how they shape our experience of life.
The practice of active and engaged self-examination is much more than occasionally questioning our beliefs. It invites us to become seekers of the truth. A path that both inspires and empowers us.
Like Socrates, Carl Jung, the father of depth psychology, believed in the crucial importance of self-knowledge. Jung believed a sincere and committed life of introspection was essential to our personal growth.
Jung believed examining our thoughts and emotions can provide valuable insight into our deeper motivations and desires.
The Practice of Introspection
This regular practice of self-reflection is also called contemplative meditation.
Jung firmly believed that an introspective life allows us to recognize and understand the influences the unconscious mind plays in our lives and to resolve them consciously. A process Jung calls individuation.
Individuation is an evolutionary process by which we make what is unknown about our inner life known, which results in a profound sense of self-empowerment that leads to understanding who we are and being able to manifest what we truly desire in our lives.
We Learn Through Our Troubles and Adapt Accordingly
Self-Knowledge Results in Self-Empowerment
Learning from our mistakes by experiencing their painful consequences serves an essential evolutionary purpose. We learn to overcome life’s obstacles. We learn to adapt and change course and in the process, we empower ourselves to make better choices.
Our troubles mostly come from our inability to see the consequences of our thoughts and actions. When we stumble and fall, we can sense that something deeply important remains hidden from our view, like the missing piece of a puzzle, and when we finally find the piece and click it into place, it reveals the larger picture of our life. Where we have been and where we are going.
Seeing the whole picture of our lives, we are suddenly struck by what can only be described as a moment of clarity.
The Puzzle – A Mystical Metaphor For Individual Transformation
This section includes mystical views on the ways can overcome the painful challenges in our lives.
According to the mystics, the language of the cosmos is deeply embedded within each human heart. A hidden language that describes a type of cosmic jigsaw puzzle, that when solved, reveals the truth of who we are and our life’s purpose.
We do this by first finding the pieces of our life that no longer fit with who we wish to become, and then by letting those pieces go and fall away.
Mystics believe this marks the beginning stages of our spiritual journey. The goal is to search for those hidden pieces that make up the truest and grandest expression of who we wish to become.
The more empty spaces we fill, the more of our life’s puzzle is revealed to us. We become transformed by this experience, as we move ever closer to discovering the truth behind our life’s purpose.
The truth seeker’s journey is not an easy path. It is painful and often baffling. It requires courage, perseverance, and great patience.
The journey resembles that of the caterpillar that dies to its old self to become the butterfly. We must be willing to let go of our old ways and be reshaped by a greater vision of who wish to become.
The journey reminds us that we are co-creators, self-making, and infinite beings with boundless potential. The mystics believe that spiritual transformation has always been our birthright.
The Truth Seekers Dilemma
The art of puzzling through life’s challenges begins with a sincere desire, almost an obsession, to see and understand what has been hidden from our view.
Sometimes unlocking this greater knowing takes the form of a long-lost memory, that once retrieved, unlocks the doors to a profound and spontaneous awakening. Other times, the journey to enlightenment is preceded by a great struggle, what is called by mystics the dark night of the soul.
Persistence Leads To Empowerment
Above all, puzzlers are truth seekers. They know that for each piece that doesn’t fit, the closer they are to finding the piece that will fit. It is a process of unrelenting perseverance toward truth.
An Ecstatic Moment of Clarity
An almost surreal awakening can manifest the moment something critically important in our lives, something previously hidden from us, becomes fully known. It can result in a profound sense of clarity that brings us ever closer to the meaning of our life journey.
Puzzlers often describe this experience in almost mystical terms: It is the moment in which the pieces and the whole of our life’s puzzle are experienced as a single and simultaneous happening.
It is likened to seeing the entire ocean inside the interior of a single drop.
Mystics have described the awakening as deeply felt knowing that we are infinite beings without boundaries or limits – the children and parents of an intelligent, conscious, and loving universe awakening to itself as both the player of the cosmic puzzle and the grand creator of the game.
