Signs of the Times
The world has gone mad and you too will go mad within it unless you return to yourself.
Your beliefs. Your values. Your strengths. Your understanding. Your knowledge and your ability to feel it all in this life without letting everything you see and feel take you under.
That is the solid ground we are all looking to stand on during these turbulent times of great change.
And the most beautiful thing is that it all begins within.
The song “Sign of the Times” by Harry Styles has been playing in my mind for the last few days, which is why I have entitled this blog post after it. And what times we are truly living in, no? I was horrified to hear and yet somehow at the same time, not at all surprised, that a certain event in a certain country is going to be televised for all to see and I can’t help but ask myself, “How did we get here?”
I think collectively we have all been feeling a little strange since 2020. Yes, life has moved forward, and many of us made big strides closer to our passions and purposes during that time, but it almost feels like we are still trying to process something that none of us can quite put our fingers on. Something has changed, something is different within us as a whole, but also with us each individually.
Without going too much into controversies and conspiracies, rabbit holes that lead to reptilian’s, CERN and the understanding of mask wearing and the jab, there lies an awareness, even if it is just subtle, of fear being unleashed upon us daily. It has always been there. In the news, on the television screen, being screamed by the protestors outside but now all of a sudden, or so it seems, it is right in our pockets, beside us on our couches, possibly laying on the pillow next to you at night (if the latter is the case, please don’t do that!)
And so here we all find ourselves, perhaps in a place we never thought we would be or even imagined we could be. But here we are. And the biggest question is, “Where do we go from here?”
So instead of asking why this fear exists (because it always has and by my calculations always will, for my life time anyways) let us explore our relationship to it and how it relates to our experiences as humans.
When fear seems to be seeping in all around us, when the sleepless nights turn into stressful days that we endure instead of enjoy, we need to turn our focus inwards. To where it all truly begins and ends.
With us.
There is a Buddhist belief that everything we see outside of ourselves is just our internal worlds in manifest form. Jesus himself was recorded in the Bible saying “The kingdom of heaven is within you”, which would in turn uphold the Buddha’s teachings from more than half a century before him, as most of his teachings do. But I am not here to give you a historical lesson on spiritual teachings and how they relate to our modern day psychology. Or maybe I am…
There is another esoteric belief system that reminds us that anytime we go through a shift in consciousness, which we are all doing, all of the time, whether or not we know we are, that in order for our minds (not brains) to reach a higher level of thinking, there must first be a purging out of the old lower ways of thinking. This usually creates the experiences within the mind (not brain) of what can easily be diagnosed as mental or emotional disturbances.
In spiritual terms we would call this a decent into the underworld (think of Odysseus or Persephone or even Jesus being tempted in the desert), think dark night of the soul. The famed transpersonal psychologist Carl Jung would call it shadow work and in modern day psychology it would be called anxiety or depression and treated with a little pill and you would be sent on your way.
But let’s for a moment go back to the bigger picture. We are all, as a species, going through a shift in consciousness. Just as all civilizations before us have since time immemorial. Are we smarter than we were thousands of years ago? The surprising fact is, no. We are not. We do have more knowledge than we ever have seen document before but that is only what has been found, documented and studied. What we are not doing is using that knowledge to change our behaviour. And that is why most historians today do not have high hopes for us avoiding the downfall of all other major civilizations that have risen and fallen under the same stars we find ourselves under now.
Now here is a little distinction between the mind and the brain. Our minds are made up of thought patterns, belief systems, conditioned thinking and the collective consciousness (beliefs the majority of us hold as true, think herd mentality). The mind works off of repetition, neurons, transmitters and synapses within our brains firing when triggered by an external source like seeing a word or having a conversation or smelling a smell, etc. The mind is an electrical and chemical dance so to speak that has learned the steps of the dance of life over our life time’s. The brain is the fatty tissue in which all of this dancing takes place, think of it as the dance hall. It is made up of 75% water which is used as the conduit for all that electric sliding of neurotransmitter’s (if you get the joke within that last sentence we probably grew up in the same era ;) and the other 25% of our brains is fat and cholesterol, protein, carbohydrates, salt and minerals. Gotta keep those dancers nourished!
Ok, so now that you have had a flash back to high school biology class, let’s move on… trust me, it will all make sense in the end.
By the time we hit middle age we seem to think we have most of life figured out, or at least we are told we should. But this is often times when we also go through a change in our psyches where anything we have not processed (like traumas, psychological and emotional milestones and the maturation process through our childhood into our teen years, to young adulthood to mature adulthood) holds us back from moving forward until we do. This is sometimes called having a mid-life crises when what it really is, is our inability to mature to our next psychological level because something has been left behind, not integrated or we have not allowed ourselves to be initiated into our next stage of development, for many different reasons. Bring on the shadow work!
Now here is where the modern day medical establishment lacks in its understanding and integration of psychology and any other studies of our human psychology through the ages or even through other lenses. And I can write of this from my own personal experiences, and from my own educational background in psychology and professional counselling. What is commonly seen or understood or diagnosed as a mid-life crises, anxiety, depression or even the personality disorders we know as the dark triad (Machiavellanism, narcissism and psychopathy), and including the more challenging ones to treat and overcome such as manic depression, borderline personality disorder, when looked at from different lens take on a very different meaning.
But only if we open our minds enough to let them.
Before the study of our human psychology and mind came into play, barely over one hundred years ago, we looked to spiritual teachings, ways and practices to help us understand ourselves and the world around us. The spiritual world has always been an anchor for us as we have evolved over millennia, the very first remnants of human existence that shows signs of ritual practices being Göbekli Tepe in Turkey thought to be around 12,000 years old. It is fascinating to me that in a century we have lost most of our rituals, watered down, bastardized and commercialized the ones we have kept and then ponder why mental health is the epidemic it is these days.
And it is an epidemic.
On a global scale.
But more so in the west than anywhere else on earth.
I am not going to go into facts and figures in this post. They are there in black and white and I have spent the better part of the last decade looking into these things, researching them, watching them play out in real time right before my eyes through my clients, friends and family and even within myself as I navigated the most challenging years of my life. Here is what I have come to understand, learn, teach, live and practice:
When we look at psychological diagnoses through a spiritual lens, they begin to reveal an entirely different dimension of the human experience.
As mental health practitioners, especially as spiritual ones but also as friends, family, co-workers and as just plain humans, we need to remember that our minds will believe anything we tell them (cue the intro on neuroscience that I will leave for another post) and that when we diagnose, label, point a finger at or even just call someone something, there is a belief that attaches itself to them no matter how small that belief may be or also how untrue it can be also.
I have seen this play out in life and in my practice countless times. And it is a very dangerous game indeed.
Are you really suffering from anxiety or is the life you are living now just no longer suited to the person you have grown into?
Are you really borderline or have you been and/or are being gaslit, manipulated, lied to and mentally and emotionally abused by the very people closest to you that are supposed to be there for you?
Are you really depressed or are you surrounded by people who belittle you, use you, don’t care about you at all or are you maybe not living a life that supports your happiness and growth? Depression is indeed a real thing but offers so much depth within it as an experience that I am going to devote an entire future post to just this one topic. But for now let me leave you with the notion that depression is a slowing down so that you can go within and refocus, recalibrate and recondition yourself. And that takes time, rest and a pulling back from life while you dream up a new one. Depression is a natural state of being for us as humans at certain points throughout our lives and we should treat it as such instead of as something that needs treating.
I am not in any way discrediting medical research, diagnosis or illnesses in any way or those who are being treated for such things. These are all a part of our own experiences as human beings and can become the very stepping stones to our own growth and development, such as in my own case and cases working with clients.
What I am saying is that there are many different layers to understanding these aspects of ourselves and looking deeper into them is what has allowed me and the hundreds of clients I have worked with over the past two decades in various forms of therapy and healing modalities, is what has made the deepest, most profound and lasting changes.
Not a pill.
Not a weekly session.
Not a file on someone locked away in a cabinet.
Not in all the things we are told we have, or are, or need to do to have healthy mindsets.
But in a real, deep understanding of who we are, what we believe and why we believe those things and in the understanding we can change those beliefs at any time.
Because we can.
Our minds will literally believe anything we tell them.
The placebo effect in science is a well documented proof of this as well as many studies related to this phenomenon including ones that I myself have studied from MIT and Mount Sinai Hospital. The information is all there. Most people just do not want to believe in it. But why?
Why are we so sold on a life that is at times such as this seeming to offering us so little in return?
Why have we abandoned rituals, magic, prayers and beliefs for the individualistic, materialistic and capitalist mindset that only proves to us time and time again, that it is actually unsustainable?
I am not at all trying to sell you a belief system, nevertheless a one-size fits all version of religious dogma veiled in false hope and false promises. Beliefs are varied and wide and there are just as many of them as there are people on this planet. Even atheists believe in something. The absence of anything. And that is why what we believe matters. What we believe fuels our entire lives, our thought processes, our actions, our behaviours, our mindsets and our worldviews.
And they affect who we are and how we live out our every day lives.
Here is the truest thing of all, most of us are walking around with false beliefs tucked away within our subconscious minds that are controlling our conscious thoughts and every day living and being, oftentimes sabotaging the very lives we say we want to live.
So what we believe matters.
And it matters far more than any of us truly believe it does.
So before I wrap this post up with a nice little bow and get back to my making soup and bread and binge watching old episodes of The X-Files (because fear and the current state of the world and all the shit we hear and see and experience every day and even scary shows as I have come to believe it, only add to my human experience and do not do so negatively unless I allow them to), will leave you all with this:
In a world as crazy as the one we live in today, do yourself the greatest thing you can and ask yourself your why.
Why do you believe the things you do?
Why are living the way you are?
Why are you not following your bliss?
Why do what others think of you matter so much?
Why have you let some dreams die?
Why have you buried, suppressed or saved others for a later, perhaps more perfect time? (as if there is such a thing as a perfect time)
Why does your happiness matter? Or does it?
What is the anxiety, depression, overwhelm or emotional intensity REALLY trying to tell you?
When we can sit with these kinds of questions, especially the last one, we can find ourselves exploring the deeper aspects and dimensions within our own selves as a person, living this human experience.
And the deeper we go, the deeper we go…
Sending you all love for your journey,
Charleigh xo
P.S. My new book ‘The Journey: Book One ~ The Awakening’ is a memoir which follows my own personal journey of rediscovering myself and unveiling the beliefs that I had held onto until I could no more. And once I let go, I created room for a completely different way of life. One that I never could have imagined or even dreamt of myself. The magic is there for those who believe it exists. I am living proof of it 💫
You can find my book at The Journey | Book One: The Awakening ~ Signed Hardcover Edition - Payhip