When I began creating a spiritual life that worked for me, I knew exactly what I hoped to achieve—peace: peace of mind about my decisions, peace in my heart about my relationships, and peaceful interactions with others.
What I didn’t know was the path to peace would include an inner struggle between my old understandings about life, myself, and the Universe and the new ideas and practices that promised the experience of peace.
My spiritual teachers compared the process to a glass of river water. When it’s still, it looks clear. But when it’s stirred up, the silt and dirt from the bottom make the entire jar cloudy.
I know. I didn’t like being compared to a jar of dirty water either, but it is an accurate description of the process.
The first big idea that bumped up against my old ones was that I was completely responsible for my reality and my experience of it. It was my thoughts and words that led to the actions that created my life and how I experienced it, and if I changed those thoughts and words, my actions and then my life would change as well.
That was news to me.
I had been operating under the idea that there was a power greater than myself—luck, fate, a capricious, judgmental, old man in the sky—that was controlling my life and that no matter what I did, my life was never going to change.
My first reaction to the idea was unbridled joy and optimism. After all, if it were true that I had created my life circumstances and my experience of them, then that meant I could change them.
With enthusiasm and determination, I began to live into this idea. Before long, though, my enthusiasm and determination turned into anger, sadness, doubt, confusion, and fear.
Did I really want to step out into the unknown? Was my life really so bad that I had to change it? Would the time, effort, and energy I was putting into changing really going to pay off?
The inner struggle between the old and new ways of being had definitely kicked up and muddied the waters of change I was trying to move through and made me want to quit and walk away from these new ideas that were making me rethink everything.
I didn’t, though, for two reasons.
First, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that yes, my life really was that bad and that whatever the unknown held, it had to be better than my current situation.
Second, my spiritual teachers promised me that this process of change was completely normal and that it would end.
Having nothing to lose and everything to gain, I decided to trust the process and to keep changing, keep trying, and keep creating a new life for myself.
Eventually, it paid off. The emotional murkiness cleared, and I felt, for the first time in a very long time, peace.
Even now, 17 years into creating and living a spiritual life that works for me, I still experience the murky emotional waters that come with growth.
I’ve learned to welcome them and even celebrate them because I know that the discomfort and pain that comes with change is a sign that I am indeed making progress in becoming my best self.
If you’re on the spiritual path and feeling worse than you ever have, more lost than you’ve ever been, and a bit like a jar of mixed-up river water, rejoice! You are on the right path, at the right time, doing the right things. Your emotions, thoughts, and spirit will settle into peace and clarity once again, and the new you that will emerge will thank you for staying the course.
I would love to hear about your experiences of spiritual growth and change. How do you move through the shakeup change brings? What keeps you on your path when you feel cloudy and unsure? What would it look like to celebrate the murkiness when you’re in the middle of it?
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