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Life is sometimes like the tarot card the four of swords. In the image in the card we see a warrior resting briefly in between his battles with his swords next to him.
There are days when one feels like that, to just give up if not completely but for a brief moment, just put down your sword. Not due to boredom but due to the sheer exhaustion of having to keep those plates spinning in the air. For some of us it is the day-to-day tasks and responsibilities and for some of us the accumulated exhaustion of just having survived our whole life. The weight of the emotions can at times get too heavy to carry around and you find yourself being overruled by them. No matter what you do, you cant seem to dust off this emotional weight and it can feel like an infinite loop of the same things. These emotionally heavy days come up more profoundly when one tries to challenge and change these deep rooted thinking patterns, trauma induced thought pathways and the familiar lower vibrational emotions of unworthiness, lack, rejection, guilt and so on. When you take on the challenge to work on these with determination these emotions sometimes rise back with force and on days like that nothing helps. No meditation, no music, no movie, no friends, no distractions and even prayers feel empty. It may feel to a few like you have a happy personality but a really sad soul and the two together make no sense. What do you usually do on such days?
These lines from the poem "Instructions for a bad day by Shane Koyczan" come to mind.
"There will be bad days, times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is all right when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there; be patient. Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end."
Especially the part that every bad day has an end, it is going to end someday because that is the nature of life. Nothing is permanent, bad days will be followed by happy days that is the rule. What can you do then, on days you feel you just cannot continue? I wish there was a magic pill or an escape button I could guide you to, but here are a few things you can try.
Pray harder
Meditate with more force
Sleep early,
If you want to, indulge in some good food or some alcohol nothing wrong in it, but yes keeping in mind sensible boundaries,
Just remove your focus from that issue and did I mention, sleep more. Sleeping helps your active brain rest and removes you from the bad loop of emotions and thoughts, I also recommend some guided sleep meditation videos or mild/natural sleeping aides like melatonin or warm milk. When the vehicle of negative emotions is speeding and out of control, first step is to slow it down and gently bring it to a halt. And once you wake up to ensure it does not go from 0 to 100 in a second, being mindful of starting the next day with a short few mins meditation, prayer, guided music and so on.
If the situation is such that you do not have luxury of time, still try and steal a few moments for yourself even if it is in the toilet, close your eyes and centre yourself. If you can step out for a walk or just step put for a few minutes in the balcony or garden, close your eyes and do some deep breathing for a few minutes that itself can do wonders. But understanding that the battle may not be over and this is your break to recuperate and gather your scattered consciousness.
I have always felt deeply for animals and especially wild animals in captivity in circuses and badly maintained zoos across the world. The cruel face of humanity is showcased in some of the worst cases of abuse and neglect we inflict on our fellow planet mates. I watch the videos of rescues of these magnificent creatures from cramped up cages where they would have spent years and decades and then finally to be brought to sanctuaries when their feet touch the earth for the first time. It is emotional and restores some faith in humanity and that maybe not all is lost. While watching one such rescues, I noticed the transit situation when the animals are being transported from the old enclosure to the new open sanctuary, the transport cages are even more cramped and dark because they need to be carried on aircrafts and trucks sometimes for days till they reach the new place. A thought popped up in my mind, I imagined the mental state of that animal, it has experienced abuse for years and lost its trust on humans and now these new humans are shoving it into a dark box with small holes just enough to breathe. In its mind it has no clue that life is about to get so much better, in its mind it is scared and even petrified thinking what else are they going to do to me? Am I going to be locked in this box forever? Maybe not the forever part because animals live in the present, but I think you get where I am going with this. Then after days of transit and experiencing blackouts and moving vehicles and scary aeroplane sounds it is released into this new paradise.
Aren't the dark phases of life similar to this transit? It is about perspective, we think we are going through dark night of the soul and yes we very much do, but don't we emerge into better circumstances eventually? With strong attachments being shattered by divorce or separation, with security being threatened by loss of a job, with survival being challenged with injuries or disease, but if you look back on your life journey, it has always brought you through (that's why you are here today reading this) and there is a silver lining somewhere and somehow. This is where we are called upon to exercise, learn and understand what true faith is. It need not be faith in god or a higher power, but just a general faith that if things are really bad right now, this is a transit. The lack of clarity is acting like the dark box protecting you from the shocks of reality temporarily and eventually everything will work out and fall in place. Just a tiny amount of faith to stop us from swinging from emotion to emotion and feeling so scattered and ungrounded and hopeless.
Next time you feel helpless, like you are a victim of your circumstances, like you just want to give up and hit quit on life, hit pause for a few moments. Take a deep breath and imagine that God or the Universe or your guardian angels or a high power is taking care of you and transporting you to a better destination and this is just the discomfort of that transit. The situation is not as bad as you feel it right now and whatever it is will pass, this too shall pass, it has to that is the law of the universe. So right now do what you can do and do not try to control anything, things will fall in place at the right time in the best possible way and you will emerge into a better, more harmonious and beautiful phase in life. The transit can last hours, days, weeks or even years but it is just a transit meant to teach you patience and a lot more before you enter your version of paradise. We always feel that paradise is a destination where we will finally have no problems, challenges or issues in life, but that is not true, paradise is an inner state of mind where outer circumstances also improve and we are able to enjoy life under any and all conditions. And you are never alone, there is always someone who is going through something similar or has gone through something similar, co-passengers in the form of friends, family, pets or even a stranger whose internet posts resonate. The key is to calm yourself, be kind and gentle towards yourself and say it out loud - "This is a transit, it will pass and I will get through to my inner and outer paradise, there is nothing that can stop this, so there is nothing to fear."
If this has helped you, please do share it, let us spread hope because it does come back multiplied in plenty.