Have you left me
or have I left you?
and how do we get back together?
Don’t Know Mind
Anxiety is a normal response to not having a soul. I don’t know what I mean by soul. I know something is missing, so I call this missing something soul, and that feels about right. And I can look back at my life and say, it has always been like this. And I’ve tried to do many things about it. But the truth is that nothing really worked. Mostly band-aids. But this proved too serious for a band-aid.
To say that this anxiety has been debilitating is an understatement. It is devastating and disempowering. No wonder this age of anxiety is also the age of apathy and disengagement. Soul is what I need, even if I don’t know what that is. Something is not right. And though we speak of anxious individuals as if their organism has gone haywire–registering non-existent threats–we should instead respect these vigilant selves as registering a very real threat: the absence of the most important thing.
Looking for Direction
It feels urgent. By our mass dissatisfaction it seems to me we are agreeing on this point: life should not be like this. And we are all in the same boat. Without direction, without oars.
And this thought is empowering. Because it acknowledges that the problem is not that I am faulty. The problem is that we are all dealing with the same deficient circumstances. We are all missing something. We all have lungs, but are oxygen starved. What now?
Need to stop believing the lie that something is wrong with me. Yes, something is wrong. And I did not choose this condition. Yet I experience it 24/7. And we fumble in the dark. All together, alone, secretly and silently. How sad is that? And rotten. And something tells me that there is no one to blame. This makes us solely and absolutely responsible.
Nattan Hollander is a Marriage and Family Therapist Intern, living in Los Angeles with his wife and cat. Nattan blogs at regardingsoul.blogspot.com