The monkey mind, the old self, and the destination
3 Things to Know Before Embarking on Your Spiritual Journey
#2. You can never go back to who you used to be
1. You’ll Lose Your Mind Along the Way
Calm down. This isn’t to scare you. But yes, you will lose your mind or feel like you’re losing it and that’s an amazing thing.
Trust me.
You need to lose your always whirring, constantly whizzing monkey mind in order to hear your soul’s silent speech.
Sure. Everyone’s spiritual journey is unique and, of course, not everybody loses their mind. Some people are already old souls and came to this world with an already calm mind and for those people, good for them, but for most of us, we will lose all of our shit when we awaken.
It’s just the truth, but don’t fret.
You don’t lose your mind and walk around town in your underwear like a crazy person. No. We don’t lose it in the way.
You lose your mind as in you become overwhelmed with the physical world. Nothing in it will make sense.
You lose your mind for a bit so your soul can come to the forefront. You lose your mind to find and connect with your true self, who can sometimes get pushed behind the massive ego.
When you lose your mind, you can tap into the magic inside your soul.
It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, especially by the influx of information you take in when you first begin your spiritual awakening journey. You’ll be learning so much that you’ll awaken in the middle of the night to find answers to the questions roaming inside your mind. You’ll wake up at night, reach for the phone again and google things.
All of that can take a toll on the mind and make you feel like you’re losing it.
If you’re feeling ungrounded and overwhelmed, wondering what in the world is going on, it’s okay. It’s all good. You are right on track and my advice is to calm yourself down a bit.
When you crawl into the bed, just put the phone down and go to sleep. Capture your thoughts and command them to wait till morning so you get some sleep!
You don’t have to learn everything in one night. You don’t need to gain every insight and wisdom right now. I know it’s tempting to search for another thing when Google gives answers to everything, but it’s okay to sleep tonight.
It’s okay because this is your life now, and you’ll be back at it tomorrow. So sleep and rest your mind.
You need to lose your always whirring, constantly whizzing monkey mind in order to hear your soul’s silent speech.
2. You Can Never Go Back to Who You Used to Be
Yeah. You can say goodbye to the old you. She’s dead and gone. He’s never coming back. She’s been buried and a new you have sprung.
The moment you awaken, the undo button disappears forever. But the funny thing is that you won’t even want the old you back.
I didn’t want the old me back. The old me was dumb and naïve as hell. I didn’t want her back. I wanted to keep growing and evolving.
The old you get an upgrade. You become a much better, much smarter, much wiser version of the old you, and it’s better that way. It really is.
The best thing you can do to help the new you is to stop trying to bring back the old you. She’s gone, and she’s never coming back. Sorry, not sorry.
It’s for your highest good.
But just because the old you is dead and gone doesn’t mean you must get comfortable with the new you. The new you is also subject to change at any given time.
Every time you learn something new, you change and on a spiritual path, you’ll be learning until the day you take your last breath.
Every time you heal trauma, you change, and once you awaken, you’ll be healing for the rest of your life. The healing never stops, so you’ll always be changing and transforming into a different version of yourself.
Once spiritual, always spiritual.
You won’t be able to go back to the old you and also your old life. Your old life will no longer resonate and you’ll be good with the new you, your new life, and all the new things that will come into your life all because you woke up.
The moment you awaken, the undo button on your spiritual keyboard disappears forever.
3. You’ll Keep Going but You’ll Never Arrive Anywhere
Oh? What did you think? You thought you were going somewhere? You had a destination in mind? Where? Paradise? The cosmos? Where? Maybe a place where all the enlightened people hanged out?
Yeah, no.
None of that will happen. You’ll be right where you are. There is no destination and the only thing you can strive for is inner peace.
This idea of reaching a state of perfection or enlightenment only leads to spiritual stagnation when you think you’re done learning and growing.
You’ll never be done learning and growing and as the days go by, you’ll realize just how much you don’t know and how much you still need to learn.
When you become stagnated because you think you’ve arrived, your life becomes lethargic and dull because, in your monkey mind, you think you’ve arrived.
But I get it. I get the desire to arrive somewhere so you can say “Look Mama, I made it!”
I understand.
The demand for constant learning, growing, and evolution is difficult to deal with, but it’s necessary for us in finding our life’s purpose and completing our soul’s mission. You’ll be changing so much that even your life purpose/mission will also shift and change as you progress on your spiritual journey, and that’s normal.
When you fulfill a purpose, another awaits. So yeah, once you awaken, you’re in it for the long haul and all you’ll do is keep going.
This idea of reaching a state of perfection or enlightenment only leads to spiritual stagnation when you think you’re done learning and growing.
Final Thoughts
Despite the fact that you’ll lose your mind, lose who you used to be, and never arrive at a destination, this journey is the journey of a lifetime. It’s the best thing that could ever happen, even if the ride is the most chaotic and gets bumpy along the way.
The bumps are what make it so thrilling and exciting. It shakes you awake and brings you alive.
The spiritual life is a rewarding and loving life that is less mind and ego and full of heart, soul, and the best part? It’s full of spirit!
If you wish to live a rich life, then embarking on a spiritual journey is not only important. It's vital! And no the rich life has nothing to do with diamonds and gold.
These riches you acquire on your journey have to do with peace, joy, love, faith, wisdom, knowledge, kindness, generosity, abundance, and every good thing you can think of. That’s how rich you’ll become if you keep going and never give up when the going gets tough.
And to ease your mind, the spiritual journey isn’t all work, work, work, work, work, work.
No, it’s not.
There’ll also be lots of “walking on sunshine” as long as you keep growing and evolving.
