The greatest lie ever told isn't spoken—it's believed. It's believed so strongly that many will scoff upon revealing it and roll their eyes. And yet, the lie is the single greatest source of misery in the world. The lie is so powerful that mere comprehension of its deception is impossible for those who believe it. The words used to reveal it are so filled with false expectation and misunderstanding that the rejection of the strawman is valid, but the truth remains hidden and entirely unexplored. If your life is in shambles, no doubt this is why.
Stick with me as I explain. The lie is the same but comes in a few forms: emotions are weak, love is a farce, or spiritual growth is for fools. This is not a call to religion. This is a call to recognize the power that exists in a particular way of living that is so foreign to the average person that they cannot comprehend until they've actually tried it. The words have been loaded making comprehension challenging. It takes diligence to unpack what it means before one can truly choose to reject or accept it as a possible truth. And even after accepting it, one must actually give it a try before they can truly understand. But the lies are so ingrained, believed, and lived, that one can hardly take the plunge. Emotion, love, and spirituality seem foolish to all but hippies and a religious few. And those who claim the mantle often give it a bad name. It gets rejected before it's even understood, let alone tried when it is.
The fact is, psychology has been showing the way all along, but the word rarely gets out. The philosophies have been around for ages but they're buried by the rubble of time and the fears of the blind. Love and even faith are indeed the way, but we don't know what those mean or even comprehend the way to what.
To begin to understand, consider what can possibly ail us more than our own minds. Apart from physical harm, our consternation is almost always made entirely from fear. We worry about our jobs—what would happen if we lost them? We worry about perception—what will they think of us if we say or do X? We worry about politics, the economy, and the downfall of our world. How much of this suffering are we experiencing as we sit on our bums staring at our pocket computers in perfect capacity for relaxation and safety? We worry about all these things that are not at our doorstep and which we often have little to no control over. And for what?
Will popping our veins somehow prevent us from losing our jobs? Will our anger somehow cure the world? If Betsy down the street thinks we're a horrible person, is it aided by our anger, defensiveness, and retribution? Of course not. But we think our reactions are just, we think they're necessary, we think these reactions are just the way things are. But why? Because we've never stopped to question our default position that spiritual growth is for fools and love is weak.
Spirit can be understood scientifically just as much as it can be understood spiritually. It does not require religion nor does it require a concept of God. It doesn't require ghosts or even spirits. Those things can certainly aid the efforts of growth, but it's ultimately about our internal state of affairs. Our spirit can be understood as our mindset—our emotional mode of operation—our mood. A depressed person is a depressed spirit. A happy person is a happy spirit. A spirit of gratitude is a grateful spirit. When we come to grips with the reality that we are selecting lower moods by our unwillingness to grow spiritually and thereby see the world through a greater lens, we can finally begin our ascent to happiness. Choosing between low and high moods is the very growth of spirit.
When we realize that the vast majority of our suffering comes solely from our own fear, we can begin to reduce our suffering through the ascension of our spirit. This isn't weak. It is the single most important aspect of our lives. It is the one and only thing that has the potential to make us happy. And a spirit of love is the one and only source of actual joy. To deny that growth, and to deny love as weak, is to deny the only thing that could ever make us happy: our own mindset. We have the power to make anything miserable and we have the power to make anything joyful.
All that remains is "faith" that this is so, and "faith" to take the charge and grow out of our self-made holes of despair. This faith can be in science and psychology, it could be in a God to guide us, or it can be in the mechanics of quantum fields and multi-world string theory. The faith can also be in the simplicity of logic that fear won't help so we'll simply not utilize it. Faith and Love are indeed the answer to our ultimate joy and the lie would have many of us turn our heads in disgust or misunderstand the goal entirely.
When we learn to not simply stop and smell the roses, but to recognize and embody that it's only ever been about the roses, we can begin to understand. We hear truth, but we can't articulate it in our minds how we can abide by it. "The joy is in the journey, not the destination." We often know this, but knowing is not the point—living it is. We can't live it until we release fear and embrace the strength that is found in our pursuit of love. The world may smirk, but only because they haven't understood. It cannot be described in words and it must be found through seeking it out and tasting of it directly. If you're not living your best life, it starts with the stories we tell ourselves and these stories often ignore or outright reject the very things that will bring us joy.
This article is one small piece of a much larger conversation. If you'd like to explore these ideas more thoroughly, Your Mind is Made of Voices is a free e-book available at flow-restoration.com
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