This video from The Optimum Health Clinic is about chronic fatigue (CFS) and it’s something I very much relate to.
Since we don’t know exactly what causes CFS and we often need to take a comprehensive and integral approach to manage it and perhaps heal from it, it’s easy to think that we have to fix everything to recover.
I am just like the client in the video. I know it’s probably not true, but I still often feel and act as if it’s true. I keep working on emotional issues, nutrition, diet, herbal medicine, regulating my activity levels, mindfulness, prayer, heart-centered practices, energy healing, being honest with myself and following my guidance, and much more, in order to see if I can recover from the CFS. At one level, it’s a wise, comprehensive, and integral approach. At another, for me, it sometimes has an element of compulsiveness.
It can be the same with healing from trauma since it’s often a set of emotional issues tied together, and we can always find additional related and underlying issues to address. We may have the idea that we need to fix everything before we are OK and can relax and enjoy life again.
And it can be that way with awakening as well, in whatever way we understand awakening. We keep going at it, perhaps from many different
We may know – and perceive in immediacy – that all is the divine and perfect as is. We are also aware that there is room for improvement in terms of befriending our experience, clarity, healing, maturing, and living from our experience of all as the divine (Big Mind). And we may be genuinely drawn to keeping exploring all of this and deepening in it.
And for some of us on a spiritual path, it can feel a bit compulsive and we have the idea that we have to fix everything about ourselves before we are OK and can relax.
It’s very natural and understandable if we have some compulsion in our healing or awakening work. It’s even helpful. It creates an extra needed momentum and especially early on in the process.
And yet, at some point, it’s helpful to address the compulsion itself. Where does it come from? Is the voice in me driving the compulsion true?
Often, the compulsion is a reaction to believing that we are not OK and not enough as we are. We try to improve ourselves in order to get somewhere or get something we believe we don’t have. We may also have a belief that we need the compulsion in order to get anywhere and fear that we’ll stagnate without it.
None of that is really true, and as the compulsion relaxes, we may discover a few different things. We may find that it’s OK to take time to relax and enjoy our life as it is, and we may find we are more able to relax and enjoy it. We may also find that we are still moved to explore and invite in healing and
So the compulsion itself is not good or bad. It can be helpful in certain phases of our process. And it is driven by something in us that’s out of alignment with reality, so at some point, life invites us to notice and address it.
By doing that, we may find a deeper sense of contentment and OKness as we are. And that from here, we are more free to enjoy life and even to keep exploring and inviting in continued healing, maturing, and awakening. We lose the compulsion and we gain deeper contentment.
I should add that if our exploration was largely driven by compulsion and a sense of lack, we may let the exploration go after we resolve this sense of lack. We may be very happy to just enjoy and live our life without this element of exploration. And that’s more than OK too.
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Initial notes….
- you don’t have to fix everything
- w CFS, easy to think (without fully realizing it, and while knowing it’s not true) that we have to fix everything to recover
- bc don’t know exactly what it comes from, and no one easy fix for everyone, often need to approach it from many angles, integral approach
- and same with emotional healing and awakening
- easy to fall into a slightly compulsive mindset of wanting to fix everything, heal every emotional issues, do everything we can to awaken etc.
- CFS, healing and awakening – all slightly nebulous, not one quick fix, often need integral approach, so easy to think we need to fix everything
- good to look at where it comes from
- information from others (people who have gone the path, trusted source), that it’s not needed
- look at what we try to fill in ourselves, what perceived lack/hole/need are we trying to fill
- what do we fear would happen if it doesn’t happen, what do we hope will happen if we get what we aim for
- what’s not enough here and now, what beliefs/identities tells me this is not OK
- when resolve some of this, then free to still pursue it and now from a more relaxed place, we can find a deeper motivation,
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- w CFS, easy to think (without fully realizing it, and while knowing it’s not true) that we have to fix everything to recover
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So the impulse to fix everything is a gift in some phases, and also a pointer to fix our sense of lack or brokenness.
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The upside of this compulsion is that it keeps us going. We are never quite satisfied. We keep turning new stones. We keep exploring. We keep going. It gives us momentum. This can be very helpful, and especially early on in the process.
The downside is that it is a compulsion. When we engage in it, we tell ourselves that what the compulsiveness is a reaction to – the sense of lack or not-OKness about ourselves – is real. We may overlook exploring and questioning where the compulsion comes from.
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None of that is really true, and as it relaxes, we may discover a deeper motivation or calling. We may notice that we are moved to invite in healing and awakening even without compulsion. We may find that we can explore all of this in a different and more relaxed context. We may find that we keep moving even if we find ourselves more content and OK as we are. Or that we sometimes are happy relaxing and enjoying life as it is, and that that is more than OK too.