Surviving a Crisis of Faith

“Some nights I stay up cashing in my bad luck; Some nights I call it a draw.
Some nights I wish that my lips could build a castle; Some nights I wish they’d just fall off.
But I still wake up, I still see your dust, Oh Lord I’m still not sure what I stand for.
What do I stand for? What do I stand for? Most nights, I don’t know…. anymore.”

~ Lyrics by fun!, ” Some Nights” ~

Night time. When the dregs of the day and light have passed. When we lie in bed with the leftovers of the waking hours and our negative thoughts come out of the shadows. One thing I have learned is NEVER, EVER, BELIEVE WHAT YOU TELL YOURSELF LATE AT NIGHT. No one alive has not suffered a crisis of faith, if not countless crises. When I first opened myself up to Reiki and embraced it I felt as though suddenly everything had a deeper meaning, everything looked differently, I saw through eyes that were once closed. I woke up, only to find the rest of the World was asleep.

But when I had a day where something monumental did not occur spiritually, I suddenly began to question everything I had just embraced. I began to feel “abandoned” and dumped into this new realm surrounded by the ordinary. Every day magic can be somewhat of an addiction, in and of itself, where you want to experience “otherworldliness” (for lack of a better word) every day. Back and forth went that teeter-totter along with my commitment of what I was actually doing with my life.

I would stay up nights trying to create meaning and magic from a less than extraordinary day, when I could not, I would beg my Reiki Guides to DO SOMETHING, to “fix this”. When silence responded I was left in an even deeper void (which I alone had created). My Reiki Master and Teacher gave me so much guidance in this period. She challenged me to accept and realize that my Guides had never, and will never leave me. They are always there. I don’t need a Praying Mantis to crawl on me or appear in droves to remind me. My feeling is when I need Divine guidance, I simply need to look at the World around me. I do not need complicated rituals, strange glyphs, or pillars of fire to tell me I am awake– I am aware– I am blessed. I believe there are forces of good and evil both around us and within us. What we invite in will enter, and remain close. If you believe everything outside of what you can define with your 5 senses is demonic, wrong, or unholy then you live bound and gagged by fear. I positively believe there is evil, but if you go searching for demons, demons are what you will find. By acknowledging there’s some pretty funky shit out there, I can be far more prepared to settle in with what I DO seek– love and light, always.

Many discovering their spirituality feel compelled to experience and embrace things outside of this “World”. Astral projection, etheric planes, Tarot, white magic– I believe they all (and so many other realms I do not even KNOW of) exist. But I do not feel compelled to jump in and dabble in everything etheric. I had to come to the realization that I am very settled and committed to my Reiki path but it doesn’t change me from who I am and always WILL be (in this lifetime anyway). I’m 100% human. I exist in this physical body. Feet firmly planted on this very real and solid ground. I am, a Child of the Here and Now.

Correction… The VERY Here and VERY Now! When anyone embarks on a spiritual path I think the tendency is to find ways to shed our “humanness” and ascribe some deep hidden meaning to it. “It’s not me, Mercury is in retrograde!” When the simple truth may be perhaps I am really just a poor communicator and probably just need to spend a little time in this World addressing that. I can’t look to past lifetimes to explain my behavior today– “It’s not my fault, I was Adolf Hitler in a past life!” Bummer… but maybe THIS person needs to look hard and fast at their idea of equality and brotherhood in the Here and Now. In the immortal words of Sigmund Freud, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” We can’t look to spirituality to fix our very human issues in the Here and Now.

What I have found is when I challenge my negative thoughts, my “demons”, my darkness, they tend to shrink back into the shadows whimpering like 6 year old school girls. It is THEN I feel whole and I realize the Divine is all around me. Only I can change who I am. Only I can make this single day better. Only I can choose to be happy— no process, or Reiki Guide, or symbol from the Divine can “fix” my life. I am a Child of the Here and Now, so I can only work to make this lifetime what I need it to be. At least just for today…

Namaste my Light Beings!