When You’re Spiritually Exhausted
I was listening to one of my all-time favourite podcasts, Tarot for the Wild Soul with Lindsay Mack, and she said something that really hit home with me. Well, to be honest, every episode she says something that really hits home with me. Anyway, fan-girling aside. Lindsay was talking about how tarot card reversals often indicate resistance. For example, a reversal of the Death card; perhaps we are resistant to an ending. The end is near, but we don’t want to see it.
The reason this episode in particular resonated with me was that I feel in myself, so often, resistance. And, for the most part, it’s a resistance to doing, which is rooted in the manifestation of overcommitment and over-work.
Are you Spiritually Exhausted?
Photo by Dani Costelo on Unsplash
I guess the question is, are your energy levels suffering? Are you feeling drained and perhaps even a little depressed?
I know that, for me, when I get sucked into the abyss of the semi-corporate rat race, arriving at work at 7am and leaving at 9pm, then answering work emails until midnight, my spiritual self suffers.
You know that feeling – it’s Sunday night (as it is right now), and you can only think about all the things you have on your to-do list. You worry about what time you have to get to sleep in order to get a solid eight hours. You stress about what you haven’t achieved this weekend (because life admin has to take a back seat) and you think about hobbies and interests and commitments outside of your day job that you can’t fully devote yourself to.
For me, the first thing that falls away is my own spiritual practice. My twice-daily meditation becomes falling asleep to Yoga Nidra and waking up with my air pods somewhere by my knees or half-eaten by the dog. My herbalism becomes drinking a peppermint tea once a week even though I know the reason my stomach is a disaster is that I’m not eating a balanced diet or taking my supplements/using herbal fortifiers. I realise I haven’t written a blog post in months, and everything that brings me joy has fallen by the wayside.
This all leads to the very worst thing for our souls: self-judgement.
Self-Judgement is Bad
Welcome to my TED talk.
Are you doing everything you could do? No? COOL. Guess what? You shouldn’t do everything.
Let’s use me as a case study.
My job is freelance, so twice to thrice a year, I work hell for leather on a project. I don’t sleep, I work weekends, I make my day job money. Then it’s over, and, in theory, I can go back to meditation
However, this isn’t a sustainable work-life balance for me, and that’s because I NEED my spirituality. I need my meditation, my magic, my herbalism. Some people can disconnect from their practice for a while – I can’t. Well, I can, and I do, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for me.
Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash
I guess what I’m trying to get to is this: 2020 has been the weirdest fucking year of my life, and probably yours, too. What it’s made me realise is this:
The Arts are still important
Spirituality is important
Community is important
Sleep is important
We are way too hard on ourselves.
If you’re feeling spiritually exhausted, I want you to do this for me, and only this:
Write a list of the things that are important to you. Maybe that’s family, financial security, maybe it’s parties, maybe it’s puppies. Write that list down. Now consider, how does your current work/life balance contribute to the enrichment of those things? What can you do to shift that balance?
Now take the night off, because you f*cking deserve it, witches.
Blessings,
xxK
Featured: Photo by Brina Blum on Unsplash
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