Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked

Your victim mentality is the obstacle in your path, not anything else.

There have been a few occasions in recent months where I’ve felt, “oh for FUCK’s sake when will it end?” My body was aching, my mind was so tired that it preferred meditation over thought. That’s quite a wonderful position to be in, in a sense: you are so tired that you have no choice but to become conscious.

The universe loves to teach a lesson and it it will always favour the tough one over the easy one. So, with that perspective, you may find yourself in a situation where you feel as if you are in the eye of the storm. Your world is shaking, realisations are happening, there are breakthroughs and transformations… but you’re still not finished.

Of course you want a break to catch a breather when this happens so intensely, but the expression of that desire betrays a deeper motivation, which is that it’s hard work and you don’t want to deal with hard work.

I don’t want to deal with hard work. My victim mentality asks why I’m going through all this stuff all at once! My state of mind that receives this as a challenge is thoroughly activated too, and with some awareness it’s easy to see that my reaction in the present will shape my reaction in times to come.

The specifics don’t matter, they just fuel the victimhood because the more you list the more sorry you can make yourself feel, and woe betide you believe in that because you’re in for a rough ride if you do! It’s such a shitty perspective on your embracing of life, like it is wrapping itself around you in all its power and magic and you just want to pull away. Life is never too much but it is so, so easy to make it too much, or too little.

So I found myself doing this a lot this last week and, in the same breath, dismissing everything being offered to me to help me grow and move on with my life. I don’t necessarily agree that every single thing is a test as some religious types might say so, but it can be helpful to perceive things that way as long as you trust that you are having these experiences and these reactions in order to push you forward and become more present. I wouldn’t have written this post if not for that.

And, honestly, this has fuck all to do with religion or spiritual new-age woo-woo or anything like that that I usually love getting into. It’s all about your resilience and how you build it up. You don’t build up resilience by withdrawing into your shell as soon as life brings you a surge of energy and activity. You build it up by resting and not blaming life for why you need a break from it. You just don’t trust enough in yourself to handle what it throws your way.

There are times where I went into suicidal thoughts and giving up because I thought it was all too much. The only thing that was too much was my lack of a will to live in the face of overwhelming awesomeness being sent my way. If I had more trust and belief in myself it would take much more to bring back those thoughts, even if the activated PTSD and depression turn the volume up to 11 during those moments.

The title references a song I absolutely love, by Cage the Elephant:

The more challenges you face in your life and the more you want to grow through them, the less you can truly rest. The end-goal sounds quite a lot like enlightenment to me.