"If you try to comprehend air
before breathing it in,
you will die."
"We can only consider things so long. After a while, all the information - all the options and opinions - will begin to weigh us down.
After our deeper eyes have seen a situation, all the well-meaning voices telling us what we should or should not do will start to feel like strings we can't cut through.
This was poor Hamlet's fate. He overthought his life away. He over-considered which way to go until he felt stalled and oppressed by just being in the world.
It is natural enough to be cautious and thoughtful, especially when faced with important decisions, but often the only way to know what awaits us is to live it.
This brings to mind the revelation that came upon a Hindu sage centuries ago. One day in the middle of their morning prayers, the sage suddenly rose and ushered his students away from the monastery. He rushed about them and shooed them back into life like little ducks, proclaiming, "The day is to be experienced, not understood!"
- Excerpt from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo
Have you noticed I'm a sucker for poetic verses on life lessons? Yes I am. I love breaking out a good book during Tinnitus Therapy sessions to emphasise certain points and themes. Books, writing and words have a way of opening the mind and heart all at once.
So I'm here to ask you now: Can you relate to the above excerpt? I bet you can.
I see this each week with every new tinnitus call I receive.
The obsessive research. The multiple opinions. The exhaustion of which advice to follow. The absolute confusion of it all. The need to have all the answers to all the whys. The need to ensure all the answers to the whys are triple or quadruple checked (or more!). And round and round we go.
In the midst of all this, what I now term, 'the classic tinnitus journey', I see that the more a person tries to nut-out, think-out, consider, research, investigate, question, talk about tinnitus; the more their actual life stagnates.
They begin to lose their energy, lose their ability to fulfill their daily obligations, to fulfill their greater purpose on this earth. Unless their purpose is to live solely for tinnitus of course. (But I'm yet to meet anyone like that). And no, I know what your thinking - I also don't live solely for tinnitus, it is just one part of my life.
Point is, by placing all their power, mental and emotional energy into tinnitus, they forget to actually live.
Where your focus goes, energy flows. Yes, it is true.
Where are you placing your resources? Your energy reserves?
The more you engage in life, the more you will watch tinnitus back off, perhaps slowly, but surely nonetheless, and that is what you are after.
Reflect for a moment.
How long have you been trying to comprehend tinnitus, instead of living your life?
If you try and comprehend all of your health issues before walking forward into the new day of tomorrow, or even the next 5 minutes in time, you will stagnate and perhaps never truly live. Never truly progress.
Now think again, what is the true purpose of your life?
Think big.
Because I know for sure, that it is certainly much greater and much more powerful than tinnitus or any other health conditions you have. There's no competition or question about that.
So what is it? What are the real priorities in your life? What are your true goals?
What is your legacy?
Why are you really here?
That is what matters. Hold onto it tight, and begin to embody it. Starting Now.
The day is to be experienced and entered into. (Not just considered).
Marie-Chantal.
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