I was asked to write an article for this paper.
I have never written formally before.
I have written a million or more words in my journals and on my blogs, but nothing formal.
It took many first starts to find my tone. It is the same tone I use on my blog.
The tone is me.
Just speaking from this moment in time and my experiences.
It is an interesting question on what Health and Happiness means to you.
How does it sit in your world - how do you tend it?
I have a clear moment in time where I woke up from a brainwashed system both in my family and in religion. My mind had been securely closed off - and I wasn't aware.
For true health and happiness, I believe you need an open mind. A mind that is healthy, and able to challenge itself. In yoga they speak about bringing the mind back to the body - and to me that is the hardest thing to do - to be present in this moment of time - and not have a mind running amuck on endless fruitless tracks.
A quiet mind. A mind that I can use and not have it use me. This quiet open mind has allowed me to live in peace, love and joy. To me, that is true health and happiness.
My mind was a complete and utter mess. It had so many wires crossed and was filled with lies and blank spaces. And, it had been living my life unchallenged. It never occurred to me that its contents were untruths.
A friend asked me, how was it possible to live in denial.
Like, how can you not know.
It is the oddest thing to not know you don't know.
I think, I thought denial was, you knew and choose not to believe.
Instead you don't know and you don't choose not to know. Something in your brain doesn't allow information in that will oppose what it believes in.
It is frightening to know that your brain can filter reality to keep its story alive.
For the first 46 years of my life I lived a fairytale - reality wasn't allowed in.
It isn't as rare as many may think.
In my experience, I have encountered many who live under the control of their minds. Childhood beliefs and religious standards become their own rulers. Rulers as in kings. It dominates and steers their lives.
I used to think faith was a kind master. Now, I am not so sure.
A strong faith is often a mind that has been warped - and a body controlled.
I am not certain whether my spiritual abuse came before or after my sexual abuse. But, the two together formed an ironclad bond in my mind. It kept me from Me.
The mind disowned my body and its truths. And, the mind turned a blind eye to reality and what was happening. I get it. I was too young to know what was going on and it shielded me with blankness.
Yet it left me not knowing what I needed to know.
It is hard for many folks to understand what the mind does with abuse.
To me the longest affects of abuse is the damaged mind. The mind that believes in untruths.
This sets you up to live life in a very confused way.
Where reality skips by and untruths live as if they were true.
There is a weird place you can literally live your whole life, untouched by reality.
Seriously.
I did it for 46 years.
Where you don't have the ability or space to question your thoughts and challenge your beliefs to go back and delve into systems you were raised in - to look at a wider deeper lens into your own life.
To see see things as they are, not as your mind believes they are.
Because I came from a religion that set itself up like a cult, where sameness was needed. Where rules and sins were in place to keep order and fear of hell made following the rules imperative. I see so many people lost in their minds and they don't even know it. Just as I was.
Health and happiness is when you can break free of the mind and see things as they are.
I feel so secure with reality and living what is.
My body feels peace in reality.
I often wonder when there is so much anxiety if it isn't grounded in a mind out of touch with reality.
A mind that was created for a reason and then lost touch with the ground.
It is scary to me to see so many lost in their beliefs.
It was interesting to me as I was waking up from the brainwashing, how the lies of the mind felt in the body, compared to the truth of reality. Bit by bit, I would question my mind and its lies. Learning more and more how wiley it was.
Unraveling years of denial and blind faith.
What I know to be true for me, is happiness and health truly come when I live outside of my mind - when I am able to be here now, and accept what reality is serving in this moment of time. Allowing life to be as it is, like nature.
I am one with nature and the nature of even being me. My mind is now used to witness reality instead of erasing what is. I am happily out of my mind.
