Last update: October 10, 2017
We are in a hurry, too much in a hurry. We are balanced on the melodies played by stress and anxiety, which in turn feed on great amount of responsibility and pressure weighing on our shoulders. So, to suffocate us is the passage of time, it happens without us realizing it. All this makes us lose contact with our "I", with our soul. A detachment that negatively affects ourselves.
We do not realize that we live on automatic pilot operated, which somehow has turned into our default state. On many occasions we act out of inertia, without thinking too much and without appreciating the activity in question. So we come to the conclusion that the days don't have enough hours, the hours don't have enough minutes… and the soul doesn't have enough time.
We push ourselves forward with strength and panache, leaving our conscience behind. We are not afraid of getting lost, of abandoning our essence: it is more important to arrive earlier than to do it in a certain way. We constantly live on autopilot, which saves us from focusing on what is most important: ourselves.
Let's not run, let's let our soul reach us
We invite you to take a trip to Africa and listen to a story.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was an explorer who ventured into the most inhospitable African territories. Accompanying him were only his porters. They were all equipped with machetes so that they could make their way through the dense vegetation. The explorer had only one goal in mind: to advance rapidly, whatever the cost.
If they encountered a stream, they crossed it as quickly as possible. If they found a hill ahead of them, they would hurry up so as not to waste a minute. At one point, the porters stopped abruptly.
The explorer was surprised, they had only been on the march for a few hours. He then he asked him:
- Why did you stop? Are you tired already? We have only been walking for a few hours.
One of the porters looked at him and replied:
- No sir, we are not tired, but we are moving too fast, so our soul is left behind. Now we have to wait for it to reach us again.
If we move too fast, we will leave our soul behind.
This fascinating African tale reminds us of the danger of being left behind when we want to move too fast or when it becomes our main goal, if not the only one. Focusing our attention on the destination can shorten the time taken on the journey. However, this time taken from our senses will be the currency with which we will pay the price of arriving first.
Sometimes haste is also an excuse to ignore the pain that comes from our wounds. We avoid them, we don't pay attention to them, but they don't stop being present and limiting us. We believe that ignoring them will make them disappear. Perhaps in many cases this happens, but in other cases the wounds will need other care, for example to be disinfected or some stitches. Distinguishing one from the other continues to be an expression of emotional intelligence.
Wounds take time to heal
We can ignore our emotional wounds for a long time, but that won't stop them from leaving their mark in the brain. We know, in fact, that all the traumas experienced and everything that had a strong emotional impact on us during childhood follows us into adulthood. If we don't look at it, if we don't stop to reflect on what happens to us in order to be able to resolve it, the wounds will not heal, they will remain open.
All the negative experiences we have leave a deep neurological mark and will continue to bleed as we try to ignore them. Strength very often has nothing to do with gritting your teeth and continuing. Instead, it has to do with looking at the precipice and finding a way to build a bridge that allows us to cross it.
We talk about looking sadness in the eyes to understand what it wants to tell us, about finding a way to use the energy that negative emotions emanate without harming anyone, about giving a breather from the anxiety so that it resumes its normal rhythm: that frequency where it can help and give us breath, instead of consuming it.
What happens to our soul when we don't stop and try to carry on as if nothing had happened? That if the precipice is very large, our normal stride will not be enough to overcome it, so we will end up falling into the void. In this way we transform difficulties that we could have previously solved by ourselves and in a short time, into very serious difficulties for which we will need help and more time.
The situations that push us to the limit are those that contain more teachings. But to get out of them stronger, we have to look inside ourselves and learn from everything we have experienced.
We intelligently evaluate our emotions. They carry a message for us, intelligence consists in deciphering it. Our attitude, therefore, must be such as to give us the possibility to do so, otherwise we will end up being surrounded by emotions that will make us feel very uncomfortable in our own ego.
We get lost in the sea of ​​responsibility, which very often becomes an immense carpet under which to hide our problems. Moving forward is important, but it is more important not to miss what happens as we move forward. By just looking straight ahead, ignoring the pain of our soul, we waste our time. The same time that runs away from the wounds that we do not close and that need to receive affection, not to be ignored.
