Caught in Survival Mode: Part Three- You Never Know What Seeds of Wisdom May Bloom Down the Road

I wouldn't be where I am today without the challenges, trials, and dark nights of the soul that pointed me to where I am truly meant to be. Sometimes it really does taking losing our minds to find our souls, and this is one of the gems coming out of my journey in 2010.

See, my pilgrimage to India revealed a deeper recalibration that occurred right before my 3 days of survival mode hit with force. I was trying to keep up with temple touring with my friends. The pace was fast, and yet, I knew we were on a time crunch to see every temple before they closed, so I did the best I could. At one point, I tripped and was magically caught by an unseen force that prevented me from hitting the pavement. At that moment, an all-too-familiar whisper arrived in the core of my heart. "You're misaligned, my dear. This isn't where you belong. Temple touring and religiosity is not where you find me the most. Remember the forest, remember the river. Remember the essence that all life is sacred and holds meaning. I speak in symbols and metaphors, remember? That is where I reveal myself to you."

Upon returning back to my room, I immediately ended up in survival mode. Three days of being stuck in a tiny room with a less-than-ideal bathroom, noise all around me, and feeling awful in the process. Three days to ponder this whisper, feel the grief of misalignment, and process what it all meant. The paradoxes found in India were many as I returned home feeling broken, depleted, and confused with sprinkles of magic and joy intermixed.

It would take 4 months before the deeper recalibration would reveal itself and shift my mindset from feeling broken by my time in Vrindavan to feeling recalibrated back to the deepest and most magical part of who I am.

There was a moment during my steroid-induced mania in 2010 where I heard that same whisper offering deep wisdom and guidance within the insanity. "You know you don't need all these scriptures, right? You have the deep wisdom residing right within you. It's the heart, the essence, and the love you emanate that matters most. Plant seeds through speaking essence, witness the ways I appear in metaphors, symbols, and your time in nature. This is where your personal magic resides."

This connection has been made within the last week and is offering me an opportunity to continue to recalibrate parts of my life, experience, and ways of being in this world that need to be shed so I can honor what has been revealed. I feel my own survival mode of these deep transitions slowly lifting as I continue to embrace the essence of who I am and step forward with authenticity, values, and a deeper purpose guiding my path forward.

Making this connection helps me understand where my greatest gifts reside and is offering me the courage to lean into that whisper that is far wiser than my monkey mind ever could be. Beating to my own drum, experiencing life in my own way, and remembering essential spirituality rooted in honoring our messy human experience is how light and love shine brightly.

I want to leave you with a poem that deeply resonates with my lived experience, and the profound wisdom found in my own times of survival. This poem comes from Hafiz. He says:

Don’t surrender your loneliness

So quickly.

Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you,

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so tender,

My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.

by Daniel Ladinsky, a rendition of Hafiz

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In loving service,

Dr. Stephanie Nartaki Heinhold