How To Overcome Negativity During Our Spiritual Journey

Hey, how you doing? Nick Hanson here from Cadre today. Hope you're having a good day. I wanted to talk a little bit about holes in our soul. Now, I don't think it's a prerequisite that you have to believe that we have a soul. I personally do. But it also, you know, I think this. This the way, you know, that we grow up, I think, in society, certainly with, you know, there's the Adam and Eve story about the fall from the garden, and we're broken, and, you know, we have this original sin, and we're somehow defective.

Whether that was the belief that you grew up with or not, I think it's. It's. It's. It's fairly common. I remember I had a first grade teacher. I went to a catholic school, said that we have black spots on our soul and that they need to be washed away. All these different things that we grew up with in some way that were unworthy or broken or damaged, and we need saving in that way. And so philosophically, I don't know. I don't want to get into all the theology and the religion. I just know that, for me, I think I did have this hole in the soul, so to speak, in some way.

For me, I filled that with alcohol and drugs, and that's how I got over that. And it worked for a while. It helped me to become able to talk to people, and it helped me to reach out and connect in ways that I. I wasn't able to before. It helped me to overcome this anxiety and fear inside. But pretty quickly after, I started having negative consequences as well. And for a long time, those negative consequences didn't outweigh the positive ones, but eventually they did. And I realized, you know, that I need to make a change.

And so today in my life, the is basically what has taken place of the drugs and alcohol as belief in a higher power. And the more that I try to define the higher power, the more that I think of it in a really intellectual way, kind of the further away I seem to get. But if I think about just keeping my heart open, keeping my heart open to new experiences, keeping my heart open to connecting and praying and meditating and trying to live a life of service, as opposed to, you know, just thinking about myself 100% of the time, because really, when I'm thinking about myself all the time, that's what I get in trouble.

That's when I get sad, you know? But if I'm thinking about how I can help you, and that doesn't mean that you want to give, give, give, and never, you know, receive or wear yourself out. You know, there's the talk about we need to put our own oxygen masks on before we can help you, you know, those about us. And when an ambulance driver is leaving the ambulance and they're going to the scene of an accident, they're trained to walk there because if they run, they may injure themselves, you know, on the way.

So it's this yin and yang. It's this balancing act that we're asked to do as humans. And sometimes, like a canoe, it will tip up too far one way, and we're giving so much that we don't have any. Any time receiver maybe tips up this way, and we're thinking so much about ourselves, you know, and I found that that's okay to go on this canoe as long as I kind of keep it floating down the river. And I need. I need my community, I need my connections, my family, my friends, my higher power to help me see when my canoe is tipped up too far one way or another.

And I think that's what happened for me with drugs and alcohol was it just tipped so far up that way, then I eventually capsized, and I needed more help. And, you know, with my bipolar diagnosis, it tipped up. You know, I got so manic, it tipped too far up one way, and I crashed. And I'm just really grateful and lucky that I was able to, you know, stay alive to enter this healing journey of wholeness on the other side of that, and so take it back to the holes in the soul. I don't know about all the grand theology.

I don't know if we are a fallen, you know, if we're fallen from the Adam and eve times or if we're born perfect and the world sullies us in some way, whatever it is, you know, I just want the message today to be, if you feel unworthy, that, a, you're not, b, that in my experience, it takes, you know, a lot of work and connection to work out of that. Like, I can't just snap my fingers and say, you're worthy now, Nick. Even though that's kind of what it is. Like, I have to uncover, discover, and discard this, and it's so much easier and more fun to do with others, you know?

And so I think you can just ask the universe, you know, help me to heal, help me to do the next thing that I'm supposed to do. Help me to open my heart today, help me to make progress. Progress. Help me to live with less fear. Help me to be. Help me to be whatever that that is, you know, or help me to just accept the way I am. Help me to surrender this, you know, because in my experience, the universe or this higher power or your higher self or your friends, you know, it might just be like the. I think it's the Joe Cocker song.

I just get by with a little help from my friends, and maybe that is your higher power is just the friends that are in your life. So my message to you today is to, when you're feeling that unworthiness, kind of take an opposite action and affirm that I am worthy. Maybe it's an affirmation. Maybe it's telling someone else that, hey, you're worthy, because some of the times, by encouraging others, aspire to inspire, and the universe is going to take notice. So we're in amazing times, and we're in difficult times.

It's the Christmas season. It's the COVID season. It's all. This is happening. So some of the time, too, I think you got to just take a step back and be like, hey, take a few deep breaths, in through the nose, out through a pursed mouth like you're blowing on a dandelion, and just chill as much as you. As you possibly can. I hope you're having a good day. I hope that you continue to walk on this path, because we're all walking on this path together, home, you know, and there's. There's no one is ahead of another person.

And not to throw another cliche at you, but comparison is the thief of joy. If I start thinking about what they've done or how much farther ahead of me or I'm here, or it ties back to the. What I have and what I want, you know, video from last night. But just keep doing it, you know, and ask for help. Ask for help. And whether that's from the universe or from your community, you know, because I know that you're probably very willing to help others, and they're going to be willing to help you, too.

So I hope you have a good day. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.