People who are working on this Life Lesson don’t feel whole. They feel incomplete. In order to feel better, they need to find something or someone to their life. It could be anything: work, education, food, alcohol, drugs, gambling – anything that in excess can become an addiction. The goal of the Lesson consists of learning to be WHOLE without adding anything to oneself. To learn how to “just be”.
Ivan, 39 years old, a manager in a small construction company, and is married. Ivan met his wife when he was 20 years old. He married for love and had 2 children. In the beginning, they lived quite happily, but then Ivan started to drink. Not that he became an alcoholic: after work, a couple of beers, and during the weekend – a get together with friends. It continued for many years. Not surprisingly, one day, the wife took the kids and left and Ivan started having problems at work. The managers got sick of seeing a “tired” worker and the frequent “illnesses” brought the situation to its boiling point. Ivan got fired. Oddly enough, it all coincided, the leaving of the wife and the job loss. And so, a pretty young guy left all alone, with no family or work… At this critical moment for Ivan, we met.
During the séance, I found out that Ivan grew up in a family where the father also liked to drink. He would come back from work and, in order to relax, he would drink. He drank with friends, as well as alone. Since the father was an absolute authority for little Ivan, this behavioural model was stamped into the little boy’s mind. “Since dad drinks, than nothing will happen to me as well”. Until Ivan came to me, he couldn’t understand from where he got the assurance that “a drink or two is ok” (his father used to say it all the time). With this phrase and with his behaviour, Ivan’s father gave him an energy stamp. So, Ivan’s desire for a drink comes from an energy stamp. That means that he can be healed from this dependence completely. In the beginning, Alcoholics Anonymous can be of great help. After Ivan defeats his dependence, he will simply have to learn how to relax in a different manner. It could be an activity such as a sport, hobby, or a creative process. Of course, it requires willpower from Ivan and I really hope that he will succeed!
Marina, 30 years old, a journalist, married with no kids.
Marina is a very active, smart, and a charming young woman. She is the kind of woman who finds happiness when she’s constantly active. In Marina’s case, it is work. She has a lot of energy for which she constantly finds outlets such as socializing with people, writing articles, and participating in community organized events.
As a whole, Marina seems totally satisfied with her life, and yet something started bothering her. She started to suffer from insomnia, sometimes she falls into depression spells without reason. In general, though she is healthy.
So what is the problem?
Marina is working on the Lesson of Being. This Lesson often implies dependence. Marina doesn’t feel whole, that is why she seeks to become whole using her job. Marina is a workaholic. Only at work, in light (and sometimes heavy) stress, in her constant usefulness to someone, she feels happy. So it’s good, you say – someone gets a good worker. That’s all! However, amidst this desire to be constantly useful, Marina completely forgot how to relax. She is constantly under stress, she has so much work that she can’t relax even for a minute. If, before, her energy was overflowing and her health didn’t suffer, by the age of 30, her inability to relax lead to insomnia and depression seemingly out of the blue. Her body and psyche simply cannot take it any longer.
In this case, in order to go through the lesson, the energy matrix is involved. Meaning, Marina will always want to add something to herself from the outside in order to feel whole. However, this doesn’t mean it has to be work! A person can find a different dependence, one that will be beneficial to both mind and body. For example, sports or art. Mastery, in this life lesson, is the ability to switch the dependencies. In the moment that the dependence becomes harmful, she needs to find a new one, one that will bring pleasure and won’t be harmful to the body or mind. The solution to the problem will be learning how to switch.
So what should Marina do?
First of all, she needs to stop and take a vacation. She needs to leave somewhere, preferably alone. That is, she just needs to take some time in a quiet environment and think about her life.
Second, she must find something, besides work, that will bring her pleasure. A certain hobby. It’d be good to remember what brought her pleasure as a child. Childhood, like litmus paper, will help show the true passions of her soul. For instance, Marina used to love to draw, but with her grown up life spinning so fast, drawing disappeared from her life. So, she could try to take up drawing again. After all, when a person draws, at least for sometime, the person takes a pause and the soul relaxes. What if she’d draw twice a week? Or at least on the weekends?
Third, Marina must learn to switch to other things besides work. Finish her work day – and go home! To stop thinking about tomorrow’s reports, don’t take the work home. The brain can’t work 24 hours a day! The soul needs to rest!
Life is not endless, and there are things in it besides work! It is still very hard for Marina to understand this. She is young and still has lots of energy. What she must understand, is that until she’s able to control her dependence on work, she won’t learn how to switch and relax and her health will suffer because of that!
