Taking a vacation from the stress of work and daily routines is part of “normal life”. But what happens when you are tired of being yourself? You may not have ever considered the possibility that you could be “tired of your self”. Not only is this possible, it is unbelievably common. All you have to do is pause, think, feel, and evaluate if you are still excited about living the life that you live. It’s not just about telling yourself or thinking that you like the life you have — the truth lives in feeling. Things you once enjoyed, the purpose you once felt, may have long worn off. What now?
The reason most people don’t consider thinking about this question is because the answer is frightening — and what makes the answer frightening is you don’t know what to do if you realize that you are not happy with your life. The general options available are depression, self-help, therapy, or medication, all of which can feel “heavy” / dull / serious. Or a coach may suggest finding a new hobby, or considering another life path. But deep down you know there’s something more. Some part of you realizes that no matter what you “do”, you will never feel the contentment you so deeply desire.
The options that spirituality and new-age culture offer may seem appealing at first, but some way down the road you realize you are forcing yourself to “enjoy” life. You are being pushed to convince yourself that “the love and light are all around and you just have to believe it”. If therapy, spirituality, and self-help are not working the way they are meant to, most people believe it is their own fault. But rarely do people consider that the reason it may not be working is because of the person facilitating the experience. A lot of people will not consider that the person facilitating may not have it in them to make the experience adventurous and enjoyable.
Yes, figuring out yourself, working on deep issues, and recreating your life are meant to be deeply enjoyable activities — and the facilitator plays an important role in making it lively and fun. And the reality is that many facilitators do not know how to do this, because they themselves are not at peace, nor playful, nor joyful in their own lives. Getting a degree, doing a course, having a breakthrough, or even 10 of each of those, are not even close to what it takes to become peaceful, creative, and joyful in your life experience. This takes years of work and effort to break through deeply ingrained layers of conditioning that are present in every thought, belief, emotion, and behavior. We have layers and layers of conditioning that we repeatedly regress into, and a facilitator who has not gone through 1000s of regressions has no idea what it really takes to change. Only through these 1000s of regressions do you learn to stop taking things seriously and becoming playful and joyful in every mistake and failure, in every challenge and problem.
I’m not saying that everything is fun and games — there are dark and serious moments, there are painful experiences, there are times of pure anger and hatred on the path, yet the overall journey can be qualitatively different. And I am speaking from experience — having gone through it myself, and now also facilitating others’ experiences. You don’t just have to believe me, I’d rather you not. Nor is this purely a sales pitch because there are many people who can do the same, not just the author of this piece. The purpose of this article is to expose an idea that makes you consider and reconsider how you approach life.
In a manner of speaking, what has been described above may well be the definition of “burnout”. Except that is when you have no option left but to take a break from yourself. Your life / your unconscious have literally forced you into a break from whatever you are doing. These kinds of quarter-life and mid-life crises generally become a turning point for many people. But the direction in which life turns is a matter of luck if you don’t consider and put an effort into directing how you move forward and who you are working with.
I work with people in groups — the primary intention of this is to make people realize how everyone is going through the same struggles and challenges. And the amount you can learn in a group is significantly greater than any kind of 1–1 work. And while many may shudder at the thought of talking about their lives in front of other people, many are equally surprised at how easily they open up and share the most personal parts of their lives with people they have only known for a few days or weeks. I’ve trained and worked with hundreds of groups by now, and the story repeats over and over. We have had people coming in saying “no matter what, I will not speak in front of others”. And just days later they are pouring their hearts out. Not just “certain types of people who tend to be emotional”, we have the most typically closed and reserved people opening up spontaneously.
What changes for people is that their illusions about sharing in front of others are shattered. Sharing is generally associated with vulnerability, which is associated with judgment, criticism, and weakness. And some people believe this is the absolute experience of sharing in front of others — it’s always like this and it cannot be different. A lot of people have never been in a group where they are completely accepted, no matter what they share. Not only are you accepted, you are also supported and if required guided in processing whatever you are sharing. When you experience such a space, you automatically open up without hesitation, because you can feel the difference.
And this is a good thing. Not only is it good, it’s a relief! Years and decades of holding in everything can finally come to an end. People do not realize the weight of carrying their stories and the impact this has on their lives. Every unprocessed story you carry with you is occupying space and taking energy that could instead be invested in being more of you.
The feeling of contraction, of not having enough time and space, of feeling small and tired, exhausted by life and the battles you face everyday — all these feelings can change when you are in the right space. And there are many such spaces available today. All you have to do is look — and don’t settle for the first one you come across if it doesn’t feel right. The right fit is waiting for you, and if you settle, not only are you depriving yourself of the right support, you are also depriving others who may benefit from you.
“A Cruise for Your Soul” is an endless journey taking place in the Comads community. It is an experience where you can lighten yourself, take a break from being who you are, from who you believe you are supposed to be. Even take a break from who you believe you are meant to be, and truly explore if it is who you want to be. There is a tremendous difference in the two, and the sooner you find that out, the sooner you will relieve yourself of the burdens of purpose.
A life of purpose that is void of joy is not a life, it is a life-sentence.
The question is: “Does living with purpose serve the world more than living with joy?” If your purpose is based only in nobility and morality, if it is based in pleasing others and looking good, it is very likely there is no joy in this purpose. And such a purpose is a prison. And a prisoner is not serving the world, no matter how noble they appear. If you feel resentful and burdened by purpose, these feelings will be transmitted to every person you “help”.
What you feel spreads through what you do.
What you feel, spreads, through what you do.
If you feel joyful doing something, even if it looks meaningless or purposeless, you spread joy, and that is a purpose in itself. People think purpose is about what they are doing. When you think about it a bit more you may realize this is quite superficial, because the “what” is the story you tell yourself and others. “Look at what I am doing”. “Look how much I am helping others”. But helping people while feeling miserable just spreads more misery.
In my opinion, how you feel when you do something is significantly more important than what you do. Someone delivering mail joyfully is doing much more for the world than a secretly resentful philanthropist donating their millions. But most people will not see that because they are invested in the stories and appearances — and that is the unfortunate tragedy of the world. We are invested in the story more than the things that truly matter.
The Soul Cruise gives you the opportunity to reorient yourself and discover more options to experience life. It will not change anything by itself. It will simply give you a chance to explore possibilities. What you do with it is entirely up to you. See, this is the trick of self-help that most people never get. Self-help, therapy, spirituality — none of this does anything for you. Whatever you do, you do it by yourself for yourself.
You may go for a course and do things differently for some time —you may change some habits and behaviors, some beliefs and perspectives. But this is not the real you. This is your script. To change the real You requires an effort at a scale that is unimaginable to most.
Change is a lifestyle.
To change, you must know the real you. And this is where almost everyone fails. No one has any idea who they are. All they do is focus on changing their habits, their beliefs, their opinions, their stories. But no one has any idea who they are. So they never change. What changes are the stories you tell yourself about who you believe you are.
So how does one change? First step, find out who you are. How do you find out who you are? Well, that’s the idea of the Soul Cruise — You take a vacation from your Self. Only when you take a break from being you can you actually start figuring out who you are. Why? Because being you is a full time job! Not just a 9-to-5 full time job. No. This is a “24 x 7 x 365.25” full time job. And until someone stops that forever-running train to nowhere, well, it will keep running forever…
What am I hinting at here? “You” are not you. You are a story, maintained through habits, behaviors, and routines that are constantly activated by an endless barrage of internal and external triggers. All it takes to change this “you” is to change the triggers which will create a new set of behaviors, habits, and routines — a new story. But wait just a moment, what if you never changed? If you are the one who is acting out the story, you the actor just changed the script, but the actor remained the same. How about that?
If you, the actor, just keep changing the script but never stop acting, you are on the job, playing out some script or the other, 24 x 7 x 365.25. Do you realize that you the actor have not had a break for single second since the time you started playing your first script? Could you imagine working non-stop, without a break, for every single second of your life, forever? This is the real you. A slave to a story you never chose, and over which you have no real control. Even when you believe you are choosing the story, the choices available for your new story are often controlled by factors that are beyond your control.
Have you considered the option to just stop? We are constantly under pressure to belong to a story. And this story must follow the rules given to us by our family and society. At different stages, our story must follow different rules. “Be good”, “be kind”, “be benevolent”, “be loving”, be hardworking”, “be tough”, “be strong”, “be responsible”, “be loyal”, “be caring”. These are not qualities that most people have. These are the rules that most people have. All you have to do is prepend “you must” to each of the statements listed above — for example “You must be responsible”.
In an instant, this slight modification highlights how this is a rule, not a quality. And someone given this rule will act it out as a rule even if they possess the quality naturally. They will repress the quality in favor of the rule. And when these qualities become rules, they take on a compulsive nature. To be good is very different from acting “I must be good”. To be loving is entirely different from acting loving. It’s no longer spontaneous and natural. It is forced. It is artificial.
Our script is ceaseless. “What are you doing with your life?” “You must not waste a single moment”. “Life is too precious”. “Death is just around the corner”. “You are ungrateful if you are not making the most of every single moment”. “You Only Live ONCE!” Do Something! Be Something! Become Someone! Earn Respect! Be Loving! Do! DO! DO!!
STOP! Just Stop. This is an option.
Rest your Soul. Rest the actor. Rest your self.
A Soul need not wait till death to rest in peace.
A Soul can and even “should” be at peace while it is fully alive and experiencing an able body.
What if the world offered us the same options for our soul as it does for our bodies? Why doesn’t the world offer us such options? Ever considered that?
Why is it normal for our bodies to be massaged, and yet we have to wait for our death for our soul to rest in peace? Bizarre? I think so.
We, here, offer all kinds of soul services. Soul hotels, soul cruises, soul massages, soul rejuvenation, soul restoration, soul retrieval, soul spa, soul sports, soul food! Yes, we have a fully featured top-rated restaurant for your Soul!
Your Soul can be as full as your belly,
You just have to feed it the right food…
We live in an age of deep discontent, craving, and seeking. What if the only thing we are missing is the right food for our soul? Our souls are starving, and we are compulsively attempting to feed them with food that pleases our minds and bodies, but will never fulfill our souls. Attempting to fulfill your soul’s hunger with Netflix, alcohol, or drugs, is obviously going to leave your soul hungry. It is the same as trying to eat air while your stomach rumbles.
You have been looking forever, are you ready to find the answer? Yes, there is such a thing as being ready to find. Many people are content being eternal seekers (or more appropriately, eternal-ly disappointed seekers). Many other people are content in believing they have found “the answer”. Only few become real finders. What they find is not an answer. What they find is peace and joy— in the chaos and uncertainty. When you are ready, knock here.
Read some related articles or watch vodcast episodes:
Cancelled By Culture Since Birth | Ti0x #4
Don’t be grateful for the life “given” to you
What to do when Self-help is not working for you | Ti0x #3