It is and always will be: You vs You.

We have but one single priority on this earth and that, for me is to leave it slightly better than when we came into it. This isn’t by making grand, loud proclamations. But by the most complex, self-realising way, and that is addressing what is unwell within us. I challenge you to reflect on this for a moment.

?See, when it comes down to it, the material world has no real significance. Sure, the creature comforts make this life-transit that much more enjoyable. Believe me I am after some of them myself. ?? But by reflecting on the world, myself, my soul, doing the work I do. Which by the way I am still in awe of. I have come to see that when it is all said and done, all that matters is how we feel deep inside. With no correlation to the outwardly achievements that are so subjective and neither the people we are honoured to have relationships with, in whatever dynamic.

?The deep, subjective, lonely, personal, mostly unconscious, relationship we have with ourselves. This is something that requires our deepest curiosity as this is all we will ever be in true conflict with.

?When it comes down to it, the soul is constantly reckoning with itself. Of this there is no escape:

• What am I doing to heal all the pain and suffering I am harbouring?
• How will I open my heart to allow all this suppressed suffering to be relieved?
• How will I make peace with all I have deemed wrong along my journey?
• How can I face the deepest, darkest, and worst parts of me without shame and guilt?

The mind, the body, the emotions, they are all totally personal. By whatever means we may find external gratification, escapism, love…they will only ever be but projections of needs we are desperate to source from within.

Here’s a more personal note. I have used my body to carry me through many tough emotional challenges all my life. The body is designed for this. But when we do not deal and heal “dark” emotions, ones that we are most unconscious of (by making them conscious) they wreak havoc on the body. I saw this in the way I consumed sugar, or how one drink of alcohol lead to a drunken stupor or how relentlessly I punished myself with over thinking errors of poor emotional judgement. It wasn’t a lack of self-control it was a liberation from the ever draining “dark” emotions. It was a brief moment from the ever-continuous running away from myself.

Now, I am healing my stuff, I am teaching myself how to cope better with emotional turmoil. I am learning the arts of love, forgiveness, compassion, letting go, coming home, opening my heart and many others I was oblivious to for so many years. Arts we “learn” but require quite some “unlearning” too.

Now my body, with it’s many various uses is one of my biggest communication devices. My body speaks and I listen. And in doing so I am less volatile, less influenced by external happenings, I am way more at peace and it show’s in my energy levels and connection levels and mostly importantly and profoundly in how I treat myself. From the smallest acts to the biggest.

This is my idea of leaving the world a better place. By doing the one thing we all have sole and complete responsibility over…. our minds and hearts and all they are tormented with. How we can ease the suffering within which then contributes to reducing the suffering in the world.

There is always the option to avoid this tough albeit deeply rewarding work. But the cost is always detrimental. In one dynamic or another. Either our kids will have to do it, or our relationships pick up the mess, or our health gives in, or we be forever controlled by external vices leading to a lifetime of deep sadness and unfulfillment. We make that choice when we choose to not do the work. It is an indirect yet just as impactful decision.

There is no middle ground. There is no pause while we avoid ourselves. What we do not improve only decomposes.

The question I leave you with to ponder on: What would the best version of me “feel” like and what is it that is stopping me from achieving that version?

"In actual life, it requires the greatest art to be simple. And so, acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem, and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life. That I feed the beggar - that I forgive an insult - that I love my enemy in the name of Christ - all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all - the poorest of all beggars - the most impudent of all offenders - yea the very fiend himself - that these are within me? And that I myself stand in need of the arms of my own kindness. That I myself am the enemy who must be loved, what then?

Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed. There is then no more talk of love and long suffering. We say to the brother within us: Raca(Empty-headed/Fool), and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world. We deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves, and had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed."