“Spiritual Growth or that Numb Feeling”

There was a man watching a movie about a young boy having a hard time learning calculus in high school. No matter what the young boy did it was almost impossible for him to comprehend calculus. He would go home and study, dig through his books, and become frustrated that he did not understand calculus at all. Even his teacher was unable to help him, and so you became very sad. And the man watching the movie had the very same thing happen to him. So while watching this on TV he was becoming very uncomfortable because the movie brought up unresolved issues and feelings from the past.

But there is one thing he did know, and as we go through life we have many different emotional challenges that come up. Sometimes we go through lots of emotional challenges in our 30s and 40s. And after that we think we're done with all of that emotional mess. So we dive deep into our worldly knowledge in order to keep our mind busy and make money.

Yet as long as we are alive, we have emotional spiritual issues that come up. And these issues must be resolved, or they create havoc in our daily life because we don’t want to deal with them. Take for instance a lady who constantly has an issue from the past coming up over and over again. And that issue is right in front of her, and she's feeling all those emotions, yet she’s not willing to touch it. Having gone through lots of counseling earlier in life, she now feels she’s through with all that stuff, and doesn’t want to look at it again.

But our emotional spiritual process of growing is just like a beautiful onion with the brown outer (old emotional issues) layer on the outside. And every time we have an emotional issue that we deal with we peel off another brown layer. And underneath the brown layer we find a white layer of onion (happiness). But before long that beautiful layer of white onion turns brown again, and that layer needs to be peeled away. And this happens every year after year…even to the day we die. Spiritual growth never takes a vacation, we either deal with spiritual emotional issues or we lock them up inside and become empty.

Many try to deal with the emptiness in the best way they can, by constantly eating, drinking, taking drugs, and even creating terrible relationships that keep their mind away from what's really bothering them. But none of that works, it’s just a process of numbing the soul so all those feelings don’t get in the way.

But there are a few people who are willing to look deep, and confront those issues, they are the brave ones. They are will to feel the pain, remember the suffering, and allow healing to fill the void… and thus healing fills the void with love.

They also start the process of loving the inner child, by telling their child that he or she is loved. That he or she is forgiven, and that the adult forgives himself for allowing what happened… to happen… perhaps even though the child had no control over the situation. But there is still guilt and shame that constantly bombards a person, and that guilt and shame comes up years later and needs to be healed. And it can only be healed with unconditional Love. And once we heal one issue, later another issue will come up and the whole process starts over again, day after day, month after month, year after year… until the day we take our very last breath.

Some would say that's terrible, but with every issue we deal with we find new freedom. We find exhilaration, amazing joy, and feelings of excitement about being alive. Thus in reality working through all the emotional spiritual issues that come up in life… is all worth it, because it's much better than being numb.

I wish every one of you, all the power and strength to dig deep, and in the end find that wonderful exhilaration, amazing joy, and feelings of excitement about being a alive… and with that comes great peace, contentment, and a love for everyone and everything.

Many Blessings to Everyone!

Dr. Paul Haider