Great topic, and one very close to my heart/mind.
I had an experience which the doctors called bi-polar and psychotic.
I KNEW it was spiritual.
Turns out it was Kundalini rising.
In the three years since, I have experienced a spiritual rebirth. During this time, I experienced depression, and confronted my great fear that I WAS crazy.
My take on mental illness is that it is our SOUL crying out for help. Our brain stops functioning well and we feel AWFUL because we are completely out of alignment with our internal truth.
It's a huge wake-up call to make some pretty big changes in one's life.
Medication and therapy can help support these changes, but ultimately, they only treat the symptoms of mental illness and not the cause.
We are spiritual beings, and our mind is just a tool, like our hands or our arms. Just like too much pressure on a leg the wrong way can break it... so can too much pressure on the mind the wrong way "break" it.
It was really tough to dig out my true self, because this self perceived the world so differently from the 'norm'. It brought up a lot of fear about being an outsider, not fitting it... etc.
But now that I am here, I am SO glad I have had the courage to walk this path.
That blackness we experience is there for a reason. It's a motivating force calling us to confront our truths and LIVE those truths.
That so many of us are experiencing mental illness speaks to me of the collective calling our of our Souls... it is time to wake up, to know the Self as Consciousness.
When it comes to dealing with mental illness and seeing it as an opportunity to awaken the True Self, behavioural and cognitive is not always going to be enough. This approach doesn't work with the consciousness - that part of you that IS the divine, is God, is All.
I found yoga and meditation absolutely invaluable in my rebirthing experience - both taught me that I am not my mind, nor my emotions, nor my body. I am the eternal all that is, as are You.
I have written extensively about this on my site if anyone's interested.
Much joy,
KL |