A few weeks ago I set out to answer a question I found on musing.io, posed by @naturalmedicine. "Do people on an awakened path experience more pain and suffering as part of the process?"

The first part of my answer to that can be found here, though I never really finished the post. I meant to come back to it sooner, but life gets in the way... often. So now I'm going to do that, while also making an entry in the Powerful Truth, Terrible Lie contest from @freedomtribe.

Maladaptation as Mysticism

As the fad of commercialized pop-culture witchcraft and New-Agey style beliefs has risen, there are a great many sources out there ranging from the cutesy to the downright distorted. There's nothing we can do to stop it, and the exposure, while sometimes a bit cringey, is probably going to help folks in the long run. I expect the whole fad will have blown over in about 15 years, with the inevitable Moral Panic ensuing. Same as always... rinse, repeat. My cabal of crabby old witches and I have discussed it at length, and we're taking a "wait and see" approach...

Furthermore:

Some years ago, while browsing through my overwhelming (at the time) notifications about far too many pointless things I found something that wasn't at all pointless, and it's stuck with me for quite a while now. And this was by no means harmless, faddish fun. This was bad juju. The post was in an Empath support group, as someone posed a question:

"I wonder if a traumatic past somehow creates Empaths, since so many of us have a history of abuse?"

For those not in the know, the concept of the Empath is someone who is keenly aware of the psychic energy around them, and even feels the emotions of other people. It's a very taxing gift/curse to be afflicted with, as enormous energy is required for this particular sort of supernatural power... Also there is another term for these phenomena, particularly in those with a history of abuse.

Hypervigilance and Poor Boundaries

Both of these are common symptoms of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is one of the consequences of prolonged abuse. Hypervigilance is a state of permanent sensory arousal, as the body had adapted to be on the lookout for danger at all times, forever. There is no going back, as this takes place on an endocrine systemic level. These instincts predate even the Vertebrate Kingdom of animals. Once it has been engaged, there is no way back. Quite simply, a River of No Return, as I mentioned in my last post. But it can be navigated.

Poor Boundaries, most often accompany a weak sense of personal autonomy (popularly known as neediness) due to the abused never having a stable platform for pursuing independence as a critical time of personality formation. And that in no way is a River of No Return.

Photo by shayan abedi on Unsplash

One cannot override their own endocrine system, or rebuild their brain on a molecular scale, but they can most certainly re-train themselves (like any beast) to abandon needy behaviours, create a stable environment of their own (not easy, in a world ready to drown you in endless distraction and outrage, but possible) and re-invent their personality. It's long, arduous, painful, and you'll likely lose some friends along the way, but it most certainly can be done. The key to this, however, is Awareness. And this is where it ties into the @naturalmedicine query:

How much personal awareness is lost on those journeying on an Awakened Path?

There is a concept which I refer to as Spiritual Transference, wherein somebody plumbs the depths of the supernatural world for answers to very down-to-earth problems. And this is folly. As I wrote in my earlier post, I found a host of spiritual band-aids for the wounds of my youth; but until I started performing some very dirty, painful truths concerning my own culpability for those wounds; I was never able to put them in perspective, and take action. So I spent decades looking for answers while denying the truth. And when those truths finally started being revealed, Holy Shit was I devastated. I was slowly remembering observations that I had made over the course of decades, and denied due to being WrongThink.

There is a terrible new trend (which is really as old as the hills) of seeking out a mystical excuse for personal irresponsibility. One might not have started out that way, but it's quite easy to fall into a pattern of ignoring the very small, everyday choices that one can make, that will persistence; will lead to enormous change in one's life. When you can blame your poor spending habits on Mercury Retrograde, or Bad Karma, or "The devil made me do it", it's really quite convenient to keep yourself impoverished.

Trust me, I know The Devil; and your 4th trip to Hardees this week is nowhere on Her Grace's day-planner, Wendel.

Lay one finger on Toto, buddy, and these ruby slippers are gonna find a new home...

And I'm talking financially, in this case. Dollars and STEEM. Since so many of life's woes are tied to finances, these tiny, daily choices make the difference between a future of humble abundance, and one spent just barely scraping by in an extravagant fashion. The same goes for virtually anything. Making excuses for yourself leads to making excuses for others, and auras don't mean shit when it comes to abusers, of all stripes and patterns, especially needy self-abusers.

I'm not trying to minimize the gravity of this situation in any way, because I can sadly guarantee, that somewhere in the world right now, there's some poor confused kid who thinks that working blood-magic into their self-harm makes it "okay'. It doesn't. It never will. Anyone who knows the first thing about either would be aghast at such a prospect in both directions. And if that sounds extreme, just keep in mind the "Ana" (pro-anorexia) support groups that the FBI was shutting down ten year's ago.

Please don't confuse what I'm saying with a denial of Witchery, magic, empathic works, spiritualism or any other path of self-transformation, nor some nihilistic proscription. I am very well aware of the existence of the gods, and to be quite honest, I wouldn't have made it back from Hell without their intercession. But I am saying, that an Awakened Path can somewhat blind a person to some of life's most vexing problems, and the decidely Old-Timey, even quaint, solutions to them.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

There's nothing like a log of personal interactions and observations about people (once quaintly known as a diary) to help a person overcome neediness. There's also nothing like a log of one's Awakened Journey to help one grow further. These are one and the same thing: A record for reflection and personal accountability.

Just come up for air every once in a while.

Grace to the Gracious,

Silas Danois