How Do We Know When We are Lost?

In our last article, we mentioned the idea of “living your truth” and questioning what that means. We talked about ways that culture brings us away from our true selves and brings us out of our integrity. How do we know when we are not “living in our integrity”? In chapter one of Martha Beck’s “They Way of Integrity” she highlights and describes the most common symptoms that, if we become aware, can indicate we are divided from our true selves and my oh my, have I experienced every single one of them.

We can begin to identify that we are in “the dark wood of error” or feel lost when we experience the following symptoms:

Feeling Purposeless. Oftentimes we allow society to tell us what success looks like (and it usually involves money, lots and lots of money). If we focus on our ambitions and end up feeling unsatisfied, this could tell us that we are seeking the wrong things and signal to ourselves to reevaluate our values internally, not what we are “supposed” to do. I think I ended up in education because my parents were both educators and obtaining a college degree and landing a steady job was seen as “success” but I never stopped to question if teaching aligned with my true nature. Through a lot of hardship, I ended up discovering that it was not and ended up pursuing school counseling. While I am glad I did pursue another path, it did not come easily and there was a lot of struggle along the way. Struggle that could have been avoided if I had this knowledge earlier.

Emotional Misery. When repeated and persistent negative emotions find their way into your daily life, this can be an obvious sign that we’ve steered away from our integrity. What emotions could signal to you that you’re out of alignment? Anxiety? Depression? Anger? Jealousy? Panic? Pay attention; while these emotions are challenging, they can also be a wake up call to us that something is off and needs our attention.

Physical Deterioration. Have unexplained pain or illness? Western medicine often looks for a cause and tends to treat symptoms, but often our bodies are trying to tell us something and they need to be treated from within. I remember waking up for months in college, unable to open my mouth because of unbearable pain in my jaw; but the reason remained a mystery to me. Why didn’t I learn to connect my emotional and mental state to symptoms in my body? It is so obvious to me now that I was under extreme stress and working incredibly hard in classes I felt no passion for. Ding, ding, ding….out of integrity!

Consistent Relationship Failures. If you feel constantly drained or strained with friends, family, co-workers, or romantic relationships the relationships you are forming are likely based in the dark wood of error. Beck states that the path to true love, true anything, is the way of integrity. This is the work we will be doing in our online book club. Finding strategies, habits, and practices to get us closer to our integrity and in return, our relationships will strengthen.

Consistent Career Failure. Ever feel like the demands of your career have taken you away from the passion that got you into it in the first place? Of course we all need to make a living, but if we are seeking achievements that others define for us or if we spend our time rising through bureaucracies, we may end up crashing and burning. How can we pursue a career that truly matches our instincts and desires?

Habits We Cannot Break. Hello bad habits! I am quite familiar with you…shopping, emotional eating, drinking, binging tv, these are all habits that signify my coping skills may need to be reevaluated. Do these things bring me closer to who I want to be or further away? I have found this is a helpful question to ask yourself when you are turning to habits on autopilot.

In addition to identifying the symptoms of the dark wood of error, we must also question the lessons and stories we have been taught by our culture. Our culture teaches us all the ways to “be better” and Beck describes this as climbing “Mount Delectable”. If we are constantly working and striving for the things that aren’t right for us, then we will most definitely end up overworked, exhausted, and unfulfilled. How awful is that? We tend to measure our own well-being not by how we feel, but rather how we compare to others. In a culture with all the tools that allow us for constant comparison, we believe that we will feel better when we’re “above” others in some socially defined way.

When we crave things we’ve been taught to want, we lose track of our deepest desires. And amazingly, research has shown that even across cultures, there are few universal desires for all human beings: peace, freedom, love, comfort, and belonging.

We would love for you to join us in our online book club, starting in late January, where we will discuss these interesting topics and work together to discuss ways that move us away from suffering and towards a life that we deserve. A life filled with peace, freedom, love, comfort, and belonging.