The Spirituality of Symbiotic Connection

We are connected.  To God, to life, to others, to ourselves, to our world.  But we don’t always take mindful advantage of these truths.  We can even negate such realities through addiction, poor choices, bargaining, compromise, and many forms of dissociation.  

I think symbiotic connection is a gift of intimacy.  We are intimate beings, geared for intimacy.  We were made to connect.  Deeply.  Zealously.  Without fear.

Intimacy is about being vulnerable, trusting the space we’re in, trusting others, trusting God, and yes, trusting ourselves.  But it has a prerequisite.  That’s safety.  We need to feel safe.  We need to break past and fast from the strains of the trauma bonds that constrain us—that can be an insurmountable challenge, but we can practice feeling safe a moment at a time.  Yet, the fact that we cannot let go and be vulnerable also gives us bearing for where we feel we need to go.

We will not be alive for very long, even if a whole year or decade seems long.  The older I get, the more conscious I am of the fleetingness of life.  This ought to motivate us to really fully experience what life has to offer—as much as we can.

Empathy is born of such a thing as the spirituality of symbiotic connection.  It is an amazing gift for ourselves and others.  We were made to empathise.

Highly sensitive people (HSPs) have a gift around this connection, but paradoxically, HSPs are also prone to trauma because they’re hyper-attuned.  Unfortunately, the world is sensory overload, and that’s felt deeper and harder by HSPs, yet to get the most out of life we have the head start.

Not everyone feels but to feel is to live—positive feeling.  We often don’t associate difficult feelings as if to live, but living in the moment of hardship, accepting the moment all the same, is the zenith, a spiritual pinnacle.

There are certainly gifts of cognition as well, and connecting with ourselves, others, and God—making meaning, going to unknown depths, perceiving miracles of discovery.

The spirituality of symbiotic connection is about adding experiences and information from experiences, deriving meaning from all these, and making meaning, and connecting all this with and attaching to the dynamics of others, ourselves, and God.

Identifying the source of your mental health crisis

Stepping our way through anything is a wise way of handling any challenge in life.  And it’s no different with a mental health crisis — whether it’s suddenly descended on us or has loomed large for a while.

I can think of two sample sources of mental health crises that serve as examples.  The first is relationship stress or breakdown.  The second is an identity crisis or a crisis of purpose.  It is helpful to at least recognise the component parts of causation to the crisis.

I find personally that I can deal with very large amounts of workload stress, but as soon as a key relationship is fractured or under strain, my resources of resilience are chewed up doubly quick.

Depending on our personality, too, we might find that crises of purpose and meaning can arise when suddenly we’re not needed.  Of course, it is actually a gift when we’re not ‘needed’ but if we derive our sense of value from being needed, we can quickly descend into despair because we may feel unworthy or surplus to requirements.  But time is a gift if only we can re-purpose the time and develop some structure of things that WE want to accomplish.

When relationships are strained or broken it can leave us overwhelmed with what to do, how to do it, how to respond, and it’s even worse when we don’t have any agency of control.  

Even knowing we don’t have control over certain situations helps somewhat, just in the identification of the fact.  It may seem forlorn to face the fact that we have no control, but then we can choose to let it go as there is no decision or action required of us, except to let go of what we cannot change.

It’s similar for those times or seasons where we’re devoid of purpose or meaning.  It feels horrible, of course.  But if we re-arrange our thinking to imagine that we have space to create or explore new initiatives, we feel empowered.  

If it means we simply need to look for work, we can resolve to courageously be open as we explore the possibilities with an open heart.

Knowing the source of our crisis is one step of awareness closer to action.

Often times we need the help of professionals, mentors, family, or good friends to identify the steps of recovery.  Navigating our way to recovery is a step by step process augmented by hope that we will arrive.

We can and do make it to our cherished destinations of peace, and the reclamation and the personification of joy, if we don’t give up.  

Identifying the source of our struggle is the important first step.