It Almost Got Me

For the last three weeks I have been feeling out of sorts. First I thought it was my allergies, then my thyroid and for a second I wondered if it was Covid. My symptoms were so disparate and all over the place. Some days I just felt general malaise and other times I felt like I was in a cold medicine fog. I figured that I should probably detox at least I would be able to tell if it was the result of not eating well. So this week I decided that juicing and vegetables it would be. I also incorporated a gallon a day of alkaline water along with my daily seamoss and ginger. Today is day four and I just had a heaviness in the pit of my stomach that felt overwhelming, but my head was suddenly clear. After a good cleansing cry, I was able to pinpoint what had been ailing me. I was reminded of the movie the Green Mile. The main character of the movie John Coffee. He had an incredible gift of being able to heal and feel what other people were feeling. He was able to see into their souls and feel everything that they were experiencing whether it was positive or negative. This gift ultimately became the characters curse because he was in a situation where the only feelings he was surrounded by were negativity and hate. Absorbing all of this became physically debilitating, ultimately leading to his demise. Much like John Coffee, I realized that I had been inundated with other people’s thoughts, feelings and emotions, many of which were negative and hateful. The hatred I was witnessing in this world, social media and other media had begun to literally eat me alive. Whatever this was that I was feeling had made me feel like a visitor in my own body and like I had stepped outside of myself. It was as if I was watching myself being chased by something, something dark and powerful. I saw myself running, but the predator was faster and stronger than I and was closing in fast. As it came closer it became harder to breathe and more difficult to see and hear what was in front of me. For sometime I have been feeling like I am dreaming, but I am wide awake. Like an epiphany, I can now see that the dark looming figure that was chasing me and inhabiting my thoughts was despair. It was settling into my thoughts and working its way to my heart and soul. My physical detox allowed for my brain to recognize that my spirit and soul needed to be detoxed as well. I had been absorbing the hatred and anger of others to the point of causing me to feel physically ill. I share this so that you may spare yourself and learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of this illness so that you will not succumb to despair. We are in spiritual warfare and the prizes are human souls. Souls are being stolen and in some cases given away all in the name of despair disguised as negativity and hatred. Despair begins with a single thought, that thought morphs into fear, the fear morphs into desperation, eventually settling into full fledge despair. In parallel to the spiritual war, it is no secret that we are on the verge of a race war. People are putting their stakes in the ground on the side of black or white. Many are using codes such as the right and left, Republican and Democrat, but most of the issues are deciding if you are on the side or racism or anti-racism. People have been arming themselves with information in hopes of being able to use it as weapons against others. Because in its early stages despair begins as the seed of fear, people often lose the ability to decipher fact from fiction which results in irrational thoughts and actions. The fear causes the person to see the world through tunnel vision that allows them to create an alternate reality in which they are able justify negative thoughts and behaviors. The desire to be victorious by any means necessary is the life force through which despair takes hold of its host. More contagious than a virus, despair begins with a rationalized anger causing an all consuming fear rooted in false narratives. If you are flooding information into your brain unfiltered, this will make you become at risk for contracting despair. Signs and symptoms include moodiness, exhaustion, depression, and mental haze. You also begin to merely exist and no longer live. You ultimately become hopeless. If not caught in time, despair will ravage your faith and cause you to put merit and credence into people or objects. You lose all focus on a higher purpose and being. You will eventually become an empty vessel that just goes through the motions of life devoid of any semblance of happiness. Despair will eat away at your soul until you feel that life has no meaning. It will suck the air out of the room making it difficult for you or others around you to breathe. Others will notice something different about you, but not in a good way, almost as if you are transforming to something else right before their eyes. In my case my children recognized it first. They were constantly asking me what was wrong. My oldest just kept telling me that I looked sad. I didn’t realize that every breath was taking maximum effort and physically exhausted. I know that just like Covid, this seems like a daunting and scary disease. Do not fret, because unlike Covid there is a cure. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to believe that you can sequester yourself from the world, ignoring everything that is going on around you in and in the world. We must be informed and aware of what is happening; however, we must be able to process the information in a thoughtful and pragmatic way. The information must be filtered. The most effective filters are created from your purpose. You must find that thing within the information that resonates with your purpose and you must act against it in a positive manner. You must always ask yourself how you facilitate and create energy that will either propel the momentum of that purpose or how your purpose may be able to halt those things that are not aligned with it. It is imperative to know that when information is taken in, something must be released or it will create a pressure cooker within your mind and soul. If it is held and internalized for too long, you will create the optimum conditions for despair to take root. Much like Covid, this parasite can be controlled and avoided through social distancing. You must avoid those that have already contracted it either through physical, virtual or metaphoric avoidance. You should also use filtered masks to avoid contracting despair. Your filters against despair are grace and faith. Grace will allow you to have empathy against those that are in the stages of fear, hate or despair and faith will reveal the plan to stop it in its tracks. Despair can only take a willing host, so it is important to never lose your will to live within your purpose and pursue it with voracity. Despair almost got me, but a physical detox led to a mental and spiritual cleansing that has strengthened the effectiveness of my grace and faith filters. I will not meet anger with anger or hate with hate. My words and desire to listen with the intent to seek to understand will be my shield against despair. If I keep my immune system strong so that despair cannot take hold of me, my ability to know where to focus my energy will be heightened and made clear. I would advise you to find your weapons of purpose and use those everyday. Every action must have and equal and opposite reaction, which is why evil must be met with good, hate must be met with love and lies must be met with the truth. I guarantee the strategy will work. We are not trying to win the battles we want to win the war. It almost got me, but I was able to shake it loose, don’t let despair catch up to you!