I get this type of question more often than not from clients…and it’s posed in a few different ways. I too have asked myself from time to time “what the hell is going on with me?!”

But the gist of the feeling (or question) is something like this…  “I’ve lost interest in people, friends, work or family”, a gnawing feeling of dread and/or anxiety… the loss of curiosity for studying, or spiritual growth… and sometimes the total bottoming out of energy which often gets labeled “depression”.

It’s hard for me to communicate or deliver the fundamental question to clients because we are so “in it” (in the experience of it) that we miss a crucial stage.

In my world, there are two categories of complaints we as humans express.

There are the symptoms of a situation or issue (which has the most acute form of attention), and then there are root issues… which would be the deeper question or “cause” for the complaint.

”Why am I here?”

“What’s the meaning of life?”

“What am I suppose to be doing with myself?”

“Why am I so unhappy?”

From time to time, I run across some pretty amazing (simple) practices that I for one, can appreciate. Keeping my spiritual practices simple, consistent, and SHORT….has become my way of staying connected. I like what Dan has to say here (below) and how easy it is to experience a “moment” of what some try to achieve hourly, or even worse….expect YOU to do all the time! Pressure is the worst of all experiences. Take the pressure off…and have a moment.

“Take your keys, a piece of fruit, or any handy object, and go outside. Throw the object up into the air. Staying relaxed and easy, catch it. (Be sure to catch it.) Then come back inside, and continue reading this exercise.

Consider the moment the object was in the air. At that moment you weren’t thinking of what you’d have for dinner or what you did yesterday. You weren’t thinking of anything else, either. You may have been attending to thoughts before you threw it or after you caught it, but during the throw, you were pure attention, reaching out, waiting for the object’s descent. In that same moment your emotions were open, and your body was alert and vitalized–a moment of satori.” ~ Dan Millman from Body Mind Mastery

“Whatever comes and depletes you can be viewed as a vampiric image, and that doesn’t mean its always blood. It’s a human metaphor, a representation of a human dread that’s both frightening and exciting”. Check it out…. think about things that drain you, but still remain exciting. Things you may dread or are somewhat frightened by, but still remain stimulating.

The psyche is drawn to these things as curiosities… addictive oddities that mirror our own private fantasy worlds and yet can be repulsed by them at he very same time. The old style Carnival comes to mind…. the “freak show” and the foods that are served there. Damn how we love a good “show”!

Now I’ve become a “True Blood” junkie, and I think it’s odd how “drawn” I am to the plot and sexual imagery….Jeeze the metaphors are killing me!!! Just take a look at the overwhelming ratings for this program… “The audience for the series — an average of 6.8 million per week, counting all the repeats and on-demand viewings — has grown 66 percent since its debut in September” … fricking staggering… and it’s made me want to understand why.

WHY???…because we all have inside of us the urge to accept the undefinable, to long for phenomenon and heal our spiritual diabetic, to accept cross cultural (and species?) change. For god’s sake we created a LIGER! Dont you find that absolutely fascinating and sick?

So “here’s too” the subconscious shadow that lurks within us all…. may we one day STOP being so afraid to embrace our own inner vampire and learn to walk among the living… in the daylight… without having to steal approval for acceptance.