When Life Feels Too Much, Use The Portal...
Life can feel very overwhelming at times, perhaps you're feeling that way right now.
I want to give you a little passage from a book I am writing that can help you through the hard times. Enjoy :)
The Portal
Here is a tool for you if you ever find yourself in despair and overwhelm, and things feel just too much. Take a moment and imagine that a large, round portal opens up in front of you now. Through this portal is a window into the future. As you peek through the portal, you notice it opens up into a hospital. You see a hospital bed. Lying on the bed, you see you. It is your future self, old, grey-haired, wrinkled. As you look into the eyes of this future you, who sits up and gives you a smile, as if awaiting this moment, you realise intuitively what you are seeing: you are viewing what appears to be your last day on this planet.
You look into the eyes of this aged face: different, yet familiar. Your future self stares at you, their eyes kind and full of wisdom. They give you a little chuckle, a little reminder that what you are going through right now is perhaps not as serious as you may feel it is, as they lay there now, hours before death. Perhaps you can ask this future self for some advice: listen to their wisdom, take a moment. And as you spend time with this future self, really staring into their eyes, recognising that they will be gone in just a few moments, the things you have been worrying about now begin to feel a lot more trivial. As you look at yourself on this bed, death just mere minutes away for you, all of your problems begin to feel less heavy. You realise everything you have been stressing over doesn’t matter that much, the heaviness dissolves.
Keep the portal open in your mind’s eye for as long as you need to. Perhaps you can listen as your future self thanks you for having stuck through all of the pain and hardship, and reminds you that you will make it through. Eventually, you both laugh together, kindness and forgiveness in your hearts. The importance of what you have been stressing about feels less heavy now; you realise life isn’t as serious as we often think. This portal is a reminder that you will leave this planet one day, never to be seen again. This is a fact. But right now, you are here, for this brief moment of life in this form. Do things feel less heavy now? Does the trivial no longer feel that important? Do the things that actually matter start to feel more pleasant? Time with your loved ones, time in nature, good food, doing activities you enjoy.
This is the power of meditating on your own mortality. To meditate deeply on the fact one day you will die, and perhaps be forgotten in a generation or two. This forces the ego to move aside pretty quickly. And as this ego deflates, what is left is your timeless presence. You recognise there is no death, death is merely the end of form. But what about the formless? The formless presence that you are? No one knows what happens when form dies. But one thing we do know: it is timeless, immortal, and impenetrable. It must remain. There is no disputing this fact. Open up this portal whenever you need to, and just have another peek through. Your future self will always be there, as you are going through these hardships of life. Their kind, warm, wrinkled smile will always be in your mind’s eye, reminding you things aren’t as serious as you think they are. You will be dust in just a few moments. Take a breath. You’re doing just fine.
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