Do You Believe in Spirit?

spirit | noun

1 : an animating or vital principle held to give life to physical organisms

Another many months have gone by without me managing to set any words down here. The intention is there but the execution loses all steam when the potential moment arises. I think it's because the only things that feel worth writing about not only don't lend themselves to words but are also utterly linked to overwhelmingly painful circumstances currently playing out in my life.

The more than decades-long practice of writing these missives has always reflected the convergence of my personal development through yoga practice and the unfolding of my professing to be a teacher. There were certainly times when those two threads seemed to fork and be at odds and I would look to these pages as a way to reweave them into something that felt authentic. More than ever before, both my personal unfoldment and professional offerings are leading to the same questions.

My daughter is suffering and I don't know what to do.

In the last four months, my 7 year-old daughter has developed what appears to be severe OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder.) If you have been reading these posts for as long as I have been writing them then you know that I would normally avoid wanting to reduce someone’s experience to a clinical diagnosis but when your little girl abruptly becomes so incapacitated as to no longer be able to function in basic ways, any lens that helps get your mind around what is happening becomes necessary.

The common cultural narratives around having a personality that is overly obsessive or particular about things is nothing like the clinical condition of OCD, which is considered to be the seventh most debilitating mental disorder a person can have. There is research behind treatments that have been shown to work but still involve threading a fine needle as its presentation is completely individual, illogical, and confusing. There is no way to understand the depths of despair that push a mind into desperate compulsion beyond control. It's impossible to imagine the helplessness of bearing witness to it in your child.

I am grateful for the science that I am relying upon but it is not enough.

By an act of grace, we have been able to secure some medical care for my daughter. It wasn't easy though. 80% of child psychiatrists and therapists are not accepting new patients and among those that are, there is an average waitlist of six months. Even when you finally get an appointment, there are no guarantees that the medication will help or that your child is going to be in a place to "do the work" that the therapy demands. There is little the doctors or science can offer in this regard as it relies solely on the person with the condition being able to find the communication and perseverance that is needed from within themselves.

I have spent my entire adult life looking to help people utilize yoga practice to ease anxiety, become aware of behavioral patterns, and forge new ways of being that minimize suffering and maximize joy. Yet, the techniques alone only do so much. There is potentially something much deeper at work behind these practices that is bigger than our minds alone can hold. In the face of so much crisis and pain, I have had no choice but to acknowledge a higher power functioning in the unfolding of events and to humble myself before it. In these trying times, I am increasingly feeling called to spirit.

Can we receive guidance from forces beyond our own will?

I have been thinking a lot about the word spirit. Certainly, a delving into yoga philosophy can provide a wealth of considerations that speak to the nature of consciousness and universal forces that might account for what we call spirit. Of course, even among yoga teachers, the secularization and monetization of yoga in the modern West has rendered these areas of inquiry largely unspoken. Yet, sincere practice has a way of facilitating universal experiences that cannot be denied, even if they are unexplainable. When I let go of my fear and cynicism and feel into the heart-space of my existence, spirit comes in and I can receive guidance.

Spirit communicates not in words but in feeling. It wells up in me and fills my heart with love and my eyes with tears before presenting the unabashed truth of my suffering and joy. The guidance is not an authoritative voice from without telling me what I need to do, it is the gentle touch of a sincere friend simply holding space for me to let go of what is in the way of knowing for myself. When all the muck is stripped away, direction and any course of action is clearly marked by the resonance of my heart-space. This has proven to be the most reliable means of knowing what to do or say or not.

I do not know what will happen with my daughter. I am not in control. I pray that she will be able to find her way and come to terms with the despair that has overcome her tender mind. I will do everything within my power to aid her. But I have never been more convinced that there are animate forces beyond this temporal world that are governing events. Call it whatever you will, but life without it feels hollow and worthless. Actions that originate from other sources almost always seem to cause regret. In surrendering to something bigger than myself, I feel guided by spirit and able to accept whatever may pass.