Keep Your Heart Light

More times than I count already in my short life I have experienced the burden that is life. Times when life simply is too much. It sits on your shoulders and makes you slouch. Your stomach is not only in knots but it feels as if you are trying to break down and digest magnificent boulders that have shrunk down to fit in your systems. Simple tasks are too hard to find the motivation and everyday menial repetitive tasks that are part of everyone's day to day are just too much effort.

I have fought the urge to simply curl up on the bed and sleep for days on end. Regressed into a primal state of mind where I can barely handle being civil—none the less cheery and kind. Even shamans have their moments of weakness and humanity. No one is invincible. No one is impervious to the weight and sorrow that life can bring.

Because life is heavy—and even if you lift—sometimes the weight gets too much. (Yes. I'm sorry, that was a pun. A bad one.) For some of us—little things piling up into a small hill of multiple problems bring us down. Sometimes, one huge crisis can shake our entire world. And sometimes, like myself, it's our gifts and carnal knowledge that can affect us. Some of us just become crushed because we're unbalanced in the hormonal sense, so we suffer with no real cause. Regardless of the amount or quantity of circumstances that have brought you to that place—you're there. And that's what matters.

So how does one escape the pits of despair, or breathe through the suffocation of loneliness? I'm sorry for everyone whose crushed under similar weights as I am. The answers are always easier said, typed and thought than actually done.

Life is heavy, but the answer is simple: Keep your heart light. Even in the depths of despairs, the heaviest and most soul crushing sadness or the thickest lonely we all have a positive somewhere in our lives or our minds. Some of you say: "No I don't." But you're wrong! You do.

You're alive. You're alive to try and escape. As hard as it is, as tiresome and awful as the journey is. Some of you feel it's impossible. Some of you wish you weren't. The judgment and hatreds and lows of this world make you wish that it never existed for you. And yet through everything you are here. You're on this earth. And your presence has weight upon everything around you—so long as you make it.

Life is heavy: so keep your heart light. Somewhere around you, there is someone you can cling to. Somewhere within you, there is something that brings you joy. Out there some how, there is something or someone that can bring you hope. Focus on the good things. The newborn baby someone you know had. The pretty girl who smiled at you and for a moment you found the strength to smile back because her smile was so sweet. The pet that loves you unconditionally (And for those of you who don't have pets—if you can get one I highly suggest it: there is no better cure for lonely than a dog. Remember: Adopt, don't buy please!). The book that helps you escape.

Life is heavy, so fill your heart with things that fill it with joy and lift it up weightlessly. That way when these dark times come to crush you—it's not so much to lift off the ground. When we are dark, it's so much harder to see beyond the bad and into the good that we have. But that is why we need to take every chance to surrender ourselves to the things that make us happy.

Every day is a struggle for me. Even though the goods and highlights of my life there is always a primitive anger and sadness that dwells within me, waiting until I'm vulnerable to try and suck me in, and crush me with its weight.

You're not alone in this battle. There will always be someone who understands. Life is heavy. So keep your heart light. And as long as it's a healthy, safe practice, find that one thing that never lets you down. Stay grounded. Because once you do find the strength to rid the weight of your world off of your own shoulders, you can hit the ground running. It's so much easier to move forward with out so much weighing you down. And you can charge forward into a new chapter where perhaps... life may not be so heavy after all.