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Somehow, I Lost My Religion.

February 24th, 2017

Well that is not exactly true. Religion, as most know it, that I lost many, many years ago. What I am actually talking about is my spirituality. Confused? I will elaborate.

Praying at DawnLately, my Facebook friends must be thinking that I am feeling nostalgic as I have been posting links to old blog posts that I wrote many years ago. What I was actually doing was republishing all my old blog posts on this site. These are 230 posts that I wrote for my two blogs, talking2myself.net and notthenews.net from December 2007 to September 2010. A lot of the stuff I wrote then is still relevant particularly the talking2myself posts.

At the time, talking2myself was anonymous for a number of reasons but it was an outlet for my quest to improve my life. It served as my spiritual outlet for life's big question which I wanted to share with anyone bothered to read the blog.

Based on my belief that the ultimate state of the human is 'contentment' (note not happiness) and that to achieve that a person needs to find the balance between the 4 areas of physical, emotional, spiritual and mental existence - read this for a deeper explanation of what I mean.

The posts I wrote for the blog centred round what was happening in my life at the time – discussing those issues directly affecting me as well as other observations that conspire to unbalance the apple cart, so to speak. For nearly three years I tried my best to apply the principles to my life and then I stopped. Why?

Well, 2010 was a busy year for me. In February after selling my shares, I handed in my 6 months notice to resign from my well paid job to, at the time, do a degree with the Open University. To celebrate, I went to the Rio carnival in Brazil in that same month. By the time I left in August, I was leaving to become a full time writer/blogger on my 'Mixed In Different Shades' project (now mixed-races.com) which was related to the degree I had intended to do. Additionally, my then wife (now late) and I agreed to separate – she wanted to return to Africa and I had completely different plans. We were both unhappy anyway so we though it was for the best.

On 18th September, 2010, I made my last post on talking2myself and it related to the fact that my time was now being taken up by the new project. The upheaval of organising two trips for the family to Zimbabwe, the separation and the final departure of my two youngest children and the wife on 30th December meant that I stopped posting and somehow in the process I lost the religion.

A lot has happened since. Like many people who have lost their faith, the principles have remained with me and I can think of several big decisions afterwards where subconsciously I attempted to get the balance right. It has been difficult and I will probably write about some of the issues I have faced in the last 7 years at some point.

Getting to the point though, do I need to restore my faith and start practising again? After all, the issues that plagued me through the three years of writing continue to worry me today. If it didn't work then, why would it work now? Am I, like many, returnees only turning to my religion because I am facing uncertainty and doubt in my life at the moment?

May you find the balance.