EFFORTLESS CHANGE
By: Jim Marjoram
Tags: Mental Health, Itslifejim, LGBT, Therapy, Spirituality

For some time now, I’ve been quietly on a very deep and profound journey.

You see, I’ve struggled with my mental health all my life. The constant battle with being gay in an un-accepting world, turning to religion and all it promised to “cure” me. And on top of that, my struggles with ADHD that caused me to think I could never be “normal”. Basically, I thought I was broken in pretty much every way.

The last few years have been an incredible journey sifting through all this, and I can honestly say that life has never been so good.

But one thing that has frustrated me for so long is the whole approach around mental health. It seems that the only options for serious improvement are through professional counselors/therapists/psychologist etc, which most of us can’t afford, especially considering it can take months, if not years, to make any real progress.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m not discounting their value, but it’s just not a viable option for “the rest of us”. In fact, I began to look at the entire foundation of how we regard mental health issues.

I have longed for something that doesn’t demand some preconceived ideal of “normal”. Something that brings a depth of peace without going through even more trauma trying to sort it all out.

Over the last year or so, I’ve delved more into the philosophy of the Tao (Brahma, the Field, Universal Consciousness, and many other labels). At first it helped me see a much more cohesive and rational view of the universe and life. But after a while, I had that “aha” moment where I began to get glimpses of this mysterious and indescribable force instead of intellectual understanding. I can truly say that once you “get it”, it shakes you to the core.

The problem with all this however, is communicating it in a way that is not ridiculously weird and wacky — to the point where you’ve lost all credibility.

So anyway, while all this was going on, I decided to enroll in a Life Coach course so that I had some sort of valid training I could use to help people. But this particular course referred to something they called the “three principles”, and promised a level of deep change in people that seemed too good to be true. So of course, I jumped down the rabbit hole and found that it’s basically one of the many faces of the Tao. And I discovered that there are many people using these principles (the understanding and experience of the Tao) to directly address mental health.

The last couple of months I’ve had a complete paradigm shift. The most wonderful aspect of it all is I don’t have to try to change. In realising who I really am and my place in the universe, I simply “am”. I have no need to change — and yet I have!

This might all sound too cosmic for many of you, or maybe I’ve lost the plot! But not only am I seeing massive shifts in my life, but as I talk to so many others exploring this, they all say the same — the moment it “clicks”, your entire perspective changes. You find a peace you never even knew existed. You see everyone else as “you”. Empathy becomes your natural state. You recognise that the endless fight in your mind is just “thoughts” that come and go, triggering emotions that also come and go. You watch the complexity of life and begin to see the perfect paradox of living in the middle of it all.

But the wonderful thing is it also recognises our humanity. In fact, the entire point is that our thoughts, emotions and how we embrace them is what makes us human! Am I perfect? Of course not, but then, what is perfect? I’m a human having a human experience with all it’s wonderful messiness!

So yeah, that’s me. I’m changing direction and directly addressing the subject of mental health in a radically different way. I’m shaping how I work with people to give them the tools to find all they need within themselves.

There are no gurus, no hype, no empty or unachievable promises, no expectations and no judgement. There is no work to do, it’s simply recognising who you really are in a way that undermines every single preconception and paradigm, without resorting to rituals, disciplines, endless counselling and therapy or any other form of spiritual/religious dogma.

It’s always been here. throughout recorded history there are those who live this. Religions are birthed from their teachings, which end up losing the plot (often quite quickly).

I’ll be re-branding some of what I do, so stay tuned to how all this will fit together — with the focused intention of bringing life and love to as much of humanity as possible.

NOVEMBER 12, 2020