Do you find it frustrating to be a spiritual seeker?
You might feel blocked in your progress, unsatisfied with your connection, or resentful of others’ experiences. It might also show up as a perpetual low-grade dissatisfaction that you hadn’t necessarily thought to connect to your spiritual life.
Being a seeker involves a curiosity about the ineffable and a longing to know the Divine, while simultaneously understanding that neither can be grasped fully in this lifetime.
It’s not about arriving at the finish line or accomplishing a goal. It’s about pursuing, discovering, and constantly going deeper.
That’s because we’re seekers not “finders.”
Sure, there are breakthroughs, epiphanies, and milestones, but you’re never done – there’s always more. And much more of your time and energy will be spent in uncertainty and struggle than in mastery.
Sometimes the path will be difficult and unclear for long stretches. You can end up wandering, solitary and discouraged. You might come to question whether this is all worth it.
I’ve been through the cycle many times: a stretch of intense engagement eventually runs out of gas leaving me feeling abandoned in the middle of nowhere. In this place it’s possible to become vulnerable to doubt and despair.
To be honest with you there have been a handful of times when I wanted to quit. It didn’t feel worth it. It felt like a cruel joke. If I could have pushed a button that allowed me to just let go of this clearly misguided sense of mission, I would have.
But each time I’ve tried to declare to the Universe “That’s it. I’m out. I don’t care anymore,” I discover the same thing:
It’s not up to me.
I can’t quit even when I want to. It seems that the nature of being a seeker is you’re stuck with it.
And part of being stuck with it is learning to yearn without becoming discouraged, finding the freedom in uncertainty and lack of clarity, and developing the ability to hold hope in your heart for its own sake.
Most people come and go from the spiritual path, only returning when it’s convenient or when they’ve been forced by circumstances into introspection.
Even when the seeker leaves the path we are still in relationship to it. We may be in avoidance or even trying to switch to a different path, but the spiritual path isn’t leaving us. Even when it seems like it already has.
If your spirit is prompting you to have a conversation about the struggle of the seeker, I encourage you to consider working with me.