THESE Things Damage YOUR Soul!
When our soul suffers, our body does, too. Physical pain is a clear symptom, it reminds us with every movement that something is just not right. Bodily pain is a reliable indicator of the devolution from health to illness. But what about for our psyche? Even if it still seems to be a vast uncharted territory in medical terms, we know that our spirit, too, can fall ill and suffer. Unlike our bodies, however, it sends out cries for help that many people let go unheard for a long time and even deliberately ignore.
To be psychologically distressed or even ill is still a taboo subject in our otherwise so enlightened society. Many paths of mental suffering must therefore still be taken alone and in silence. But if you are attentive and at least as conscious of your soul care as you are of your body care, you can prevent the worst from happening in time. The following six things harm your soul and can actually make you sick in the long run.
1. Constant stress
This news is not new. Stress, which never seems to end, first makes our bodies sick and subsequently our souls. High blood pressure, lack of sleep, poor or inadequate nutrition and uneven hormone levels due to stress throw us completely out of balance.
As a result, we become unfocused, make mistakes, and show a significant accumulation of accidents and mishaps that, at best, drive our stress levels even higher. In the worst case, they put us in the hospital. Stress is always multifactorial. Some parameters of it are 100% in our own hands. The key is to push the right buttons in time to stop this downward spiral.
2. Loss and separation
Grief and unprocessed feelings are powerful and can open the door to psychological stress disorders. The worst part is that we can't actively escape these circumstances. In the long run, escaping the dark sides of life would be a race against time. Pain must be accepted and consciously lived through before we can move on. The loss of loved ones through their death weighs much more heavily than a separation.
Surprisingly, however, we sometimes find it mentally easier to accept dying than being abandoned. Even a separation by mutual agreement can drag on over a long period of time and wear on us like a physical illness. Death is always final. A separation is not, at least in some corner of our brain. Both experiences are physically and emotionally stressful, sometimes over a long period of time.
3. Chronic lack of sleep
This fact is not great news either. Those who get too little sleep for years will first see the effects of it, then feel them physically, and finally suffer them psychologically. Sleep is pure regeneration for our organism. Since a human being is not only made up of his or her body, it is only logical that our soul will suffer damage if we are not allowed to enjoy sufficient and quality sleep over a longer period of time.
However, some stages in life, such as the birth of children or the care of relatives, leave us no other choice. Here, insomnia is one aspect of these stages of life, but it can never be recovered. Catching up on sleep doesn't work in the short or long term. Therefore, we should at least cut short those evenings whose design is 100% in our hands and not externally determined.
4. Emotional dependence
Attachments are something very beautiful, becoming dependent on them is unfortunately not. There is often a fine line between devotion and dependency, which is easily crossed, especially in romantic relationships and partnerships. It can never be determined exactly when the boundary is reached and crossed and what turns a healthy relationship on equal footing into an emotional roller coaster over which we no longer have any control. Our soul suffers from such dependency relationships in several ways. Unrequited love, loss of control, false hopes and a constant dance on thin ice are pure stress for our peace of mind.
5. Guilt
This is basically a very useful mechanism that lets us distinguish right from wrong. When appropriate, guilt can be a reliable guide to when we have strayed from the path of virtue. It is completely useless and counterproductive, however, when they arise from false morals and beliefs that were indoctrinated into us unfiltered in childhood and adolescence.
Feeling guilty because you lead a good and contented life but other people don't, helps no one, but casts a shadow over your own happiness. Those who have managed by their own efforts to create a place for themselves in the world and to be able to realize themselves must adhere to exactly one rule: not to harm anyone. Everything else springs from the principle of cause and effect and may be chalked up as a success, enjoyed and celebrated to one's heart's content.
6. Social media
This is a blessing and a curse in equal measure. As with all double-edged swords, however, the dose alone determines whether it’s poison for us or not. If you only use social media to gather information and indulge in the uninhibited gossip of the rich and beautiful, you won't do your body or soul any great harm. It becomes problematic, however, if one hands oneself over to the trolls and dark forces, who are allowed to indulge in their sinister machinations here without restraint.
The amount of consumption is also crucial. Anyone who can no longer take a step without a smartphone and can hardly spend a minute concentrating on real people in the analog world has a bona fide addiction problem. Dwelling too intensively in the virtual world causes us to lose touch with real life, and worse, to lose interest in it. We take Instagram and the like at face value and compare our average existences with the beautifully filtered and curated picture book stories that countless digital phantoms want to sell us as reality. The comparison leaves us dissatisfied.
Our soul thus suffers in many ways. Pressure to succeed, feelings of inferiority, loss of reality, striving for the unattainable and a sense of meaninglessness in our own lives are often the consequences of excessive social media consumption. Constantly being glued to the smartphone also disturbs our sleep rhythm, since blue light makes our brain think it's daytime when it's actually already nighttime. If you want to do something good for your soul quickly and easily, go on a digital detox, even if it’s only for a few hours.
Today’s Conclusion:
Treat your soul like porcelain. It's not nearly as fragile, but it will undergo damage in the long run if you treat it carelessly. The famous Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius once wrote: "There is nothing left for a man but to sink into despair once his soul has been damaged. Centuries later, these words are truer than ever.
Once the damage is done, very few of us manage to get back to a happy existence full of harmony by our own efforts. A quick fix for the soul has not yet been invented. The only way to heal is a long and arduous one. Preventing this total psychological damage is therefore essential if we want to enjoy our life more and devote ourselves to its beautiful sides. That's it for today.