I love Paulo Coelho. I think he is a visionary. His books have so much depth and meaning to them and he inspires me to reach deep within myself to be a better writer.
I am reading a book at the moment by Paulo called "Eleven Minutes". It's about a prostitute called "Maria" who comes to the understanding that the act of sex only takes eleven minutes.
She is very jaded from her experience and says that when she goes to work, only her brain and heart go with her, and she leaves her soul in the safety of her home. She builds invisible walls around herself to protect her soul from being destroyed.
We all do this. To prevent ourselves from being hurt.
I think when I write, my walls are completely down, as I am not writing from a place of malice or judgement, but rather of deep reflection and introspect. Of honesty. I feel as though I write from my soul. Perhaps mine, like Maria's, is safely locked away as a self preservation method too, only resurfacing for what I am truly passionate about.
When it comes to letting my walls down with people, there are only a couple of people that I trust enough to be completely vulnerable with.
Walls are put up to protect us. They act as a barrier against pain, but also against love. The same can be said of letting that guard down.
Being vulnerable allows us to experience love, and happiness - and also it's polarity - grief, shame, hurt.
So what is the lesser of the two evils? I cannot say for certain.
By keeping out the bad, you are forcing out the good, but by letting in the good, it is inevitable that the bad will come also.
This is life.
Black is not able to exist without white, nor night without day, joy without pain.
I know a lot of people don't believe that we are a "soul" and probably think I'm going on with a bunch of nonsense. That is only coming from a place of intolerance, fear, lack, and judgement, which i believe is a flaw within that person rather than an observation about myself.
I've always said that there is much more that animates us than a brain and a beating heart. For me it's not possible to think of it any other way. We are a soul inhabiting a human body.
Although I was raised a Catholic, the idea that there is a "God" up in heaven that we pray to in church makes no sense at all to me. Nor has anything ever happened to make me believe otherwise.
There is actually a saying that the less you know, the more you believe.
I guess if you choose to remain close-minded you will only ever follow the herd rather than exploring all the possibilities and coming to your own conclusions from there. And I am not saying this without having educated myself. I have read the bible 3 times, which no doubt is 3 times more than the majority of people who deem themselves "religious".
My Aunty said an interesting thing to me the other day in regards to religion.
"Unless I can see it, touch it, eat it, smell it, f**k it - it isn't real".
And I have to say, I agree. Which may seem like a contradiction because you can't see your soul. But I am real. And I know how I feel.
I think the act of praying is actually praying to that higher self that resides within us. Why do you think in church they say God is everywhere? The priests that preach that have no idea how very profound that statement is. The truth that is behind it.
God is everywhere because you ARE God. We all are.
So I leave you today with a quote from another visionary - the late Steve Jobs.
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."