Stevie Wonder said it best, “Superstition ain’t the way. When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer.” I want to take this opportunity to speak about a rabbit hole I’ve contributed to in my holistic journey. This rabbit hole is lined and guarded with superstition. All I can say is that when one knows better, one must strive to do better. Until then, we must learn to be content with nothing but our best.
Sometimes it’s a fun children’s game, “Step on a crack, break your Mama’s back…” I for one, never wanted to break Mama’s back. Other times, it’s lucky socks or jock straps for athletes. Where’s the harm in that? For me, I still carry my old Ping Eye persimmon head 5-wood with the Yoda head cover. Hard to find the sweet spot in a club from that bygone era of hard spikes, especially with my unpracticed skill, but when you do—WHOA!
In golf, or any sport, for that matter, we find a metaphor for life. One can be doing everything correctly to the utmost of one’s ability and still come up short. Painful as that reality is, I feel we must admit the truth in that last sentence. Go ahead, it’s cathartic.
As a fan of the way Matt Khan breaks things down, allow me to paraphrase a recent applicable Instagram post of his. It’s vital to discern self-love from perfectionism. Self-love, by its very nurturing nature can’t or shouldn’t be something we feel a drive to work hard to be perfect at. Overthinking, being a form of or off-shoot of superstition, needs to be loved. Yes, you read that right. Battling against something so nebulous and subjective as overthinking is a futile endeavor—a rabbit hole, if you will. Cease the endless battle of using your precious time on Earth as cannon fodder. Still, love the impulse to reload the cannons and fire away. That is a release in itself. Go ahead, try. See for yourself.
I think I’ve touched on this before and been guilty of its perpetuation; the deep state and all sorts of conspiracy theories. While I still believe there’s a subset of elite a**holes pulling the strings, I choose not to worry over it. It is a choice and I choose not to smack myself and others over the head with it any longer. For this form of superstition leads to paranoia. Is paranoia finite? I think not, but it will fib.
By choosing the spiritual or holistic route, we become what some would term humanistic and therefore assume a heuristic approach to life. If we’re not careful at this juncture, we can feel supercilious to those “silly superstitious shmucks” still mired in organized religion in the year 2021. Just because we’re living in the modern era of the 20’s doesn’t mean practices aren’t outdated. Stereotype anyone? Meanwhile we begin smudging and aligning our chakras whenever we have a bad day. For we must have done something wrong to offend the Goddess of Earth. Did I forget to carry the correct stone for the occasion? We must have open negative portals. Not asked the correct angel in the correct manner. Yes, unresolved karma made me do it.
Is this to say that we don’t begin to see things and do things outside of our five senses when we choose an alternative lifestyle? Of course not, but just as with anything else, it’s all in what one chooses to do with transpersonal experiences brought on by meditation and spiritual initiations such as Reiki attunements. It becomes the difference of harnessing a fresh perspective for holistic growth or squandering opportunity until it turns into a vulgarity. Sound familiar? Darkness is so predictable, don’t you think?
I think of what a difference a year can make. This time last year, the Big 10 and the PAC 12 shut down college football due to COVID. Now with NIL (name, image, and likeness), conference realignment, and a proposed 12-team playoff, we have NFL-Lite.
All the while, we “enlightened” ones risk becoming the things we scorn. Ain’t nothing like peddling fear, is there? Does it sell faster than sex? I think so. Combine the two and holy Viagra and menopause commercials, Batman! Hold on while I adjust my 2nd chakra.
I wonder if we are ever not aligned for what we need to experience for our highest and best in that particular moment. For that’s what truly leads to higher and better. Are we grounded enough now to understand what our limits of flightiness are?
How weird can superstitions get? Who cares? Sometimes it’s actually cute. My late Aunt Joan certainly was very cute with her superstitions. I feel the better question comes from asking how unproductive can superstitions get?
Must we always understand everything? Is that a trap to overcomplicate the simple? We know love doesn’t always make sense, yet it exists. We make peace with unrest when self-love involves being irresistible to distractions such as perfectionism, judgement, fear, anger, jealousy, and other base parts of what makes us all basically human.
Do things such as spiritual bullies and psychic attacks exist? Oh yes, but understand it is the power we give such things through our fearful superstitious ways—that gives them the teeth of the megalodons that used to inhabit our local waters. I ask your indulgence in creating a bright spot for dark people. Then be content that the moth does not always rush to the flames of redemption and salvation. For that is a personal choice we must not take personally, no matter what. “Superstition ain’t the way.” Sing it Stevie!
