i've been struggling with self doubt and confusion, so much so that i have barely been able to function past few months i've developed massive social anxiety and can't be myself and feel like i have lost touch with who i am.. i am really struggling and for first time i don't know what to do or where to go from here.. was wondering if anyone could help thanks so much

Dear Fountain,

Your reading this time is somewhat unusual in being the first one which I have given since I started offering free readings over the internet which I began doing in one year (2011), and completed in the next (2012).

It is always important when dealing with a problem to first clearly identify what that problem is, as if we incorrectly label what the problem might be, then your reading is effectively saying that you could unknowingly be making your task more difficult than it already is and be going in the wrong direction with your chosen method of treating it. You could be with the very best of intentions using the right method for a completely different problem from the one which you are presently confronted with, frequently causing even more self doubt and confusion on top of that which you were already experiencing.

While social anxiety is a very real and distressing medical condition (our own daughter's current boyfriend is being actively treated for it and has been prescribed the appropriate medication for the condition by his doctor) and those people who are unfortunate enough to be affected by it deserve all our empathy and support in helping them to free themselves of their social phobia, I sense in your case based entirely upon this reading that your "social anxiety" is in reality a mislabeled spiritual need for you to temporarily withdraw from the people close to you in order to get back in contact with the true Self, with which you feel you have lost touch.

We all need to do this at some time in our lives, and as long as we balance our search for ourselves with living the rest of our lives then generally touch wood everything normally goes reasonably smoothly from then on. However it is all too easy to get so caught up by and narrowly focused upon attempting to find our true inner Self, that our relationships with those around us who are of equal importance become neglected and suffer negatively as a result.

Your reading is strongly suggesting that this is exactly what has been happening to you. It is not so much that that looking for your true Self is the wrong thing to do or a complete waste of your time and/or energy, but rather the problem is thought to be that your inner and outer lives have become through no fault of your own seriously out of balance with each other.

Not so badly out of balance with one another that this temporary imbalance cannot be corrected within the period of time thought to be covered by your reading (roughly the next six months), but enough to be one of the most likely significant sources of the self doubt and confusion which you are currently experiencing.

Consequently one of the solutions felt most likely to offer you some sense of relief from your ongoing largely spiritual malaise is to do whatever you reasonably can to correct or redress this implied imbalance, before any further damage is inflicted upon your own feelings of self confidence and self respect in the process. Finding the best possible method to achieve this challenging goal of putting both major aspects of your life back into balance with each other is the intended purpose behind your very first reading with us on Mystic Boards for 2012.

The really good news in my opinion (and I am almost 100% sure that you will agree with me about this) is that you are basically not doing anything wrong in your process of soul searching and that the method or methods which you are using or about to use cannot be faulted.

In other words you may have completely by accident (it is difficult for me to accurately determine whether or not this was simply a fortunate coincidence on your part, or alternately something much more mysterious, beautiful and sacred is going on within you which eventually lead to this inevitably coming about) stumbled (?) upon the optimum or number one method for you to find yourself at this specific stage in your life.

So well done!  

In order lose touch or contact with your true Self you must first be separate from it (make sense?). But this apparent separation from one's true inner Self is only an illusion caused by each of us identifying ourselves as having been split into our lower everyday selves, and our Higher spiritual selves which are thought to exist independently of our everyday selves, presumably in a different dimension from the physical one in which we are currently living.

I put to you the real possibility that all along we have been operating out of our true Self (but we did not know that we were, and we have only imagined that there was a lower self, as it seemed convenient for us to to do so at the time). The question now arises as to how we can each lose contact with what or whom we already are, as if we did so for even a fraction of a millisecond we would according to this logic cease to exist.

Since we never left or moved outside of our true Self in the first place, how can we then later lose touch or contact with it? The answer is that this false sense of separation which we are feeling is essentially a trick our human minds play upon all of us. If we can by some means recognize that our feelings of being separated or isolated from the hopes, dreams and ambitions which we once had as a child are an illusion, then its power to distract us from searching for our true life purpose in this current lifetime should be significantly reduced.

And therefore any method which assists you in penetrating in seeing through this game of smoke and mirrors (the illusion of ever being separated from your Self) is precisely what your reading is encouraging you to look for, approximately between now and the beginning of July. To start you on your journey I often suggest that you should meditate for a maximum of 30 consecutive minutes each and every day for at least a month, to give this method a fair trial. Repeat to yourself while in a lightly relaxed frame of mind the following mantra.......

WHO AM I?

The answer might seem glaringly obvious to you, but I believe that you will be pleasantly surprised to find that it is not the answer which you expected to find. One final thing I must mention is that the answers may not be given to you during your meditation sessions. Often they are presented to you at other times when you are also relaxed and not thinking about that question at all, or in your dreams while you are fast asleep. For the remaining 23.5 hours of the day try your best to forget the question (easier said than done), and focus your energies instead upon improving your outer relationships with people who are important to you.

To further correct the imbalance which was tracing back to its most likely source caused by the illusion of having been separated from your true Self. The hopes, dreams and ambitions of your inner child are still right where you left them. They only need to be reclaimed for what they already are and have been for years, and not found (as they were never in truth lost to then be later found). The next six months are felt to be the best time for you to begin this reclaiming process.

Loving regards,

EoT