The Grail Quest Is Over

I have spent a very large part of my life looking for answers.

Not little answers, apparently. I wanted to understand how life worked. Why we are here. Why people behave as they do. Whether there is a God, a greater intelligence, a soul, a purpose or a pattern beneath the apparent chaos.

Over the years I travelled through Christianity, New Age thought, Wicca, metaphysics, healing traditions, energy systems, philosophy and assorted interesting little side roads.

I found things of enormous value. Things that changed me. Things I still use in my work. Things I experienced but cannot adequately explain.

I also found ideas that eventually stopped satisfying me.

But for a long time I still believed that somewhere underneath it all there must be a coherent system.

A map.

If I kept searching, perhaps eventually I would find The Way.

The Grail.

Well, if you've been waiting for me to find the answers, I have some unfortunate news.

The Grail Quest is over.

Not because I've decided there are no answers.

Not because I've thrown away everything I've learned.

But because I've finally realised:

I don't have to know the answer in order to recognise that someone else's answer doesn't satisfy me.

Some things can remain UNKNOWN.

There was another traveller on the quest

Recently I've also begun to recognise that curiosity wasn't the only thing driving my search.

There was a little girl who wanted to understand the rules.

How do people work?
What makes them happy?
What makes them angry?
What am I supposed to do?
How do I make the people around me behave in ways that will keep me safe?

If you can understand the system, perhaps you can predict it.

And if you can predict it, perhaps you can reduce your vulnerability.

Many years later those questions became much more sophisticated — questions about psychology, spirituality, consciousness, healing, God, soul, purpose and the architecture of reality.

But perhaps some part of me was still looking for the rules.

The difference now is that she doesn't have to do that anymore.

She has me.

I cannot promise her that nothing painful will happen. I cannot make life predictable or invulnerable.

But I can pay attention.

I can listen.

I can say no.

I can change my mind.

I can leave.

And when I genuinely don't know what happens next, I don't have to invent an answer to make us feel safe.

And perhaps we're allowed to be happy

This questioning has led me into some fascinating territory around identity, purpose, responsibility, Pain and Joy.

Including a deceptively simple question:

Am I allowed to be happy when other people aren't?

My sadness doesn't reduce somebody else's suffering.

If there is something useful I can do, I can do it. If someone needs my presence, I can offer it. And when I am genuinely sad, I can be sad.

But I don't need to suppress Joy because suffering also exists in the world.

Being sad for them doesn't change them. Being happy changes me.

Which may explain why, in the middle of contemplating God, identity, suffering and the mysteries of existence, I somehow ended up creating a little song in which Pixie claps, dances and shines.

Apparently that's where nearly seventy years of philosophical enquiry gets you. 😂

And I'm surprisingly okay with that.

There is much more to this story — including what happens to identity and purpose when you stop needing one grand system to tell you who you are and why you're here.

I've explored the full story in my latest blog: The Grail Quest Is Over — What Happens When You Stop Needing to Find The Way.

→ Read the full article on Shamarie’s Body & Mind Therapies

Perhaps I don't need to find The Way before I can find my way.

And when the sun comes out along that way?

I intend to bloody well enjoy it. ☀️

With steadiness and wonder,
Shamarie Flavel | Field Explorer & Mystic Interpreter of Living Patterns

For more than 30 years, I've explored the patterns that connect body, emotion, energy, consciousness and lived experience — and the different ways we can work with them.

Explore my work through Shamarie’s Body & Mind Therapies. and evolvecourses.shamarie.com.au

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram @ShamarieFlavelEnergy,
listen to my podcast Journeys Beyond with Shamarie on Kajabi
or on Apple Podcasts