Inna Shukshina

Recently one of my coaching clients wrote me an interesting letter with a question, and I also received several questions after the video lesson “3 steps to harmony with yourself, love and self-realisation” from my new clients and readers, those who do not know me very well yet, about my relationship with religion today. In the video I said that I used to “be into Orthodoxy”. But first things first.

“Today your newsletter arrived about depression among Orthodox believers. The thoughts in it led me to an interesting conclusion…
You mentioned the Apostle Paul’s definition of love: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” And in the same place the apostle says: “charity suffereth long, vaunteth not itself, seeketh not her own…” And so it turns out that only a heart, a human being filled with love, can be capable of what the apostle writes about…!!!
Before that I read these lines differently — I thought they described the signs by which love shows itself. And that if you do all this, it means you love. 
But it turns out to be almost exactly the other way round!!! Love gives the STRENGTH to suffer long, not to seek one’s own, not to vaunt itself and so on. It is the foundation. It is love that must be acquired. And “dry”, nothing works — only attempts to squeeze out of yourself what you are not capable of.

And here the question arises — how to acquire it… I would very much like to do it by spiritual and by psychological means at the same time. Do you think this is possible?”

It is possible. Because God = love, and where there is love, there is God. And we learn to love both ourselves as God’s creation, and people, and life.

Yes, I was thinking about the same thing today. That first of all one has to fill the heart with love, and only then do what needs to be done.

Let me say how it works for me in practice. If I sit at home with the children all day, I get tired and by evening I snap at them. If on that same day I went for a massage, then I easily bear their requests and their discontent about something, and they behave better too. If I am realising myself in my work and feel creative satisfaction, then I talk with my husband more cheerfully, life makes me glad, and if he is irritated I stay even and even support him. If I hold myself back out of fear, then I start nitpicking at everyone and replaying in my head the things that irritate me. And turning to God helps me not to stray from the path in difficult moments, to go forward no matter what. Caring for yourself is a resource that helps you do something for others. And caring not only for your body, but also for your desires, dreams and goals. How do I actually want to live? Why do I forbid myself this — is it really so bad, or am I simply afraid it will not work out?

As for faith — before I found and began applying the method for developing love for oneself,  I already had serious problems with a crisis of faith and with depression, so this method not only introduced no negative changes into my vision of spirituality, but on the contrary, I began to understand at the level of feeling, not of the mind, what Christ actually meant when he spoke and walked on earth, and what He really wants from us; my resentment towards God and my incomprehension of why He gave me life at all went away. I began to perceive God not as something distant from me, but as something I can really weave into my ordinary life, trying to stay close to Him, learning to understand Him and His design. To go to Church not because I MUST, or else I will be punished, blaming myself and suffering, but because my soul calls for it, because I want it. Not to become disillusioned with religion because I see many imperfections in the modern church or because I disagree with something some well-known priest says. The world is not perfect — so it is normal that the church is not perfect either. The responsibility for my path lies with me personally all the same, and it is very harmful to shift the making of decisions in my life onto priests, or to demand answers to every question. First and foremost the Church for me is not a building and not a set of rules, but the people who make it up, united by shared values and a shared goal. Which can be expressed in the chief commandments — to love God, and your neighbour as yourself. And in the midst of whom Christ stands. And I like the people in it, and find them interesting — not all of them indiscriminately, but those whom life brings me together with.

These days I try to perceive all the unpleasant situations in life as useful for me and my development, to live through them without the pressure of guilt and self-flagellation. Any mistake is a reason to learn something new. The main thing God expects from us, as I understand it now, is to grow more and more perfect in love and not to stray from your path, not to give up and to go forward no matter what. I find it very interesting to discover what His design was and what love and faith really are. And this path is endless, it has no ceiling, you can always discover something new or see something from a new angle!