01/13/2026
Like Nature, our lives have Peaks and Valleys.
We experience the highs, the lows, and everything in-between.
Life is a Journey… A Pilgrimage that moves in a cyclical nature to reflect to us our beliefs, judgements, desires, unconsciousness… across cycles of time. With each passing day, we have an opportunity to learn more about ourselves and to cultivate our truest nature.
It is like a grand puzzle and we are the ones putting together the pieces: turning chaos into meaning and gaining more insights along the way.
We have triumphs and we make mistakes. We are perfectly imperfect. And as we embark on this grand quest to collect all of the pieces of our puzzle so that it may form a coherent, unified and harmonious whole, we uncover deeper layers of our psyche, of our unconsciousness, of our Body, our Heart, our Soul and Spirit.
If we are willing, we deepen into the intimacy of life within our own Being, discovering new delights, old pains, grief, fear, rage, joy, peace, a sense of connectedness and profound Love.
The Human Heart is courageous and our natural impulse towards evolution requires that we bravely uncover the deep, and lost parts of ourselves. The journey may be uncomfortable, momentarily, but the pay-off is of large magnitude.
The commonly learned suppression of this evolutionary impulse to deepen into the concentric spirals of an ever-unfolding intimacy with our own Life, has painful consequences… what we in today’s society term and label as challenges or significant problems with mental health.
The untrained brain that has been conditioned to repress many life experiences from a young age, largely functions from automatic impulses. Automatic thoughts, unnoticed cognitive distortions, disassociated emotions, repressed feelings… a general disconnection from the Body and the wealth of its signals and communications.
Because of societal norms and conditionings to put aside that which appears to be uncomfortable for others, namely feelings, it can be easy, at first, to ignore and cast away attentiveness to the subtle thoughts, feelings, emotions, and behaviours that shape our experiences, decisions and days.
Somewhere along the way, we have learned that the peaks are safer than the valleys. Peak experience, peak performance, peak attitudes, peak emotions… all received acceptance. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said about the deep, and often dark, valleys of our lives.
The parts of us that felt too much, and learned that it was not safe to express our feelings, the deepest wells of our Being. The parts that were told to ’stop crying’, that there wasn’t any reason to be angry, that an entire spectrum of our valid human experience was unacceptable.
Collectively, it became engrained and easy to flow with, and rejoice in the highs, and to hide away, and be terrified of the lows… An ancient imprinting that has been passed down intergenerationally. And the cause of much (dare I say all) suffering.
When we learn to embrace both the peaks and the valleys, and allow ourselves to move through all of life’s experiences genuinely, we tend to welcome new experiences, grow at a faster pace, and overcome the challenges with more ease and grace. Without the embrace of the highs and the lows, we become vulnerable to remaining stuck within experiences that can at times seem unbearable. Somewhere along the way, the refusal to descend into the valleys brings us crashing down the mountain into a space between a rock and a hard place. Without the navigational tools and skills to get us out.
Appreciating the peaks and the valleys for what they are: impermanent experiences of the senses that do not define the nature of our Being; allows us to traverse the journey with awareness and emotional intelligence, bringing us ever-so closer to the Jewel that resides within our own Hearts.
The Jewel of Compassion, Confidence, Curiosity, Calmness, Courage, Connectedness, Creativity (qualities of the Self as identified in IFS)… The Jewel of our True Self, the Jewel of our True Nature.
It is a magnificent quest… to Return to the Self. To Remember the Self. To Feel the Self present within, throughout and beyond the ordinary moments of our day to day lives.
Eternal Life Counselling supports clients through the Peaks and the Valleys of Life, to gather and put together all of the Precious puzzle pieces, and Return to the Sacred Jewel of the Heart.
~ Tijana Pesic
MSW, RSW
www.eternallifecounselling.com
https://www.psychologytoday.com/profile/329025
