One of the causes of bipolar disorder is the unmet desires within one's heart. This may sound a bit too New Age for some but it is a very real issue with powerful consequences if not addressed.

Bipolar is not something that goes away with a pill. And if it does, although I am happy you have found relief, you are only forestalling the reemergence of the disease at a later date. Even if you find contentment within your medicated lifestyle, you are still missing the bigger point.

The point is: your mind snapped because it was struggling, in vain, to get you to live at your best; to perform at your optimum level; to utilize the very best parts of you in a way that would bring enrichment to your life in amounts you'd hardly believe possible.

Your heart and your subconscious brain know what you are capable of. The part of your mind that you control and are aware of, does not know these things. Since it is the part that speaks to you the clearest and the loudest, you mistakenly follow it down the wrong path in life. You follow a path that you assume is correct based on various beliefs you hold and mindless habit-formed reflex actions.

You believe you're doing your best.

If you are bipolar, there is a strong chance that the wiser part of you is trying desperately to alert the rest of you to a better way. The real you is not happy with how life is or is not going. This subliminal part knows where you should be headed if only it could get the cognizant part to listen.

The longer you deny this quiet part of you the more substantial your bipolar becomes. Many people can live a less than fulfilling life and never really suffer greatly for it. They adapt or learn to accept their fate as they see it and no great harm comes of it. They are sleepwalking and don't know it. Their tolerance for such things is high. They're basically ok. They will never become sick from leading a subpar life; never acting on their inner greatness.

Bipolar disorder is one way you can tell that you are not one of those people. You demand more from life whether you are conscious of it or not. And your mind is breaking down from being ignored and from the strain of both trying to wake up the rest of you and attempting to settle for an unsatisfactory life situation.

This, of course, is not the basis of all bipolar and probably is not the biggest reason why you are even sick. Most of you. But some of us are not so lucky. We can do better and some part of us knows it. As we skirt this issue out of complacency, fear of leaving our comfort zones, or trying to do better but doing the wrong things, we get sick.

This is one reason why no medication, regardless of type or amount, could help me. I was actually aware that I wanted more out of life and I was not getting any closer to it. I spent years avoiding this inner noise by staying drunk or high. I'm talking decades. This abuse eventually pushed my illness to the surface and I was forced to behave. I rapidly became so sick I needed meds to be able to function at all in society.

I then began trying so hard to go where I wanted but I was choosing the wrong programs, the wrong friends, the wrong partners, the wrong vehicles, the wrong jobs. Everything just seemed to be wrong. I was working furiously to succeed but it only seemed to speed up my failures.

So I just kept getting sicker.

Maybe this is you? Again, there is much more to treating this disease than blithely following your heart down the Yellow Brick Road but all the same, get to trottin'. Ignore your heart's desires, ignore your best qualities be it out of stubbornness or ignorance, and the result will be the same. You will drive yourself crazy.

And if you rely solely on medication as an answer, you are denying yourself the life you should really have; the life you deserve; the life that will allow you to be a help to all around you. Meds make it ok to settle for "less than". They're tragic.

When I finally found what the number one best thing to pursue was for me, my health improved even faster. I had already learned some key steps to shut down my symptoms and I was healing. Now, as I continually get more proficient in this new realm of experience and meet fantastic people I never would have associated with in the past, my wellness gets cemented further.

I not only feel better but I feel better than I ever have. I foresee a future bigger than I ever could have imagined. I have both hope and a plan to make me feel that hope will be justified.

Your ultimate, overriding goal will be different than mine but you can have the same results I am obtaining. I can show you how.