It’s clear to me that most of life is illusory. That the bulk of my experience is always related to who I perceive myself to be, rather than anything absolute in my environment showing me who I am.
In other words, I am sitting in my living room as the morning sun pours into the space and I have a few options about what I see, sense and feel. I can be lost in thought, feeling the impact of my dreams, or completely aware of the sense of heat from my changing body, or focus on the other people or animals who are also in that place & what they are doing or saying… or I can focus on the sunlight.
Lots of options… and each option can offer something positive or negative. That too, is up to me.
My dreams may have been intense, full of imagery or other people and I can be in the beautiful sunlit room feeling scared, angry, sad or curious. My hot flash feeling can be super uncomfortable or thrilling, albeit intense. The other people could be having a rough morning and I could personalize it, making it about me, or simply love them in their frustration the same way I love them when they are feeling full of themselves and joyful.
What I’m getting at here is that nothing that is happening has to be bad, even if it’s a rough spot for you. If you make an effort to witness your monkey mind activity, as if it were another person, you would be able to see more clearly how that part of you often hijacks the circumstances you are living and turns them into problems, rather than simply being “what’s happening”.
We give a lot of attention to the drama in life, even if we are a yogini or highly focused on peace. The media barfs garbage on us all day long and we consume it like mana from heaven, rather than spoiled fruit. That’s because our reptilian brain gets activated and whatever we are perceiving that is threatening will take center stage. It’s really important to do our best to recognize what’s happening and who we are listening to. Is it our soul, or our personality doing the talking.
Typically, the sound of anyone’s deepest soul voice is always accepting of what is. We won’t push against or make wrong an event if that is how we approach difficulty. But sometimes, it feels impossible not to do that. This is such a remarkable time – if you use it.
Much like having an infection in your body that you aren’t aware of. You could be having periodic bouts of illness; frequent colds, or headaches, etc. and think that’s all that’s going on (a little cold), when in fact your little body is terribly run down from fighting off a deep seated infection somewhere.
If you suddenly have significant pain and go to get some kind of diagnosis where an infection is detected, all the details of the past few months, or even years start to make sense. You aren’t “sick” anymore, but finally on the mend. You can take the necessary stuff to knock it out and now you’re much, much better. But keep in mind, nothing happened to affect any long lasting change until the infection was discovered.
You can have an infection in your thinking, or belief system that can’t be unearthed without that pain or intense experience you have right now. Once you have the suffering, you can address it – but you can also just stuff it back inside until the next time it comes to the surface.
I guess all I’m trying to point out this morning is that you always get to choose how to respond to things. You can be grateful for the information, no matter what the message is… and you can really expand because of your willingness to be brave and determined to be YOU, rather than a broken person with a miserable story to tell about life.
You are the most beautiful person you know… multi-faceted, dynamic and inventive. Seems like a great day to get in touch with that part of you, instead of something less than that.
The sun is shining, even if there are clouds covering up it’s warmth right now. I know that I can see you and feel your warmth, even if you can’t…
I think you are magnificent!
Gotta get to my day, but had to write this down.
Love you…