I find it wondrous how much the way we look at our experiences dictates how we feel about them. It really does seem to me that perspective defines reality. When comfortable situations change, if I think that I'm losing something I can feel sad and scared, or even angry. But, when I turn my attention to the beginning that is simultaneously occurring, and allow myself to see what is being offered by it, my emotions become more pleasurable. I can feel happy, anticipatory, and energetic. It is even possible that I could simply accept change as a constant and feel neither happy nor sad, scared nor reassured, but instead feel a cool neutrality. I guess this is the middle way that wise people are always espousing, where extremes (of experience, of temperament, of perspective) are eschewed in favor of moderation.
Sometimes, though, situations and experiences are hard to get a handle on. Sometimes we are so deeply entrenched in our experiences that we cannot see the reality of our place in them. Lately, I have been looking at the changes taking place in my life as being fairly negative, mentally and emotionally struggling hard against them, trying to reject the fact that they are taking place and suffering terribly. I have wanted to just go to sleep for a nice, long stretch and wake up either forward or back in time, either healed of the pain or luxuriating in the bliss that came before it. I haven't been willing to fully acknowledge that it is my perspective on change that is causing me to suffer so immensely. People say that change is good, but I'm finding that it's neither good nor bad, it just is. Change, like a constant river, does flow on and on. But the river has been more like an ocean of waves so gargantuan that they block out the horizon and leave me without a point of reference. I have recently been very disoriented.
Today, I watched streaming video coverage of the full lunar eclipse which was not visible in the US, and made an important observation while staring at the moon for an hour or more. I realized that some things (experiences, ideas, celestial bodies) are so big, we cannot ever get accurate perspective on them. For instance, we can only see the entirety of Earth from hundreds of thousands of miles away, and then we can only perceive part of it. We know from experience that there is another side to what we are seeing- to the Earth from space- for we have at other times been privy to that side as well. But in that moment, all we can see is one side, and it is riveting. That side is not any more important than the side which is beyond our vision, it is merely temporarily illuminated and thus held in the light of greater relevance. But, things will change, unstoppable shifts will take place and we will, once again, be able to view what was so recently in shadow. I see now that my life is like this too.
My life is changing and I don't necessarily like what is currently illuminated or visible. I have believed that I don't know what is in the shadows; what is there that I cannot yet perceive? This has felt frightening. What if there is actually nothing there? But, memory and faith, life experience, reminds me that not only is there something there, but that what is there is nothing new. What lies in the shadows is merely something that was once more readily visible, something I've simply, temporarily, lost sight of, something that was there all along.
I could go with an outdated paradigm, believing that what is not visible is not real, like those who once believed that the world was flat. I could live for a fantasy future, become lost in the idea that what is not yet visible is the answer to all of my troubles. Or, I could begin to adopt the middle way and remain neutral but observant, trusting that all of my experiences are influenced by how I choose to look at them. What I cannot yet see is always the same fullness of life coming back around, spinning toward the light, and it is up to me to deem it positive or negative, or, perhaps most beneficially, simply let it be.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Detour
It happened so quickly.
I had left work and was on my way to the grocery store. The road was icy and a light sleet and snow mixture was falling steadily. Suddenly, a pickup, towing a small trailer, came sliding down a hilly street into the roadway in front of me. Instinctively, my right foot mashed the brake to the floor as I curled up my body and turned my face to the right, fearing both the airbag exploding and the impending collision I assumed would crush me. There was no veering around the truck, and I knew my car would never stop in time to avoid hitting it, so I braced myself for anything, and crashed.
However minor an injury it may be, whiplash hurts. And because of the pain, I wasn't able to work for two weeks, which gave me time to look closely at my life, thankful that I still had one to live. I'm a hard-working person, unaccustomed to, and rather uncomfortable with inactivity, but everyone (my friends, my family, and the incredibly kind staff at the health center where I was being treated) assured me that my only job was to heal. I watched a lot of Netflix in bed, endured shocking ice baths (good for reducing overall inflammation, from which I was suffering profusely), and indulged myself in many long hours of massage, acupuncture and chiropractic treatment. I doubt I've ever before been touched that much in a two-week period, and it was rather blissful.
As enjoyable as it became to be so pampered, each time I closed my eyes to sleep, or even rest, an image of that pickup appearing in my path rose up in my mind, unsettling me. I began to have dreams, tense and vivid, of escaping, by myriad means (though never a car) from all manner of emergency. I would awaken from these dreams out-of-breath, my body feeling drained and numb, my chest weighted against the bed, panic pounding in my heart. I lay awake at night, wondering what was happening, worried about how I would go forward if I couldn't do the only work for which I am fully trained.
It took about ten days to get an answer.
One afternoon, I was on the phone, telling a friend about the accident, and I said, "I couldn't go around the truck and I couldn't stop; I had no escape route!" Bells, blinking lights, and a siren went off in my head. "That's it!" I thought. "An escape route!" Oh, brilliant unconscious mind, working away on the tough stuff while the rest of me simply lay quivering in shock! The accident was giving me an escape route! I have been in food service since the age of 14- that's 32 years! Anyone who does what I do will tell you: it's tough, physically demanding work. Laying down that heavy burden for two weeks illuminated my reality: I could not go back to a job that was breaking down my body and stealing my joy. Later that night, I laughed out loud in an empty room. "Couldn't we have left this one in the metaphoric realm?" I asked. "Did it really take a huge, heavy, metal object blocking my path entirely to get me to alter my course?" It seems that we humans don't change, individually or collectively, unless life pins us to the wall, its forearm to our windpipe.
The next day, I went online and began researching schools. I sent out a couple of emails, made some phone calls. By the end of that day, I had applied to a small, women's college located 20 miles south of my home. I knew that if I didn't immediately take action, I might let doubt and insecurity hold me down as I had a hundred times before. Within a week, I was accepted. Days later, I met with an admissions counselor who was overjoyed by the idea of having me transfer into her school. A month later, I was offered full financial aid, which I accepted, and had enrolled in classes for fall of this year.
It happened so quickly. One minute I was driving to the grocery store and the next I was careening into a future unforetold. Egotistically, and perhaps foolishly, I like to believe that I am always on a path of my choosing and that my intentions dictate my course, so I appreciate what a friend once told me, somewhat consolingly, so long ago: "Always remember- detours are also part of the journey."
I had left work and was on my way to the grocery store. The road was icy and a light sleet and snow mixture was falling steadily. Suddenly, a pickup, towing a small trailer, came sliding down a hilly street into the roadway in front of me. Instinctively, my right foot mashed the brake to the floor as I curled up my body and turned my face to the right, fearing both the airbag exploding and the impending collision I assumed would crush me. There was no veering around the truck, and I knew my car would never stop in time to avoid hitting it, so I braced myself for anything, and crashed.
However minor an injury it may be, whiplash hurts. And because of the pain, I wasn't able to work for two weeks, which gave me time to look closely at my life, thankful that I still had one to live. I'm a hard-working person, unaccustomed to, and rather uncomfortable with inactivity, but everyone (my friends, my family, and the incredibly kind staff at the health center where I was being treated) assured me that my only job was to heal. I watched a lot of Netflix in bed, endured shocking ice baths (good for reducing overall inflammation, from which I was suffering profusely), and indulged myself in many long hours of massage, acupuncture and chiropractic treatment. I doubt I've ever before been touched that much in a two-week period, and it was rather blissful.
As enjoyable as it became to be so pampered, each time I closed my eyes to sleep, or even rest, an image of that pickup appearing in my path rose up in my mind, unsettling me. I began to have dreams, tense and vivid, of escaping, by myriad means (though never a car) from all manner of emergency. I would awaken from these dreams out-of-breath, my body feeling drained and numb, my chest weighted against the bed, panic pounding in my heart. I lay awake at night, wondering what was happening, worried about how I would go forward if I couldn't do the only work for which I am fully trained.
It took about ten days to get an answer.
One afternoon, I was on the phone, telling a friend about the accident, and I said, "I couldn't go around the truck and I couldn't stop; I had no escape route!" Bells, blinking lights, and a siren went off in my head. "That's it!" I thought. "An escape route!" Oh, brilliant unconscious mind, working away on the tough stuff while the rest of me simply lay quivering in shock! The accident was giving me an escape route! I have been in food service since the age of 14- that's 32 years! Anyone who does what I do will tell you: it's tough, physically demanding work. Laying down that heavy burden for two weeks illuminated my reality: I could not go back to a job that was breaking down my body and stealing my joy. Later that night, I laughed out loud in an empty room. "Couldn't we have left this one in the metaphoric realm?" I asked. "Did it really take a huge, heavy, metal object blocking my path entirely to get me to alter my course?" It seems that we humans don't change, individually or collectively, unless life pins us to the wall, its forearm to our windpipe.
The next day, I went online and began researching schools. I sent out a couple of emails, made some phone calls. By the end of that day, I had applied to a small, women's college located 20 miles south of my home. I knew that if I didn't immediately take action, I might let doubt and insecurity hold me down as I had a hundred times before. Within a week, I was accepted. Days later, I met with an admissions counselor who was overjoyed by the idea of having me transfer into her school. A month later, I was offered full financial aid, which I accepted, and had enrolled in classes for fall of this year.
It happened so quickly. One minute I was driving to the grocery store and the next I was careening into a future unforetold. Egotistically, and perhaps foolishly, I like to believe that I am always on a path of my choosing and that my intentions dictate my course, so I appreciate what a friend once told me, somewhat consolingly, so long ago: "Always remember- detours are also part of the journey."
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Symbols
I have a good friend who, for the last ten days, has been moving out of a house in which she has lived for about five years. It is a herculean task which she is accomplishing a little at a time with almost no help, and the process is stripping her bare. She is physically and psychologically exhausted and emotionally raw, and the end of this move is nowhere in sight. Because she'll be traveling to Bolivia soon as a part of her continuing education, she's making a temporary move into a small cabin on a friend's property, but the space is currently full of someone else's belongings and they will have to be moved before her stuff can come in. I stopped in on my friend today, to pick up an old mirror she needed to get rid of, and we had a chance to catch up. She cleans houses for a living and told me that she has realized in the course of this move how much of her time and energy go into simply moving stuff around but never really accomplishing anything. She feels defeated by this, like she's simply wasting her energy. "I don't want to do it anymore," she explained.
I told her, "That's quite a symbol you've unearthed. Seems to me that it might be a good thing for you to ponder that symbol until you're ready to change your situation. It's going to change no matter what, but maybe this symbol will help you guide the change with your intention." The image of my friend picking up and moving myriad objects, cleaning around or under them and then replacing them as precisely as possible seemed to me like such a strong theme. I wondered in what other ways she is repeating this pattern, perhaps with her thought process or in her relationships. Often it is when we are at our most vulnerable that powerful symbols appear to awaken us to our habits and patterns, as well as our true abilities, needs, and strengths, and perhaps give us the inspiration to get right with ourselves starting from the moment we realize what we are seeing. The signs have likely been there all along, but it's when we're cracked open and desperate that they begin to mean something to us. Right then, we see not only the problem but the solution to that problem as well. The unconscious mind is very fertile and powerful, and a truth unearthed from the darkness of fear will immediately begin to work in service of our well-being, whether or not our conscious mind fully understands the work being done. I'm excited for my friend for I think that with her simple realization, she has helped herself more than she might actually know.
I told her, "That's quite a symbol you've unearthed. Seems to me that it might be a good thing for you to ponder that symbol until you're ready to change your situation. It's going to change no matter what, but maybe this symbol will help you guide the change with your intention." The image of my friend picking up and moving myriad objects, cleaning around or under them and then replacing them as precisely as possible seemed to me like such a strong theme. I wondered in what other ways she is repeating this pattern, perhaps with her thought process or in her relationships. Often it is when we are at our most vulnerable that powerful symbols appear to awaken us to our habits and patterns, as well as our true abilities, needs, and strengths, and perhaps give us the inspiration to get right with ourselves starting from the moment we realize what we are seeing. The signs have likely been there all along, but it's when we're cracked open and desperate that they begin to mean something to us. Right then, we see not only the problem but the solution to that problem as well. The unconscious mind is very fertile and powerful, and a truth unearthed from the darkness of fear will immediately begin to work in service of our well-being, whether or not our conscious mind fully understands the work being done. I'm excited for my friend for I think that with her simple realization, she has helped herself more than she might actually know.
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