Would you like your life to stay exactly as it is today forever and more?
If your answer is “Yes”, I have some bad news that someone should have given you long ago. That's not going to happen. You're in the wrong universe for everlastingness. Here on Earth your life and its context are not ever going to
say the same, any more than the ocean stays the same from moment to
moment, day to day, or season to season. It's always there, but never
the same.
Change is a human given. The only variables are the pace and magnitude of change.
If your answer was “No”, I have some good news for
you, and that is –
This today
Will pass away.
Unless you
resist Change, in which case the scenario will repeat itself over and
over, with changes of scenery and cast - until - you
get the message – “the game's often transferred, without notice, to another ground
where the rules, the goalposts and the scoreboard are different. Now, on your bike!........”
If your answer to the question on top was “I don't know”, you need to know
that, in this context, “I don't know” is victim-speak for “Please
don't challenge me. Please let me take an early retirement from
exploring.” Of course, you are perfectly free to select the "Quit"
option. But if a life of resignation is your choice, please proceed down there to the
dead-end and huddle with the other walking dead. If nothing else,
you'll get heaps of sympathy from them. Sorry, I don't do Sympathy.
Sympathy is the surest way to de-power both giver and receiver in one
fell swoop.
To an aware person, “Who am I now?” embarks him/her on a curious journey into self-discovery. For most, sadly, "Who am I now?" is the psyche's automatic wail of
protest against any threat to, or loss of anything we identify our Self
with. It doesn't matter whether I identify with my integrity or a
contact lens; if it is lost or even seriously threatened, I'll react
like my home's in a tree.
Ken Keyes declared "Identification is the only cause of
suffering". If we didn't identify with a particular thing, person,
belief, perspective or quality, losing it would not cause us suffering
beyond (maybe) a little inconvenience; we'd just shrug and move on. If you are stuck on any kind of repetitive pattern, it's time you woke up to the possibility that you
have attached your identity to something that isn't really you. You've hooked your star onto a falling piece of space junk.
Perhaps you might like to sit with that for a
while......
There are several techniques to fossick out the myriad of
ways you've attached your identity to (“That's me!”).
Here's one ….
Notice what you do, why you do it and, consequently,
how you do it. I'm not talking only about big-ticket, significant
things, but also about the ordinary unremarkable things you do that,
at the time, don't seem to be important. Go back in memory
over your last 24 hours and look at everything you've done and what you've
said. Ferret out the mundane things you've forgotten about. No varnishing or justifying, please. Stick to the raw facts.
(eg. "I told that bitch to F*** off" Maybe not out loud, but I did it, with anger.) For the moment discount who was involved and disregard why. The question is "what have
you done? What have you said? And how? This is what 'I' did."
The answers may not be flattering, but they will give you a
peep inside the character of the fictional personality - the front you've shaped yourself to be. You did this in the mistaken belief that what you've created would work better than being Your Self. You were quite mistaken about that. Seriously mistaken. Because you have become inauthentic and not-real, pretending to be authentic and real. And inauthenticity spawns in you falseness, deceit, falsity, untruth, inaccurateness, carelessness, casualness, confusedness, misapprehensiveness, fallacy, falsehood, subjectiveness, self-deception and fallibility.
Does any of that ring a bell with you? Don't answer that question, please. Just sit in it and be with it.
Another way of finding what you've created as your self
is through your relationships -- all of them. Relationship is the mirror that allows us to look at what's reflected back to us off all the people we
know and have met.
Looking through the seeing-glass of relationships -- yours and those around you -- will test the integrity of your intention, because you're not going to like all that you see. Your "look-good-to-itself" mind is going to wriggle and squirm like crazy. Let it. Pay no attention. You look at someone and assume that what you see
and hear is “them”. It's not. Not even close. What you see is
You! You're looking at a mirror.
That's partly why, when really close relationships or a
job, are threatened, or end in separation or death, we feel empty,
lost, and start to question “Who am I?” Something external has
left, but the vacuum is felt deep inside ourself. We took this person/thing on board and said "This is Mine; this is Me." Now that it has gone we cry, “I can't live
without......(what?) Without this relationship, this role, my contact lens or my morning
coffee, what am I? Without this, what is my worth as a human being?”
Even the threat of this existential vacuum makes us
chary of change. We get so fearful that we deny, shirk or resist the
existence of the law of Inevitable Change. Human beings, just like anxiety-induced lab rats and dogs, are far less likely to explore their situation, and more likely to spend their time and energy looking for way of diverting and dodging their stress. We forget that this stress is what we came for. And if we avoid, avoid, avoid this until death do us part, it's possible we may have to come back and do this all over again until we get the message == embrace this. (Have you seen "Groundhog Day"?)
The
naysayers, the avoiders, the control freaks and the timid alike seriously doubt
their resources of Resilience and Adaptability, perhaps with good
reason. They've been denied the training. “Spoiled” children, deprived of opportunities to learn
how to deal creatively with change and adversity (“No” is a very
under-used child training tool), find real life and relationships very
difficult to navigate in the later years. They stay “childish”, and
try to back-pedal at the first sign of progress, equating “change”
and any threat to their status quo with “trouble”. To
some, Jesus Christ was the Saviour and the Lamb of God; to others he
was TROUBLE! Same bloke. How do you explain the difference in perceptions?
[You Are a Child
of the Universe]
There is a delightfully enlightening programme on
ABC-TV at the moment called "The Dreamhouse". It follows a group of
three intellectually challenged young adults who, under supervision,
break away from sheltered home lives and learn to live, work and
socialise independently. We watch and learn as they successfully learn,
almost in slow motion, how to face the same
challenges and stresses, and develop the skills that you and I may have
glossed over or even missed out upon. My heart sobbed last night as one
of the housemates, after the initial euphoria of asking a girl he likes
out on a date and getting a cautious "Yes", sits in his room in a funk of anxiety quietly sobbing to himself "It's too much. It's too much." God, I know the intensity of that stage fright!! I hope the WA-produced series gets repeated. It's an eye-opener of the sweetest kind.
If your sense of your personal value is to have any
permanence – and I assure you that is more than possible – it can not, and must not, be
tied to anything or any one, including anything you think you are. In fact, severing those emotional bonds is essential before you'll ever experience freedom. Cut yourself loose from your person-ality; it's keeping you tied down.
The irony of this is that when you cut your emotional tether of need to some one, you become free to love that one! Yes, I know, that doesn't make sense. It's never going to. That's my point. Love isn't "sense-ible". Loving your lover and loving your lover's lover is a matter of the heart, not the rational mind. Hellooooo!
Consider these propositions -- Anything you put after “I am...” is NOT you.
Whatever you stand for or refuse to fall for is NOT you. Whatever you
think, feel or believe you are – that's .. not .. you. Why? Any and
all of those things can change and even cease to be, yet YOU still
will BE. Whatever comes … can go again, and you will still be. So
you are not anything that can appear and disappear (including the
bodymind you get around in).
What you ARE is that which is real and immortal, that which
is immovable and unchangeable (and, by the way, that has nothing to do with being
pig-headed and stubborn). So when major changes and crises hit, they
fly right on through. Any loss, emptiness and vacuum you feel are not
in you, but in the "not-you", and that, despite how it feels, is
disposable. It really is. The damage done by natural disasters, loss
of employment, breakup of relationships and such will probably be
physically, emotionally and maybe spiritually devastating, but what
is being destroyed? You? No. What you think and believe you are, yes.
And the more identified you are with that hologram, the more you are likely to suffer.
Anything not you is where your suffering begins,
lives and dies. And that false you is where the question “Who/what
am I now?” originates. That doesn't make it a bad question, but
you'll never find the answer inside those cell walls. You really ought to
get out more!
How do you prepare for the unexpected and become
self-reliant and self-sufficient? Well, you could try purposely
getting out of your comfort zone occasionally, on your own, looking
for challenges. Any sort will do. Experiment and practice. When
you're trying out new ways to see what works, you cannot fail. Who
knows, with the dread of falling flat on your face out of the way you
might find managed risk can be fun!
Through experimenting, you can develop a range of ways
and activities in which to value yourself, ways that do not rely on the
recognition of others, but on the value you
bestow on your own courage and initiative, on
what you decide to do, and why.
We can all use a gentle hand
occasionally, and it's a great gift you bestow when you graciously
accept a kindness. But if leaning on others outside of yourself has
become a habit, your equanimity has become dependent on what they
do. Where's the freedom in that?
Only a suspiciously needy person wants anyone to lean on
them for long, and that kind of person rarely can be honest about
why they need your dependency. But here's a social problem – "I want you,
but I don't need you" doesn't fit the popular romantic idea of a
good pickup line, does it? Why? Why does "I need you" creep
into the lyrics of so many silly love songs? (I use the word
"creep" purposely).
When you need something from somebody or something else,
you literally give yourself away. You sell yourself short, and no healthy person wants that burden. And needy people suck. Keep your
balance by cultivating a calm Enoughness within yourself.
Not all change involving major adjustments is harsh or arduous.
Some lifechanging upheavals are welcome and even enjoyable. I'm thinking of huge changes like getting
into a primary relationship, or expecting your first child. But
nervousness, uncertainty and stress are still inevitably involved in the process, and if you're not
adept at navigating emotional rapids, you could still end up getting hurtled into white water, laid low in slack pools, snagged on hidden branches and marooned on rocks. I think it's called "adventure".
Stress is the package of symptoms that arise in any new situation you haven't fully experienced before. Stress symptoms result
from tension between the situation as it is and your resistance to it.
Stress is evidence of an internal emotional cat-fight going on. The
resistance emanates from your unkind mind, the source of all opposition to change. In the early days of partnership nature
provides us with the distractions of romance and sex to disencumber
and lubricate the early explorative stages in the journey of
negotiating and adjusting to each other. In parenthood, we get the
miraculous joy and novelty of the new being entering our world and
raising our hopes for this close brush with immortality. We get
biological and psychological fillips to get through the initial
upheavals. But they are only temporary! Don't expect them to last "forever after".
Most other sudden dramas come with a surge of adrenalin to help. But it's up to you to develop the skills that, fueled with your natural chemicals, will see you through to a new world.
Other changes are not actually change at all; rather they are
opposite ends of the same dynamic. For example, Mrs. Truck marries
Mr. Mighty, and she finally has to get rid of him because he won't
let her have her own way all the time. So she then marries Mr. Wimp,
who does exactly what he's told, when he's told. Unfortunately, she
still doesn't get to be herself because he's such a spineless
dickhead he can't tie his own shoelaces without supervision. She's
still trapped. Opposite dynamic – same result.
It's a darn sight easier to cope with change and crisis
if you know yourself intimately, and know what kind of activities are
guaranteed to allow you to recuperate, replenish and aerate your
self. Petria King calls it "Fluffing yourself up." If you, armed with that self-knowledge, take the time and space
to revive yourself you will cope far better with major and sudden
changes by embracing them with your resources freshened, rather than
having to fall back on an already exhausted, frazzled, flustered,
morose, miserable, anxious and depressed condition.
The unexpected, the unthinkable, the unmentionable,
the unfathomable and the unimaginable are always on the menu – see
in fine print under "Side Dishes". They're there to test
the workingness of Who you Think You Are. When your "I am" creation no longer works, you can blame the test (what most people do), or create something new that works.
Life examinations are rarely pre-announced. No press releases. No Emergency Warnings.
So do a Baden-Powell --
"Be Prepared"
