JUST A MOMENT........
[THE POWER OF POSSIBILITY]
[Broadcast on 8th September, 2011]
{26:30}
PART - A
For just a moment tonight I'd
like us to consider together the Power of Possibility......
[I Can Do Anything –
John Farnham (A) – 4:27]
If I had a religion, it would
be a religion of Possibility... We're all too ready, I think -- and I'm just as
guilty of this as anyone – to overlook something we can't immediately see, or
something we decide has too many strikes against it, and consign it to the Impossible
Basket.
And I suspect the habit is
cultural. For example, as soon as I decided to make Possibility my topic for
JAM tonight, I typed the word “possible” into my music catalogue. Not a single
entry; but a stack of “impossibles” – “Mission Impossible”, “You're
Impossible”, “It's Impossible”, and enough versions of “The Impossible Dream”
to sink the stoutest of positive thinkers. Which suggests to me that Don
Quixote's chivalric method of finding Possibility by tilting at the windmills
of the Impossible, while romantic as all get-out, may not be such a good
idea for prosaic plebs like me who've got things to do other than going around
making legends of ourselves.
But what if there's another,
easier way to find and attain what's possible? Are you so wedded to your firm
ideas about what’s feasible, or would you be willing for the next few minutes
to hit the Pause button on your scepticism and come with me on a journey into
the unknown? Don’t worry, I’ve been there before, and I promise I’ll bring you
back safely.
OK, for just a moment tonight I'm going to
turn The Impossible Dream in on itself. I invite you to look with me at how our
lives might change if we changed our minds
and stand, just for a while, before an open-window Assumption of Possibility.
Let the breeze blow in past you and through you – that the seemingly impossible
just might not be so impossible; that if we can think it, if we can imagine it,
just possibly, one way or another...... we may be able to feel it into
existence.
[La Raya]
Just a moment.........
When you're troubled or
stuck........
Try another way of looking at
it.........
Let me tell a bit of my story
and see how much of this resonates with you...
[The Impossible Dream
– Ferrante & Teicher]
My relatively recent awakening
to the existence and availability of Infinite Possibility came just in the nick
of time. After 60 years of living in a permanent state of Anxiety and Anger, I
succumbed to The Black Dearth – chronic fatigue, anxiety and depression. I just
didn't have the will to resist it any longer. I didn't care much whether I
lived or died. I wasn't going to top myself; I was just too shagged out to make
the effort. It's just that Nothing mattered any more. But then that became my
saving grace..... Something, in me, shifted, and I don't quite know how to
describe what that shift feels like, but here goes.......
You know those 3-D pictures
that look like a flat, jumbled pattern of coloured lines and squiggles? You
stare at them and de-focus on the detail until there comes, of its own accord,
a click-shift in your perception. Suddenly there is revealed a magical,
seemingly 3-dimensional world that you hitherto had not been able to see. The
drawing, as such, has not changed, but what you see is magically transformed in
half the blink of an eye. And you can suddenly see something wonderful that was
there all along, but lost in the confusion, the detail and, sometimes, our
ignorance of the fact that there is more to what’s in front of our noses
than immediately meets the eye. What we’ve seen in the past often blinds us to
a lot of what is actually in front of us. If we don’t like what we see now,
maybe we don’t need as much a change of scene as we do need new ways of seeing.
My transformation felt
similar. Not caring too much about what others thought, and feeling that
nothing mattered any more, both suddenly became a source of freedom, of
possibility, of lightness and exhilaration. “What
you think is no longer my business”......Whew! “Your opinion of me doesn't matter any more, not to me anyway!”
Thank God for that. A load lifted. Without my having to do anything about it,
my panicky grabbing onto a need to be accepted loosened. I surrendered to what
Les Murray calls “the Is-ful Ah-ness” of things as they are. Isn't that
beautiful? – The Is-ful Ah-ness of
this moment. It happened without warning one afternoon as I was walking to the
bus stop on the way to work I became sharply aware of space..... in, around and
through me being choc-full of Possibility. Anything could happen in the next
moment. The sense of freedom that washed over and through me in that moment was
en-lightening. En-lightening!
Nothing changed, and yet I've
never been the same since.
In just a moment, I'll be back
to relate what happened next, and share what it's like to feel the Power of
Possibility.
PART - B
[Who Can I Turn To
(When Nobody Needs Me)? – Mark Vincent (A) – 2:40]
[Here's a song that's familiar
– you know the words. Listen, and imagine that you're singing this as a love
song to your self......]
As I daily become more aware
of the hitherto unnoticed possibilities that flow through and around me, aware
of how once impossible dreams are becoming more and more possible.....
[The Impossible Dream
– Mantovani]
….I find myself using my own
awakening spirit as a guiding reference point, rather than using other people’s
expectations, or their beliefs, as benchmarks.
….I find myself relying less
on signs, omens, and random coincidences as reassurances for meaningful action.
….I listen to, but rely less
on either the approval or agreement of others in order to feel OK about myself
or what I'm doing, or even the way that I'm doing it. Almost immediately I feel
lighter.
…..I fear less and have fewer
panic attacks than I used to.
….I've been able to give up
the need to try and control the impermanent and the un-controllable (which is
just about everything).
….I've lost so much of my need
to feel “special” or “important”.
….I no longer feel I have to
be “liked” to get the job done. Sure, I still prefer to feel that I'm bringing
something worthwhile to the table, and I'd much rather other people felt better
about themselves when I'm around, than have them arc up in antagonism: but I'm
not going to lose any sleep over how others feel about me (well, not much
anyway). Whatever they think of me is none of my business. It
never was.
I'm also losing the need to
hang onto being “safe” and “right”. Demands for security blankets and comfort
zones come solely from your unkind mind. Acknowledge the urge to be cautious when
you get it, consider it, then follow your instincts. By plunging into a
situation, I'm getting to know my Courage, and discovering the Stimulation of
exploring the Un-known. There are those moments, too, when I become
aware of the Serenity of a Silence that is ever-present, and the unlimited
potential of Nothing, from which everything new is created.
It is a given of the parasitic
human mind that, unable to be in the present, it is always looking to some
horizon for More, looking for Better, looking for Different out there in the
so-called “real” world. Well, it’s my experience of horizons that they are
always annoyingly just beyond reach. But we were pushed on. I, like everyone
else on the planet followed the strong messages and directions I got from my
parents and wider family, directing me towards who and what I ought to be, and
how I should be. But the further I ventured out, the farther I got from
that-which-I-am, and the harder I had to work to shore up the illusion of the
shopfront personality I'd created to please everyone else. The further I
wandered away from the source of power, the more energy I needed to beg, borrow
or steal from others just to keep going. In my quest for relevance, importance
and some measure of immortality, I weighed myself down with acquisitions –
social and career positions, important responsibility, ideas, beliefs and
opinions to be right about, and influence over others.
To use a racing analogy – the
horse was riding the jockey, and the jockey was buckling under the weight.
The truth is, there was never
enough, nor would there ever be enough success or importance to fill the dead
emptiness of an ego disconnected from its source.
Well, nothing significant has
changed since. Discovering the Power of Possibility is not about changing
anything: it's about embracing more of what we are. I still have much the same
persona (or is that “personum”?) as before; There is still the same holy
arsehole about me that I've had since I started going to school. But that’s not
the whole of it now, not by a long way.
I'm seeing myself these days
in another light – in the light of Possibilities that show up when we free our
selves from out limiting minds. And that lightness is proving to be immensely
attractive to surprising new opportunities. More of everything I truly want has
come to me in the last 12 months, all without conniving or manipulation games.
But only since I began to live each day in Gratitude for what I am, and what I
have in this moment. That is transformation!
[I Can Love You Like
That – All 4 One – 4:22]
[Here's another love song to
your self] (11 secs)
You, me, everyone we know, and
those we don’t yet know – find the Common Origin of it all. Find it where it
can be seen and where it is not yet immediately obvious. In an ocean of
infinite possibilities, we are each just one bunch of possibilities that showed
up like a ripple on the surface. I am, so are you – a wave of possibilities
cresting on an ocean of possibility. From the biggest tsunami to the tiniest
ripple, we are still made of the same possibility as the ocean which gives rise
to us, comprises us, and supports us. I Am and always have been that which I'd
been looking for. You Are, and always have been, that which you've been looking
for. We are not the ripple, but we are that which is permanent and remains
after the ripple has washed up on the shore. We are that which is Aware – of
everything we previously thought we were. Unlimited Possibility is inherent in
that Awareness, from which has arisen everything that will be, everything that
now is, and everything that once was.
[The Impossible Dream
– David Hobson (A) – 4:10]
From here – from now –
everything is possible. All you have to do is choose.
Now that's Aliveness for you!
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