Well, this is an interesting time as we experience something strange and life changing. And it’s not an earthquake or tsunami, not a flood or uncontrollable fire. It’s nothing that the naked eye can see, yet we have an automatic response to the unknown that tends to trigger a certain habitual reaction of fear and limitation. There’s a tiny, harmful, destructive virus on the loose. Something that’s not even considered alive that’s requiring us to avoid being near one another. The unknown of what exactly it is, changing how we move through our day, how we interact with one another and even how we view one another. Strange fears and assumptions, judgments and misinformation, denial and even aggression. We learn a lot about one another through a crisis or dire times and it can be an eye-opening moment. We can use the information with care and humbly accept our ignorance. Or we can think we’re invincible until something brings us to our knees or our last breath.
The human mind. What happens that causes each of us to have a certain way of responding and utilizing the information we receive? We are sensitive beings that are more alike than different. One group shares similar sensibilities and they move this way in response, another group moves that way… And it’s more than the influence our life history and family of origin, more than the embedded memories in our being and the cause and effects of our life’s circumstances. Something weird and wild that our mind, the part of us that you can’t exactly see, has a job to do that we spend our lives working to either suppress or express, untangle or justify. Our minds can help us extend life or shorten it.
There are things we can’t see with the naked eye, but we know that in someway, nature and man have the capability to heal and uplift, or to ravage and destroy. Look at the way that nature unfolds, giving us an incredible opportunity to see patterns and parallels in every concept. How do we relate to the unknown and what happens once the truth is revealed? That has always been an interest of mine. Practicing meditation has been my best reference for learning to sit, and be with the unknown while seeking truth. I was never sure what would results from sitting in one spot, focusing on my breath, until I realized the accumulation began to be something useful, and I can’t say when that moment happened…I’m just pretty sure that it did. Practicing and living life with yogic principles has revealed the connection with something within and around me that for the most part, helps me accept and honor all of life’s fluctuations. By learning to make time and take time to be open to current information more than our habitual knee-jerk responses from the senses, it’s as though time and life hold a different meaning. From everything, we can awaken and learn, though often it’s the things that shake us that awake us.
My hope is that this bewildering interruption is actually a brilliant and unifying force for our planet, suddenly waking us up from the deep sleep of separation. Eyes opening from the hibernation of the pre-awakened life. Could it be that scratch on the record of our most nonuseful and even destructive behaviors that bring us back to listening to the music of the true self? I could imagine a bump on the road will throw things up in the air just long enough to have us notice this dramatic pause…and that we’ll be open to the adjustments that just might be the thing that changes absolutely everything. Somewhere, in that unseen place in my memory, lives a knowingness of existence awakening from a deep sleep and gently smiling at this moment. May all find solace within gratitude, find comfort when in pain, offer service when strong and give compassion when aware that this is all part of life’s message to the human condition.
What happens when things don’t go the way it was planned? How comfortable are we with what’s happening right in this very moment versus continually trying to live in a past cycle of faded and partially reconstructed truths? Great things to ponder and in some ways, what brought me to a spiritual practice. The material world seems to have an endless supply of triggers to pull our minds this way and that. And then our emotions can rise and take charge, overriding our better sensibilities.
It’s a fluctuating world filled with highs and lows and maybe uneventful middles, and forever to test the way we manage time and life on this planet. Much of these fluctuations feel out of our control and then it becomes an even bigger trigger for our nervous systems and the brain’s job which is to make sure we stay alive at all costs! Is there a way to calm the nervous system and even comfort the brain so it knows we have higher input to receive?
I’m happy to answer with a loud YES! – that’s what the ancient yogis gifted us with thousands of years ago, and what the well-being practitioners of today can offer us. When it seems there’s only one way to do something, is it possible that we simply don’t have the information, skills, tools, etc to come up with another way? In that quiet space of a pause, the mind shifts with different brain-waves and we have access to information not made available when our sympathetic nervous systems are running the show. Now might be that perfect time to join a live streaming class. Whether you find yourself with time on your hands, or you recognize that you could use a break in the fullness of it all, move things aside and get set up in a calm area of your home. Find a comfortable seat, and let’s begin….