WORRIED? WHAT WERE YOU SO WORRIED ABOUT?

 

The mind likes to dwell on frightening outcomes.  That is its default position.  It doesn’t matter what the frightening outcomes are.  If one becomes obsolete, or, as you think, solved, the mind can choose from among fifty others.  There is never any shortage of frightening outcomes.

 

Statue of a cherub, chin in hand, looking skyward, as if disgusted or resigned.

 

But what becomes of any of them? What were you so worried about five years ago? Did you cause anything good to happen with your worry? Was all the stress and anxiety worth it? Do you think it was a good strategy?  If you could talk to the person you were then, what would you tell her?

 

Photo of a 10 year old girl, eyes closed, thumbs joined to forefingers on both hands, meditating.

 

Relax and let go.  Find activities that induce relaxation: running, yoga, swimming, walking, meditation, reading a book.

Be wholly grateful for any instant of peace.

 

What were you so worried about ten years ago?

 

Image by Jack Hamilton on Unsplash

 

That they would discover my lack of worth. There was little joy in being that unhappy, insignificant, self-loathing person. 

 

What would you tell that person?

 

Desire change, wish for change, ask for change, be alive and mad for change.  I am willing to be changed. I allow it. I allow change.

 

How?

 

By letting that concept occupy your mind for at least seventeen seconds, letting a new neural connection form. Do that now.

 

Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

 

What were you so worried about twenty years ago?

 

I was completely taken up with status and wanting. I admired fancy houses and cars. I wanted everything to look good, but I didn’t know what good was. I had so little contact with good, and thought of it so infrequently, that I couldn’t recognize it.

But now I can: by giving thanks. There is so much to give thanks for. Start now by giving thanks for two minutes.  Set a timer.

 

 

This interesting game does good on many levels, many of which you cannot see. But you will feel the good in doing it.  You can shorten the time frame of your question.  What were you so worried about last month? What troubles did the mind harp on last week?  What was the flavor du jour yesterday? What would you tell the person you were then?

 

 Drawing of Lao Tsu, author of the Tao Te Ching

You are but a guest in this world

Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

 

 

 

PROBLEM OR SITUATION?

 

problem

 

Do not try to solve your problems; that just gives them life.

To be solving a problem means you first decided a situation was a problem.  Would you agree that two people could approach the same situation, in two different ways?

 

A magnificent white swan gliding on dark water, her folded wings protecting her grey, furry feathered chick.

 

Whoever designates a situation as a problem will be defeated by it. He will always have it. Even when it appears to be solved, it is a sleeping dragon, a dormant volcano, ever capable of coming back to life. Dormant or active, dead or alive, what you name as a problem will rule you.

 

To name a problem is to give up your free will. Free will and fear cannot co-exist.  A problem is something you potentially cannot handle.  Here is something I fear. I will spend my time learning how to deal with it and how to tame it. I will look at how others deal with the same problem.  I will study it and master it.

 

Image by Kevin Turcios on Unsplash

 

Who will be master?

 

It will not be you.  By naming anything as a problem, you have given yourself up, betrayed your true Self, admitted you do not believe you have access to that perfect creative power that sets to right each tiny gnat’s feeler, and each galaxy in each imaginable universe.

 

no problem 7

 

If you had access to that power, allied with the most exquisite intelligence, how could anything be called a problem? By admitting to a problem, you cut yourself off from this perfect Knowing,  Seeing, and Loving that brought you into being.

If God is with us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31

 

Life is full of situations.  How could it be otherwise?  The more you pay attention to the vicissitudes, the constant changingness of life, the more you encourage that kind of energy to come. Whatever you pay attention to increases.

 

What would you increase?

 

I would increase peace in the world.  That is the first order of business. How would I do that?  All I have is my mind, my power of choice, but it is enough. I would give my mind to peace, think on it, dwell in it, imagine it. What would it feel like?  How would it sound?  This I would do for five minutes, because that is five minutes more than I am doing right now.

I will take time away from incubating whatever I have designated as “my problems”, and give that time to increasing what I would increase.  When I find myself thinking about what I have called “my problems”, let me remember it was my decision to name a situation as a problem, rather than as an occasion for light to shine.  I would now like to become part of that light.

 

A lighthouse shining out against a dark, starry sky.

Photo by Nathan Jennings on Unsplash

 

And, as often as you may find yourself giving time to a “problem”, use this occasion to remind yourself, “I choose instead to give this time to peace.” And then do so.

 

 What power in broken habits

 

 

A baby turtle breaking out of its egg.

 

PROBLEMS? DENY THEM

 

What is the difference between problems and situations?  A situation is information merely; it is what presents. It can be captured in a simple statement of fact that all parties would agree on.  “They are getting a divorce.” “You graduated high school.” “I live alone.”

A situation is information, merely. You could picture your reality as one situation after another, presenting.

 

Two large wolves, front paws on a rock, surveying the area

 

When you designate a situation as a problem, you are introducing what was not there before. You bring in the idea that any situation could warrant being taken seriously enough that you could be downcast. You experience emotions: despair, panic, anxiety, all of fear’s other names, which are legion.  You are a puppet whose strings are being pulled. You are having a knee jerk reaction.

 

Young woman sitting on a bench, downcast, alone

 

Are you consciously choosing to have these reactions ? Was it your intention to feel depressed, dispirited, powerless?

 

A reaction is never conscious. It is involuntary, the fright of your animal self, who is convinced that nothing can exist outside of his five senses.  See him.  Thank him for being here.  Let him go now.

 

A coyote in watchful pose, hunting food

 

 

Entertain no fears. Deny them space, send them away if they try to come. Instead, be still. Remember who you are, unlimited and peaceful. And then choose the response you would delight to have.

 

 

problems

 

Deny problems, and you turn yourself into a surface upon which problems cannot stick. Problems are perceptions, unlimited and relentless. To deny problems is to deny them even one receptor cell within you, and it is to rise above them until they quickly crumble away as worthless dust already shaken loose.

 

problems

 

If there is a situation to be dealt with, then let me deal with it. Show me how to address it, direct me what to do,  and make me open to all the help I need.  That is all I want in response to anything that presents. To entertain fear and anguish at the arise of any situation is an absurd overreaction. It is like having a fit of the vapors because a wave is going to break.

 

problems 3

 

Every wave is going to break. Every flower will bloom and die, as you think. It is not necessary, it is folly, to pay much attention to the happenings of this world. Ask instead to be helpful, relax, be open and let everything fall out as it may.

How may I help?

 

problems 4

 

 

 

 

NATURAL: MAY I BE MORE

 

You tell yourselves that natural is good:   free of additives, free of artifice, free of tampering, as nature intended.

 

Kiwifruit slices and blueberries in mid air against a gold ground

Image by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash

 

It is only natural

 

You use this comforting, exonerating statement when you have done something foolish, in haste, or less than forgiving. It is only natural to favor one’s biological children over others, to strike back, to exact revenge, to punish those who deserve it, to mistreat people who are acting like doormats, to look after your own needs first, and to want more than you have.

 

Everybody does it

 

A humanoid robot in a despairing pose, head bowed, on its knees.

 

If it is acceptable to be only natural, and no one expects more from us than fulfilling our needs,  then what are we? Are we self-determining creatures? Is there any choice at all in a situation devoid of moral dilemmas, where nothing more is expected of us? 

 

If we are to be no more than natural, why bother even to exist? If anybody at all could play my part, why should I? If there are no choices to be made, why am I here? Without choice, all beings are interchangeable machines, perfectly adapted to the environment, and perfectly without power to change any of it.

 

A humanoid robot, skin covering its neck and thoughtful face, but with the top of its head and below its shoulders without skin, so as to expose the machinery beneath.

Image by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

 

The last thing we should wish to be is natural. Let us rather transcend our natures. Let us stop thinking we have to look out for ourselves. Let us stop favoring our own group or kind. It is only natural, but it is small. It admits that there are differences between people, that we are not all one.

 

Gandhi in later life, bespectacled, looking directly into the camera, smiling

 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

 

Let us stop returning evil for evil. It keeps us in place forever. There is no way out, if we are satisfied to be no more than natural.

 

natural 10

 

Let us stop being relentlessly focused on ourselves. Let us begin  by seeing how focused we are on ourselves, and in that seeing, help us to drop it.

 

misc 34

 

Let us stop tending our egos, let us stop focusing on what we may think of as our personalities and our problems. Let us realize they have no more power over us than we are giving to them.

 

May I be more than natural

 

Let me be more

Let me be more

 

PERSPECTIVE: AN ENTERTAINING GAME

 

Perspective is an entertaining game to while away many minutes in thought experiments.

 

Consider the same event from different perspectives. For example, something very challenging has happened to you.  It could be a death, a divorce, a diagnosis, or anything else.  But it has shaken you to the core, so that you doubt whether you’ll ever be able to find peace again.

 

Close up of a woman's face, deep in thought, sober, superimposed over a night sky full of stars, so that some of the stars are visible on her face.

 

The perspective you are currently using is human and ego-centered. This event is strongly threatening your sense of self,  of who you think you are, or want to be. You may even be thinking of ending your life.  You do not see how you can continue as the self you were, or want to be, under this onslaught.  You are constantly full of fear and anxiety, your thoughts race, you take drugs, you are afraid.

This is the perspective of a being who believes her life is finite and can be ended by anything.

 

 

A drop of water rising up from a still blue pool

 

Now take another perspective.  You are a divine being, sent to this plane to face challenges, meet them, and end them for all the fellow beings to come.  No less than that is your brief. You are great.  Nothing can end or touch your life, which is eternal. As a human you may feel like a drop of water somehow separated from the ocean, but as a divine being you know you never left it.

Your return to its endless, enclosing calm is certain, assured, and indeed has already taken place.

How would you act?

 

Two large pohutukawa trees, planted close together, with their spreading crimson crowns. New Zealand

 

You would remember at every moment who you are, and know that it was impossible to be disturbed. You would look upon the events, the vicissitudes of life, as upon a miniature train meandering like an ant through a far valley, which you gazed upon “silent, upon a peak in Darien.”  You would wear a crown of imperturbability. And your actions?  You would act as inwardly directed, with calm, quiet decisiveness, and – always – with love.

 

 

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

the flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

DIMENSION: STEP IT UP

 

A drawing of a two-dimensional creature, a blob with eyes and a mouth

 

Imagine a two-dimensional creature. Every other creature in its world is of the same measure.  Circles, blobs or splotches, they move sideways, or back and forth, but never up and down.

There are no words for “up” or “down”, since these concepts don’t exist.  The creature encounters all the same problems as its neighbors. They are constantly getting in each other’s way. Because of their limited vision, they think there is never enough space. They can’t see what’s coming. They can perceive only what is around them, what they can touch and smell, what is obvious.

 

A chessboard with three pieces, the white queen down, a black bishop and pawn still standing

 

They compete for space on their checkerboard, unaware of the space that extends infinitely all around them. Life has handed them existential difficulties, problems they lack the power to solve. Their mindset becomes chronically depressed. They obsess over trifles.

They despair.

 

Sad, despairing wooden puppets, arms hanging uselessly

 

Now imagine a three dimensional creature observing them.  At first he is amused to see these creatures fussing and fretting about problems whose solution is so laughably obvious. The addition of a third dimension would solve everything they see as a problem. These creatures are comical. It is like watching moths throwing themselves fitfully, desperately at a flame.

 

 

After a while, the three dimensional creature grows bored watching such needless futility and turns away.

 

A very young baby looking up with an expression of wonder

 

Now imagine one of the two-dimensional creatures becoming aware that there is space all around him.  He looks up and sees the vault of heaven. How this dwarfs all the foolish machinations he had been involved in before! There is no end of space; why was he concentrating on his neighbors?

 

He feels inspired, lifted up, made new.  He is a new creature. Awareness of his new dimension begets the ability to live and move in it.  He pushes off, slowly at first, as a jellyfish impelling, then gathering speed and joy.

 

Increase my dimension

 

 

A jellyfish in deep dark ocean, its center well lit, circular and symmetrical with dark stripes, and flowing out behind, filaments of legs.