|
Aloha and Good Morning, I moved
recently to a nice town home in Phoenix, graced in the central courtyard by
the presence of a pond and a small turtle. I like turtles. They make no bones
about their shell, and that works for them. They innocently retreat behind
their externalized defensiveness without a nagging propensity for wondering
how ineffective such behavior proves when translated from instinct to
socialization, the left-over defense mechanisms that seldom solve or improve
our conflict laden cornucopia of modern stress filled life. |
|
After all, a nice, hard shell is wonderful
protection from being suddenly struck by a falling coke bottle tossed thoughtlessly from the window of a passing
two-seater commuter plane. Really, how often does that happen? Alas, our
shells do little to diffuse the ire of a supervisor caught up in the
Machiavellian machinations of corporate politics; neither does it help make
ends meet, or fight off the fast fat of fast food, stave off loneliness or
tell me I’m okay and so are you. Similar scenarios are further unsightly
divots that mar the surfaces on our sandy shore of equanimity and unlimited
potentiality. Or are they? |
|
“Evolving consciousness equals ever more
subtle levels of realizing responsibility for our perception and for our
projection (and hence, experiential creation of reality). It’s the idea that
if something crosses my path, my soul must have some level of relationship to
it – else it would pass by unremarked.” |
|
It reminds me how
powerful and effective it is to become the witness and to retrain my response
patterns and thereby remind myself that I am not my emotions, nor my
thoughts, that emotions and thoughts are tools that, like my hands, can
create or destroy. So I learn to
witness my emotions and thus awaken to them. I like me when I’m living like
this! It’s a spot-on, rock-solid, integral place from which to live life. I
can listen without judgment or an answering complaint of my own. Listening is
such a powerful tool of validation and acceptance. I’m slowly learning to try
it more often, slowly learning to deeply listen to both my self and the
externalized mirrors that manifest in my life as friends or family,
synchronicities or re-occurring coincidences, dreams or drama. I’m learning
to find the value in my inner shadow thoughts and feelings, the value in my
conflicts, the value in my past, less-than-fully-meaningful choices. It’s an
interesting exercise to find the soul expanding value in past choices we’ve
been conditioned to think of as “mistakes.” Finding the value robs the past
of its power to pollute the mirrors of our now and poison the present with
meaningless thoughts or inappropriate expressions of emotion. Finding the
value re-energizes our ability to witness. Witnessing allows us to step back,
stepping back returns us to the present. The present is real and authentic.
Beginning authentic aligns our being with the universe and awakens our soul.
Being real speeds up the evolution of our consciousness and makes popcorn
taste better, even without butter or salt. With love
and aloha, Holman |
|
Besides, if this present moment arises from
the divine, from the void: fresh, new, untainted, unborn, undetermined and
into this eternally renewable now I cast my mirrors, how could anything
possible be about you? How not, the cantankerous, surly part of my self
demands? Because if it’s not about you – it must be about me and my eternally
faultless ego part can’t abide the implication. Without waxing too existential, I believe
that evolving consciousness equals ever more subtle levels of realizing
responsibility for our perception and for our projection (and hence,
experiential creation of reality). It’s the idea that if something crosses my
path, my soul must have some level of relationship to it – else it would pass
by un-remarked. Our turtle selves would find no need to retreat behind our
shells, hiding in the darkness and hoping our defenses equal to the task of
maintaining our hard grasped illusions. This is like thinking the world flat. Don’t
scoff, this still happens, even in our post-modern age of enlightenment, it’s
called reductionistic thinking and can be very subtle. Deeper still, it’s
imagining the walls that hold back the night solid when more evolved
consciousness might recognize potential over-laid upon swirling, empty space.
Both are perceptually accurate, so what dictates which one we see? It’s like
thinking I’m somehow separate from you and therefore what I do to you doesn’t
affect me. (And if it doesn’t affect me, then it’s somehow okay.) It’s like
the idea that if you refrain from yelling aloud, then all is well; and yet
angry energy, like a spear tearing into my heart, still hurts me. Yes, looks
really can kill, perhaps not my body, but |
|
surely my relationship becomes a little
less alive. I cannot, with any degree of genuine
authenticity, change or control you – only myself. Therefore, the only
valuable exercise remains to claim my part and my responsibility, to follow
this string of priceless pearls back to the original irritant in the belly of
my inner oyster. Which brings me
back to my turtle shell of defensiveness; I’m becoming more and more
conscious of the ineffectiveness of this reaction pattern. I’m beginning to
ask myself: what did I do, what did I say, how did I
act out
non-verbally, what did I
think or project
unconsciously that created this moment of conflict in my life? I can’t always
figure it out and yet, when I can, magic happens. I find myself able to
return to my heart-space, to rediscover unconditional love, renew displaced
deep inner peace and find acceptance. Even when I’m unclear how to reclaim
responsibility, and thus empowerment, the act of pondering the question
inevitably enhances my emotional well-being and changes the energy of the
situation. |
|
I suppose
that depends on how awake we are to our reactions as we encounter life’s
fussiness. If we habitually externalize such blips on our Doppler radar
screens, then we might have cause to envy the unflappable turtle. In fact, we
might “turtle-ize” our own reactions, retreating into a shell of our own
making, untouchable in our entrenchment. That would be me, when I’m sleep
walking through life; or me when I’m protesting my own innocence using the
indefensible inner argument – “Well, you started it…” It’s always possible (since the basic
premise of this argument is false to start with) to find some rationalization
where this position justifies one’s stance. Yet, what
if I wake up and realize that whatever I’m feeling—at a higher level of
awareness— isn’t about you, not in any way that matters. Rather it’s another
opportunity to follow my fussiness back to its roots and listen to its story.
Until I manage to deeply, consciously listen to my inner stories, they are
forced to continually poke their little heads up out of my shadows. |
