OWNING THE UNWANTED
Full disclosure—these past few weeks have been challenging in bold and underline. In that same vein, I’m thanking the unwanted “life coming at you moments” that allowed me to gain clarity on some subjects I’d been chewing on since March of last year. As Abraham says, “Ask, and it is given”…and it sure was. The funny thing about this human experience is that it never comes to us in how we expect it to, nor does it unfold in this grand scheme we’ve narrated. That’s the perfection of the universe. For us A-type personalities who are recovering perfectionists (Blake Shelton finger motion), it is difficult to relinquish control around “how” life happens. If I’m honest, everything in my past still has claw marks in its back from my incessant need to hold on and try to manipulate an outcome I had no direct control over (especially experiences that involved other people).
Redemption and Releasing Resistance
After several instances of being in victim mode and wanting to lay down, take a nap, and tune the world out, I realized this contrast I was experiencing was answering a question I’ve had for a while: “Where do I stand concerning identity, belief, and authenticity? These are big interrelated, hot-button subjects swimming around the collective, and the threads I was seeing were still missing something for me in deeper understanding. As someone who has been in university to study Religion and Culture—these were also topics either graced over—or talked about in ways that only explored one “side.” Since I don’t subscribe to sides in any arena, this was difficult for me. Where do I fit here? Where do I land in these subjects within subjects? I sure knew where I didn’t land—on the turf of conditional expectation and someone else’s view of my identity.
Light and Dark
While bringing a vital piece to light, every opinion offered still begged the question of how do we deal with these subjects of hatred and stereotypes in an unconditional way? While these are conditions, we are unconditional beings who create our own reality. We have an innate ability to tap into that place to create a different experience for them, so why aren’t we doing that? We can’t simply tackle unwanted conditions down to the ground and then evade them through apathy or ignorance, nor should we continue to only look in those places for answers. As Albert Einstein has said, the problem’s frequency and that of the solution are on different planes of existence. We cannot expect to extract a higher vibrational reality (thought, feeling, or belief) out of what is already active within a lower realm. That is like expecting to quench our thirst out of an empty well. It is doing things the hard way, by definition of insanity, and expecting a different result. Knowledge is power, but grounding that knowledge through our unconditional ability to create is empowerment.
Seeing the Beauty in Contrast
So, after moments of irritation this week, I wrote down some self-reflective questions and returned to them a few days later after getting into “the receptive mode” (meditation). How can you see others through the eyes of an unconditional source when you cannot view yourself as such? How can you view others with conceptual clarity if you don’t believe you control your own thoughts? That you aren’t in control of your own clarity? That your world and those relationships within it are simply a product of your conditional notions of self? How can you “fix” the world around you if you can’t even recognize the threads of thought responsible for creating the one you witness? There is no fixing anything, not the world and not the people around you. None of it is broken. None of it is your business. Your business is to focus your thoughts into a high vibrational space of reception, taking self-inventory about where you are versus where you want to be, and taking action in the direction of that which feels good to you. Change never comes about by demanding someone else change the way they think, feel, and behave so you can feel better about yourself. This is inverting the entire concept of creation.
Thanking the Addiction
We are all addicts. Think about it—some of us are addicted to material luxury, maintaining titles and reputations, co-dependent relationships, food, sex, drugs. Whatever it is—at its most conditional basis, it is the negative thought pattern surrounding that thing we’re actually addicted to. The seduction in this bondage is not only that it’s a familiar place for us to be (we’ve been generationally coached into knowns), but that it defines our identity in the world. It’s how we express and impress. These thought patterns ring the same kind of familiar as our fingerprints. However, what we often don’t realize is that we aren’t these identities. We are not our beliefs. These are just repeated thoughts in an ever-expanding state, asking us to paint them in different strokes and hues. Becoming an addict of an unconditional self—that’s where I want to focus.
The Song of Freedom
I’m getting better at taking my own advice in finding freedom with all that I do. It’s the feeling of freedom before it’s been found that is the challenging part to cultivate–but it’s needed to realize the desire (seeing it manifest)! So, throw caution to the wind, let the universe present you with contrast (fear), and show up for yourself and others with love and compassion rather than evasion and blame. This self operates in a world that feels the deeper layers in a conversation and a self that creates a new vibration around those layers within a situation. It’s going from what is to what can be and living in that world instead. Thank the past for what it was—clarity in the unwanted reality you or someone else created and welcome the future of you as a story in motion. A you that lives in and contributes to an equitable universe and not one that perpetuates the acquisition idea (action=reward) because that’s already been created (and it’s counterintuitive). Turn up Alanis Morissette’s “Thank You” and jam out while giving gratitude for this diverse world which provides us endless opportunities for change and transformation.
