All too often we want things to go away on their own, problems to just disappear, emotions to settle down, the future to become clear, the past to make sense.
The other day I was carrying something around with me; a worry, a worry that I could do nothing about in the moment, a worry that I was inflicting upon myself, a worry that in retrospect seems silly (as they often do after they work themselves out or diminish with the perspective of time).
I continuously redirected my mind, repeatedly made other thought choices and yet my mind kept wandering back to that emotional hell, a black hole sucking up my motivation, my positive energy.
I realized there were layers upon layers. It wasn’t just this particular situation that was pulling at my mind; it was an underlying desire for a life of continuous harmony combined with a belief that I was somehow entitled to live in a bubble of love and agreement. Both states (continuous harmony and bubble of love and agreement) are fine things to wish for BUT folks aren’t always going to do as (or when) you wish and things won’t always turn out the way you suppose. When I created an expectation that I was going to somehow have harmony and agreement in my life on an ongoing basis AND I was unwilling to release that expectation when the time came, when the expectation was not fulfilled in the instant moment, I was setting myself up for discontent and misery (Yeah, I know, sounds so BASIC when you put it into simple words but boy, oh, boy was the whirlpool strong and the emotional storm/ambush sudden! Yeah, Yeah, I know again, excuses, excuses! Argue for your excuses and they are yours!).
Misery and discontent weren’t chasing me, I was chasing them. They would not go away because I was clutching them tightly, creating them. Joy was around me; I was choosing otherwise. To most effectively release my worry, I would best start much, much earlier: dismantling the internal world view, the programing, the conditioning that created the fertile ground for the worry to take root, grow, and flourish.
Closing Quotes:
“Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“When you are looking in the mirror, you are looking at the problem. But, remember, you are also looking at the solution.” – Anonymous
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world … as in being able to remake ourselves.” – Mahatma Gandhi
As always, I share what I most want/need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier