I realize the efficacy of positive thinking. I believe that thoughts held in mind produce in kind. I also believe in not resisting feelings and emotions. I identify and acknowledge them and let them pass through. I am becoming less rigid in holding on to one way of being and thinking.
Granted, I’m not completely there yet. At times, I complain as I am concurrently grateful because a great benefit has occurred in my life in the midst of seemingly intractable limitations. I am so very thankful for the water even as I look around in despair at the immensity of the desert surrounding me.
As I look with wonder at all that passes through my life, I have an open and receptive heart, and greet the many colors and shapes of my life with immeasurable gratitude. Yet, I still become irritated, angry, overwhelmed, frustrated, impatient, tired, anxious, and fearful. Significantly, I no longer remain in these states for long. I identify them. I know exactly why I feel a certain way. I allow myself time to process. I give my emotions attention. Sometimes, I try to help them move along. Other times, I let them stay while I go on with my life. I acknowledge their presence and state aloud their identities if my feelings need that type of expression.
Sooner or later, my emotions move on to return later at a frequency dependent upon my life’s circumstances and maturation. I tend to cling to happiness, joy, and fun and attempt to block worry, anger, and resentment. If I’m happy, I want to stay this way. If I’m worried, I want what is causing my anxiety to go away. Both are forms of clinging, the latter in the sense that what you resist, persists. Attachment and rejection are sides of the same coin. Both are obstacles to flowing.
The water and the desert, the sun and the rain, the joy and the pain are all vital to life. Each has a purpose. The key for me is to receive what presents itself and act or not act according to my degree of motivation, information, analysis, and accepted guidance.
When I look back on my life, I see that I am still here. Still standing. Still breathing. I see that what I thought was unbearable was indeed very tolerable because I made it through. I made it to now. If I could have seen the future that is today, I wouldn’t have been so very depressed and stressed out of my mind. Perhaps I would have enjoyed more happy days, knowing what was to come.
Going forward with knowledge of the past, can’t I see that getting through would have been much easier if I hadn’t reacted with such intensity? Surely, life is much easier without anger and resentment, worry and strife. My present is more joyful without fretting about the nonexistent future. Whatever will be will be and I will have to deal with it. I know through experience that much flows effortlessly to me when I free myself from reactive attachments to the emotive creations of my mind.
Letting go is a discipline. It takes practice to simply identify, acknowledge, and let go. When my crazy gets overwhelming, I meditate. I make myself still. I stop trying to handle it alone. I connect to silence, to Spirit. I remember that all of this is an illusion. Our misguided perceptions often define realities seen through the prisms of our mind that simply do not or will not exist. I am attached to that which has no eternal substance. Somewhere, whatever is going on with me does not exist. My life cannot be imagined by those who have no concept of me or the environment in which I live.
Next year, next decade, surely in the next millennium, all that I deem so very important will be replaced by something else. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Life is ever expanding. Whatever I’m experiencing is a relative phenomenon.
Suffering and joy are universal, but unique to each person. Judgment causes us to look at others and feel that their problems or advantages are less or greater than our own. Somehow we must rise above external conditions and situations and utilize the very strong and persistent power that is within to keep moving towards our distinctive destinies. We stop the flow of that mighty power, that eternal energy, by giving sustenance to appearances, whether labeled good or bad, happy or sad.
Every morning, after my meditation, I used to state, “May I be free from emotional attachment to the results of my study.” Even as I stated this, I would think, “That’s not even possible.” I couldn’t comprehend the possibility of that statement. Now, because I am no longer hanging off the side of a cliff, because I made it through the fire, because I didn’t drown and am now on dry land, I can understand the potential of this statement. It reflects a level of growth to which I am closer to realizing. Identify it. Acknowledge it. Work through it. Dispassionately.