Active or Passive Living
by Jennifer Hoffman
Our life is an unfolding journey which reflects the result of every choice we make, from kind of food we eat to the relationships we choose to where we buy our gasoline. There are no insignificant or random choices, as each one plays a part in creating a moment to moment snapshot of our reality. And in each moment we use our experience and spiritual understanding to help us make the best choices within that moment. While we have unlimited options, there are energetic and emotional boundaries that limit what we can choose. We move from one choice to another based on our judgments of the results our choices create.
While some choices are more expansive and life and self affirming than others, we do not deliberately make bad, limiting or self sabotaging choices. Instead, we choose an option from those that we are aware of at any point in time. Our fears, hopes and beliefs about ourselves and what we are capable and deserving of are the tools that we use to make decisions. When we are fully present in our decision-making process, we are living actively. When we live in the past, our judgments and regret the outcomes we create, we are living passively.
Granted, it is difficult to try again when each time we make a life choice or decision we get the same outcome or we are always unhappy with the result. Then we look for reasons to not make decisions, feel that we do not have the ability to create a better outcome, think we are powerless to alter our life path and believe that we have to take whatever life seems to hand out to us. Living passively can become a habit as we move from one situation to another, struggling to maintain our dignity, joy and some semblance of order in our lives when we are surrounded by chaos. While we may understand on a spiritual level that it is simply our fears and beliefs that stand in our way, we still have to find the courage to learn to take an active stance, to say ‘no’ to the chaos and drama and to become more consciously involved in our life process.
Destiny or fate does play an important role in the outcome of our lives although it is not an inevitable outcome. There is much power in destiny, which is living through the repetition of our karmic cycles and past life experiences and it is always a choice, but it not the only choice. Although our destiny represents a compelling option, one that we must consciously avoid choosing, its allure lies in its familiarity because it represents choices that we have always made. If we allow destiny to guide us through lives, we will unconsciously live a life that we once lived, full of the experiences that we once had and never doing anything differently. This is passive living.
But this is a time of transformation, when we are compelled to see beyond what has been true for us throughout time and to decide whether that is good and powerful enough, and right for us today. When we change from living passively and accepting only the obvious or logical choices, to living actively, being willing to take a chance on illogical, obscure and different options, we re-chart the course of our lives and move from destiny into creation.
What will the outcome be for us? We cannot know that because it is new and uncharted territory. It will be at times difficult and frightening but ultimately, our reward will be a new focus and direction for our lives, one that has the potential to lead us to joy and peace and bring us the satisfaction that we have thought about and wished for.
What does it take to live an active life? First, the willingness to acknowledge our inner discomfort, that inner knowing which tells us that the life we are living is not right for us. This is that uncomfortable feeling that arises when we know our path is not right for us, that the circumstances of our life are limiting our self expression and we have to acknowledge that we are unhappy with who we are and what we are doing.
Then we have to be willing to hear and listen to the still, small voice when it tells us to try something new or different, to move forward when we would rather stand still. At this point we must be open to consider the options that our spiritual understanding awakens us to and use our emotions as a guide to help us develop the excitement and passion that will keep us committed and focused on this new journey as it unfolds. Our feelings of joy and satisfaction become our barometer for whether we are making powerful, life expanding choices or staying on the familiar path of destiny.
Active living is created through intention, by embracing the highest vision for our life and allowing the Universe to partner with us in its creation. An intention for joy requires that we be open to receiving things that bring us joy beyond what we can envision for ourselves. An intention for love must be accompanied by the faith and trust that love will find us at the perfect moment. An intention for success will be fulfilled when we allow our vision for abundance and fulfillment to allow the Universe to show us new pathways that will meet our highest vision of success.
We often take a more active role in creating our reality when we feel stuck, disappointed or have tried everything we can think of and nothing seems to work. While that is an option, we do not need the motivation that comes from fear or unhappiness to begin creating the life that we want to live. Each moment can be lived actively, with intention, passion and commitment and a genuine desire to make our life experience the best, most wonderful and fulfilling that it can be.
The Universe is our life partner but it waits for us to take the first step, which is our desire and intention for a different reality. We need to be willing to shine our own light, even when we can’t see our way through our darkness, to activate our co-creative partnership. We need to trust, especially in those moments when we can’t find a reason to trust anything, including ourselves, for the Universe to remind us that its presence is the one unwavering constant factor in our life. And we need to be willing to receive, remembering that it was never our intention that we walk this path alone, unsupported and unguided.
Active living requires the courage to be willing to experience a life that is totally different from that which we have known, and we often won’t have examples to help us along that path. We may even find that there are people who resent our joy and success and who try to move us off of this path. Can we have faith and trust in a benevolent Universe and be guided by the knowledge that we deserve every good thing in life? We can if we are firmly committed to our own joy, learn to be self-ish, meaning that we take care of ourselves, meet our needs, ensure that we put ourselves first because our joy is created through our intention for it.
And when we live actively we send a clear message to the Universe that we are willing to live the highest expression of our energetic potential and committed to creating a reality which embodies it. Active living also moves us beyond karma and into creation, where we release all energetic, emotional and psychic connections to the past and move into higher dimensions of experience where we embrace our mastery and explore the limitless possibilities of our potential. And from this point, all things are truly possible for us and we become masters of our potential, the light for the world and the perfect expression of our soul’s desire for life beyond healing.