To a student of the path of awareness, change is my friend, my ally. Nothing throws up more to be seen, to be aware of, than change.
And since change is to be our constant companion in the weeks ahead and since some (maybe many) people may be relocating, perhaps I can spend a few moments here on some of the changes that moving brings.
What makes moving so fruitful is the number of intense spaces one can go through in a very short period of time. One is bombarded with oops! and whoops! and Aha’s!
Everything is called into question. I can’t remember where anything is. I can’t understand why I bought many of the things I did over all these years. I can’t understand how I fitted so much into a 10 x 12 room.
So much change and questioning can be completely overwhelming. And any change can be THE change that catapults one into realization.
For instance: There comes a point in moving when everything we own is in boxes, except perhaps for our shoulder bag.
At that moment, feelings of insecurity, homelessness, abandonment, and loneliness can come up in full force. Many of these feelings are exactly what owning all these possessions is designed to ward off.
And then in a careless moment, we agree to move all our possessions and allow in inadvertently a moment of having, or having access to, nothing.
But the other side of the coin is equally likely to show itself. When I move, I allow myself to do things I would not do otherwise – mainly in the area of eating and drinking. I buy a really sticky donut or a totally-unhealthy soft drink as a treat for myself, a comfort food.
Yesterday, I found myself irresistibly led to buy a pint of chocolate milk. Chocolate milk was what I used to drink in the school cafeteria of my elementary school. That and a hot dog was lunch.
And when I bought it I felt a big smile of satisfaction arise. And when I drank it at home, another big smile.
And then it hit me. It only looked as if the chocolate milk was bringing a big smile to my face. I was actually bringing it on.
And then I began to track myself. And I saw that, despite what I thought, every feeling that arose in me, stayed for a while and then passed away did so because I created it in the first place.
I created all my feelings. Nothing outside of me did. Not really. I made an outside event the occasion for the feeling, but that was my doing as well. I attributed significance to the event. The event was what it was. It only became significant to me because of the meaning I attributed to it.
(1) Having a drink today? That’s nice. Or (2) Would I like to toast your 50th wedding anniversary? You bet I would! The difference lies in the meaning I attach to the event.
The upshot is that I now see that I am the sole cause of all my feelings.
And then I look deeper and see that I’m 100% responsible for the way I feel in life at any one point in time. Why then, I ask myself, would I allow myself to generate and cause unpleasant, self-defeating feelings?
The feeling that came up in me when I bought the chocolate milk and later drank it was satisfaction. My learning on satisfaction is that it comes when the job is done.
But in fact it comes when I generate it. If I don’t generate it, job done or not, it doesn’t come.
I may not be in charge of what happens to me in my life (not in an everyday, now-time sense). But I’m 100% in charge of my reaction or response to it. How do I choose to respond? The way I choose. What was that choice? The way I responded.
I am now feeling joy for no reason; just because I can and do create it.
Oh look at this. Here comes bliss, because I create it. Ahhh, here is happiness.
My life is my creation on so may levels. This is the level on which I create my own feelings, moods, leanings, preferences, desires, and everything else that sees me orient to and move in my world.
I’ve always known I was monarch in my own domain. But now I see that responsibility for my life goes a lot deeper, to more and more intimate levels of personal powerfulness. I want to plumb these levels.
I was a hermit living in an isolated corner of this town. I’m now in an interim phase: I’m a hermit crab, in a manner of speaking, carrying my house around with me. The real house is made of thoughts and feelings, all of which I generate.
All will be constant change in our world and the only world that I’ll carry consistently with me is this world of my own imagining and construction.
Here I have full control of my palette and brushes. And all the time in the world to create.
Given this state of affairs, I may as well build a world that’s outrageously supportive and inspiring.