Spring appears to be a traditional time when folks go about the task of clearing out the clutter in their lives. They clean out closets, sweep off the cob-webs, and landscape their grounds – clearing out the unnecessary belongings and debris from their physical surroundings. And while this annual ritual leaves people feeling renewed, refreshed and ready to welcome in the new seasonal cycle – many overlook the areas that are perhaps in most need of attention – the energetic landscape of their daily lives.
In my recent post entitled, “To Change Your Mind is to Change the World”, I addressed the many ways in which the chaos and crisis of our global landscape is directly related to and dependent upon the nature of personal negativity that we engage in on an individual basis. So as we go about the laborious projects of mowing our lawns, cleaning our closets and planting our gardens – let’s not forget to take stock of and tend to the mental, emotional and behavioral sludge that dams the flow of positive energy that connects our inner lives to out outer reality.
Because we are interrelated as one collective energy field, every thought, feeling and action that a single individual undergoes, necessarily impacts the whole. Like individual drops of water in a pond – we each contribute to the purity and clarity of the entire pool. The impurity of a pond becomes polluted due to the contribution of singular, polluted drops that accumulate over time.
A container of pure, distilled water can still be compromised by a single drop of arsenic – rendering the collective whole as toxic – incapable of quenching our thirst. In this same way, we each contribute our own measure to the collective pond wherein every drop counts. This degree of personal responsibility will come as a shock to many as we reflect on the implications of how each one of our thoughts, feelings and behaviors contribute to and determine the palatability of the collective watering holes on which we all rely.
Many helplessly look at the outer social landscape and feel hopeless and saddened by the violence, corruption and lack of empathy and justice that appears to characterize our world. But how many look inward to assess their own personal psychological and spiritual landscapes to measure the purity of the “drops” they are contributing to the whole.
It’s so easy to feel incapacitated. We tell ourselves, “what can I possibly do to change the world – I am only one person”. Many are overwhelmed by the daily obligations that dictate our lives. Sometimes, it’s all we can do just to keep our heads above water. But this sense of personal ineffectuality is really just an illusion that has convinced us of our impotence toward solving the “world’s” problems. The reality is that we hold the solution right in the palm of our hands. All that’s required is to simply engage in the “spring cleaning” of our personal energetic landscapes.
David Icke, in his discussion of how we can change the flow of the current structure of pain, suffering, fear and lack into one of peace, love and abundance speaks about the concept of “combing the mirror”. He poses the following analogy: if we look at our reflection in the mirror and notice that our hair is mussed – we cannot correct the “outer image” that we see (our reflection) by combing the hair we see in the mirror. We must rather comb the hair on ourselves. As Icke states, “You don’t comb the mirror, you comb your own hair and the mirror changes.” David Icke – Manifesting Your Reality (We Create Our Own Illusion) Fear Or Love – YouTube
So while we may not be accustomed to thinking that what we think, feel and do each day has an impact on the outer world – think again. What we see on the nightly news is merely a reflection of the image that we, as individuals, are presenting before the mirror. So ask yourself, are you engaging in thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are unjust, violent, fearful, angry, defensive and rude?
Do you despise the corruption, selfishness, greed and insensitivity you see in the outer social mirror, but yet fund and consume Industrial-Farmed meat/dairy “products” harvested from animals that lived and died under conditions of brutality? Do you lose patience with an “incompetent” clerk at your local retail store or put the needs of others on hold while you attend to self-serving behaviors instead? Do you react harshly toward your family members because you feel over-tired and stressed? Do you keep your dog chained outside – lonely and isolated from who he considers to be his family pack?
Negativity has many forms, and when combined, this collective bundle of small indignities we perpetrate each day are no less profound in impact than the sensationalized acts of violence that make the front page.
So this spring, as you’re preparing your physical environment for a new season – take stock of your inner landscape. Be mindful of your thoughts, feelings and behaviors and make the adjustments – however small – to bring your inner landscape into alignment with your ideal vision of a better world. In the words of Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world” or perhaps even more to the point, “Happiness is when what you think, how you feel and what you do are in harmony”.
We will never transform the outer world’s reflection by our repeated and failed attempts at “combing the mirror”. It is only when we take personal responsibility to put forth the effort to change ourselves as individuals that we may begin to change the whole. It’s springtime, and our gardens await our seeds. It’s up to each one of us – what you plant today will determine the collective harvest of tomorrow.