State of being

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There are a number of energies that we feel is a state of being more than anything else. Like peace. It is the state of being that is peaceful, that we may find ourselves in when we meditate, or at least become aware of right after our meditations.
Other states of being we may feel are beneficial to us are being mindful, being compassionate, being spiritual, being kind… The list goes on and on…

In other words, there are energies we would like to propagate in our lives. Energies that are beneficial to us and to the world around us. And those benefits may encompass many layers within ourselves, just as much as they may touch many aspects of our environments. As it happens, the more we become the energy we desire, the more we radiate that energy into the world around us.

So how do we achieve that state of being?

First and foremost, we need to want it in our lives. In order to become peaceful ~ to gain a peaceful state of being ~ we need to desire peace to be part of our lives. So whether we reach a peaceful state of being is a choice more than anything else…

And this goes for any energy we would like to be part of our lives.
It even goes for energies that we may not choose to be part of our lives, yet somehow we hold on to them ~ often without even realizing we are doing it.
For instance, when we feel frightened, and when this sense of fright has been part of our lives for an extended amount of time ~ sometimes just because we grew up around people who were fearful ~ then we may find ourselves in a ‘frightened state of being’. Not by choice, but rather because it ~ often on a subconscious level ~ has been part of our lives for so long…
And this state of being is not beneficial to us. It could keep us from being loving towards ourselves, and affectionate toward others around us.
Other emotions that can lead us into an undesired state of being may be frustration, irritation, disappointment, or anger…

This makes the choices we make on the energies we invite into our lives even more important!

While on one hand we can actively choose an energy to become part of our lives, at the same time we have to be willing to leave the feelings, emotions and attitudes ~ which perhaps have been part of our lives for a very long time ~ that are not beneficial to us behind.

And yet, it sounds a lot more positive to choose the energy of peace to be part of our lives than to get stuck in the somewhat tired: “Just let it go…”
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Tears

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It wasn’t all that long ago that it was said that ‘crying is for babies’, and tears were considered a sign of weakness. ‘Real men don’t cry’ ~ because real men are strong.

The sayings come from a time when showing our emotions was not the thing to do; and that was true equally for men and women. ‘Just stand up straight and do what needs to be done’ was the theme in those days. Those were different times, with different requirements. And in all fairness, it is partly because of that attitude that we have been able to build our cultures and our lives to where they are today.

Today we find ourselves at the other end of the spectrum where showing our emotions is a sign of strength. It is okay to laugh out loud, to love unconditionally, to show affection in public, and to let our tears flow freely…

As it turns out there are many reasons for us to cry.
We can laugh so hard that we start crying. We can cry because something is ‘painfully’ beautiful. We can cry when we are angry, or frustrated. We cry when we are hurt ~ physically, mentally or emotionally. We may cry seeing a newscast of horrible situations in far away places. We cry out our happiness, we cry over our greatest achievements. We cry when we are saying goodbye.
And in all cases crying is not only acceptable; it is a good thing!

Our tears ~ them being fluid ~ would be part of the water element, and as such be connected to our emotions. When we cry, letting our tears flow ~ then becomes a release of our emotions.

More specifically, the tears are an outlet for emotions that we may not know how to express in a balanced way as we are confronted with them. And when that emotion finally comes out, it finds a release through crying.
For instance, when we cry out in pain because we have hurt ourselves, it is not just the physical pain at that moment that is released, but also the pain of all the times before we have felt hurt before. Often little things that stung, yet in and of themselves were nothing to worry about… And now that we have actually hurt ourselves and have a ‘reason for crying’ it all comes out.

This makes that our tears are much more important us than we might have imagined; because it is this very mechanism that cleanses us from ~ often unwanted or stressful ~ emotional luggage. Whatever big thing is happening in our lives; after having cried about it, we are ready to move on to (even) better things!
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Tapestry

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While we all are walking our personal paths through life; life itself hardly ever has the singular quality of a ‘path’. It is more like a tapestry.
This tapestry may depict our personal paths, but at the same time it is interwoven with the people around us, and our environments. Our experiences are influenced by others, just as much as they are influencing others.
And to make things even more intricate, this tapestry is woven on multiple layers, and as such the way we are influenced or influence others will be on any number of different layers. Different layers of consciousness. On different layers of energy.

The whole thing we call life is pretty much a nebulous thing…
Even though we keep persisting that we are moving through it walking our personal paths; nice and neat…

But when we would just for a moment forget about our personal paths, and ponder the tapestry concept; the thing is truly mind boggling.

Every thing we do is interwoven with everyone around us. The reasons why we do the things we do are dictated by our wishes and desires as much as by the people and situations in our lives.
This way, things we have learned as youngsters may still influence our decisions  today. Just as a situation we have seen unfold in the life of a friend or family member in the past may direct our choices of today.

We may recognize the colors of the tapestry without seeing the picture it paints. We may sense that a certain color or shape is put together by strands of different colors; perhaps each color representing an individual person or separate situation, without really understanding how they affect our lives.
We just know that somehow they do.

The other thing that becomes more and more clear the longer we think about our lives being a tapestry rather than a path, is that we are all connected. Not just connected with the people around us, but also to situations and things like cars, and houses, etc.

One tapestry. One life.
And an endless series of interwoven people, experiences, and environments…

And so we are not as much alone on our chosen personal paths, moving through life; but rather we are part of a oneness in which there are currents and movements, peaks and valleys, and more colors and shapes than we can imagine…
And all of that is there for us to learn our life-lessons, and perhaps most importantly, unfold our unlimited potential!
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Dispute

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Perhaps the biggest dispute in this new age with its new way of thinking is the concept that we create our own lives.

Lets face it; that is a lot if responsibility!
Because if for a moment we assume that this concept is true, then…
We create our own happiness or unhappiness.
We create/manifest the things we need and desire in our lives.
We manifest our own life-lessons in our lives, even when that means we find ourselves in unpleasant or dangerous situations, in other words, whatever happens to us ~ good or bad ~ is of our own creation.

The list no doubt is longer than this, but you get the concept…
It also means that ‘luck’ is out of the picture. Whenever things fall into place in an even better way we had ever imagined, chances are we have worked hard to achieve it in the first place!

It implies that it doesn’t make sense any longer to lay the blame for things that are happening to us elsewhere; be it with other people, with insurance companies, with the government… (Bummer!) Yet it also means that we have the capabilities to turn things around, choose a different direction in life and bring more happiness, more love, and yes, greater health into our lives. WE can do that, as long as WE take responsibility for the full package that is our life.

And that is where the dispute comes up. Because we cannot influence the people that are around us. So if an irresponsible driver cuts us off on the freeway and causes an accident that we end up being involved in ~ how is that our responsibility in the first place? WE didn’t cut anybody off; WE didn’t cause the accident. It is not our fault…
And while all of these things are true, the question in this point of time that lingers is: “Then why did we create that accident in our lives?” Why, even though from a legal perspective it was’t our fault, do we put ourselves in a position where it all needs to be sorted out, with the added hassle of getting our car repaired etc.?

And before you think to yourself: “Well, I wouldn’t do that”, think again…
Could it be that you were busy solving other people’s problems when it happened? Could it be that you have a slight inability to stand your ground, so people ‘walk all over you’ as a figure of speech? Or were you having too much on your plate between work, chores, family etc. and did you ‘invite’ some kind of intervention in order to focus on what is truly important in life?

As time goes on, chances are it is a dispute that is going to be argued within ourselves rather than in the world around us…
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Bringing it forward

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When we grow up we learn to behave a certain way, to do things a certain way, and, whether we want to or not, to think along certain lines. Growing up, all of these things make sense. They placed us in a profitable position. And this profit may have been the approval of parents, care-givers and teachers, or it may have extended into being allowed specific things we wanted to have or do at that time. Whichever way you look at it, when we learned those things ~ way back when ~ they were beneficial to us.

The same thing goes for the culture we have grown up in ~ or any other culture, as it turns out. When you look back a hundred or two hundred years, things were done a certain way for a reason. Usually a very good reason. Let’s face it, no matter where you might have lived at the time, two hundred years ago it was important to have the skill and the means to defend yourself, your property, and your family. And at that time, both the skill and the means were more likely than not very physically oriented. At that time, in that environment, it made perfect sense to have a baton handy at all times, and knifes and guns were good things, sometimes even necessary things to have around. And not just for hunting…

Then, when time progresses, things change. Even when those changes are not of our doing, or aren’t even affecting us very much; there are changes.
In growing up, we change. As an adult we no longer have to ask if we can eat a cookie right before dinner; and no longer the answer is a certain ‘no’. As we grow up, we do more and more things our way. And that is a good thing!
And yet, there are almost always seemingly little things that we will still do exactly the way we were taught when we were children. And these things may be as relatively inconsequential as when we do our shopping and what type of store we prefer doing our shopping at, to how we interact with the people around us ~ which can have a huge impact on our lives.
So it is a good thing to once in a while step back and take a conscious look if what we have learned in the past is still serving us; is still productive and beneficial to us…
If not, it seems reasonable to find other ways of interaction, or other manners in which we do our chores.

Culturally the same thing is true.
For instance, where we needed to physically defend ourselves so many years ago; we now have greater reason to defend ourselves from digital, or cyber, attacks. On average, a good (digital) security system is a better defense system to guard our property and our family than having a baton ready behind the front door…

Whether it is personal or cultural, over time we do the same things in different ways.
In other words, we are bringing it forward…
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The other side of the fence

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The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence.
And along those same lines, whatever someone else has tends to be better than what we have. Their lives seem to be easier, their houses bigger, and their cars faster…

Within the fence ~ or within our own lives, our known comfort zone ~ life is what it is with all of its chores, structures, rules, problems that need to be solved and situations we need to handle. And as we are going through the motions, life seems to be getting dull and dreary.
Yet out there ~ whether it is at our neighbor’s place or even looking at the lives of celebrities ~ life is exciting! They have new and better things than we have, they have interesting friends, and above all, their lives seem a lot easier than our lives are. Or so it seems.

Like a lot of other things we may encounter in life, there are two perspectives at work here that seem to reinforce each other.
The first perspective ~ or perhaps even fact ~ is that we may have retreated in our own comfort zone so thoroughly, that we hesitate to try out new things. Whether it is because we think we are too busy, too tired, or just ‘don’t have it in us’, somehow we have decided for ourselves that in our lives there isn room for new adventures, new goals and achievements, or even new things… That is bound to make life dull and dreary indeed!
The second perspective we may have is that ‘they’ are having easy lives. ‘They’ may have more money, more time, more energy, and so on. ‘They’ may not even have to work as hard as we have to in order to live the good life. For ‘them’ everything just falls into place without the need for overate action…

Chances are this perspective is incomplete at best.
Truth is that we don’t know whether ‘their’ lives are easy, or how hard ‘they’ have had to work to achieve their goals. We have no clue as to what their private lives ~ behind closed doors ~ look like, what problems they encounter in live, or how many difficulties they run into on their lives paths.

Another truth is that coveting someone elses life isn’t going to help us in any way The only live we have to live, and shape, and mold is our own. The only area where we can productively apply ourselves is ‘within the fence’.
So perhaps it is time to water the grass, so new, bright green sprouts will start growing.
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What and Why

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There are two things; or perhaps two questions, about evaluating the things we do.
First comes the question as to what it is we are doing; second why we are doing it.

On most things in life these two questions are easily answered. We know what we are doing, and chances are we even know why we are doing them. We may or may not like that fact that we have to do them, yet at the end of the day it is all pretty clear.

But then there are for most of us a couple of things in life that can give us a nebulous feeling of it not being right. A sense of spending time and energy on something that doesn’t add up to anything much ~ and here we are doing it anyway.
When we ask ourselves what exactly it is we are doing that leaves us unfulfilled in this manner, we may not even know or understand. In other words, while we are feeling that something isn’t right, we cannot answer the question what it is that makes us feel this way.
We just know that we do…

When we don’t understand what it is, we have little opportunity to actually fathom why we are doing it in the first place.

More often than not, these things are rooted in our earliest childhood. The time when we were still operating purely on a subconscious level and were taking everything we were told or shown as truth. Or at least as valuable information that would help us throughout life to not only survive, but to also ‘belong’, to be productive, and yes, fulfilled.

These things may well have been very useful when we were toddlers, the habits and commitments we have adopted in those early years in life may no longer be meaningful to us once we are adults. And when we grow up and are still giving those very things time and energy, by the time we are adults, this may lead to a sense of being unfulfilled.
As these habits and commitments are safely stored in our subconscious, we may ~ once we are logical thinking grown-ups ~ not understand exactly what these habits and commitments entail…

And therefore we likely have no clue as to what it is we are doing. Although the ‘why’ can become more clear as we understand the mechanics of how these early-childhood-ideas get lodged in our (subconscious) minds; as long as we don’t know what we are doing to keep them going, we will have a hard time changing  our ways…
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Cleaning up, more…

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Often we are so focused on cleaning up our homes, our environments, that we even feel the need to clean up nature…

Of course there is a difference between ‘nature’ as in the flowers and potted plants we may have inside our homes, ‘nature’ as in our gardens, ‘nature’ as in parks and forests, and ‘nature’ as in the environment that makes it possible for us to inhabit the earth.

In our homes and gardens, ‘nature’ becomes part of our environment, and as such we tend to make sure it plays by our rules. In parks, forests, and ‘the great outdoors’, we become part of nature’s environment. And while we should clean up after ourselves and be careful not to pollute nature, there is no need to clean up ‘nature’ itself.

As it turns out, ‘nature’ is very well equipped to clean up after itself!
And it does so promptly, without secondary considerations, emotional attachments, or ~ as us humans may experience ~ the need to procrastinate. For nature it is part of life to recycle that which is no longer useful in its current form. That way, a tree that is at the end of its life-span becomes the home of insects, eventually breaking up into parts laying on the ground; and finally becoming the fertile soil for new trees to grow from.
It is a process that may take as long as a decade (or more) for a big tree; for an animal that dies it doesn’t take quite as long. In a matter of weeks the bones and teeth are pretty much all that remains…

If there is a memory similar to how we have our memories, it is embedded in the landscape. And while the memory itself may stay alive for ages to come, there will not necessarily be any physical reminders of it ~ in the way we choose to surround ourselves with physical reminders of our memories; of where we have been, and what we have done…

Some may say that we should model our lives after nature’s cycles of life and death; and the way it cleans up after itself. On the other hand, the way we build and rebuild our lives throughout our lifespan is part of our own process of (spiritual) growth. Through the choices we make we create not only our environment, yet also how we will learn the life lessons we came in with as part of our personal paths.

Whichever way we look at it, cleaning up is part of the cycle of things…
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