Understanding our Resistance

Over the past few days the wispy angel wing clouds succumbed to a blanket of gray.  The heat of the past few days has dissipated and a gentle rain has begun to fall.  It's cadence so soft and gentle, like beautiful music.  The peace has given way to deep thought from so many directions its hard to pull one single concept from the swirl of the rest.  There are times like these and if we would know with certainty that such times are part of life and we can ride the waves until the storm passes, we would not resist and create anxiety for ourselves.  Life can seem difficult to bear when it seems like your emotions are not your own...like they have been externally manufactured by some force of resistance in the universe and unexpectedly placed within your core.  But, take heart for it is only an illusion to give you something to do for a time.

Our thoughts move at lightning speed sometimes.  They move so quickly that we cannot consciously comprehend the emotions we attach to them.  We only know it when we find a difficult moment where consciousness itself begins to be a struggle.  We may live for the night, a nocturnal reprieve to escape far and away deep within the land of dreams. The reality is, it's only thoughts and they hold no sway over our experience except to the extent we give them purchase within our reality.  Have you ever sat down in a quiet space with the only focus to feel your body and experience your surroundings without the mind judging and labeling?  It's hard, I know but such an exercise gives you a taste of the truth.  We exist beyond our thoughts and our emotions.  We are not them.  However, if we are not careful with our approach in embracing them, we may lose ourselves believing we are our thoughts and we are the anxious and fearful things that generate a wild range of emotions.  We're not that.  We are the quiet, serene and peaceful being just watching with amusement the struggle of thoughts to gain purchase as truth.  Thoughts are symbols only - things we learned to construct in this frame but there is more to existence than our thoughts.  We exist not to think but to be.  Thinking is a side effect that if not properly understood can taint an otherwise very beautiful life.

And then, then there is emotion - the true power we hold within us.  Our emotions generate energy and we feel happy, sad, joy, love, anger and more.  We create these emotions with our own thoughts.  So, if we create these things unconsciously, automatically, just imagine what it is that we could do and experience if we take back control, ignoring the chaos and substance of our thoughts and push past them in moments surrounding ourselves only with the peaceful comfort of the base energy from deep within our souls.  We can generate bliss in the most chaotic of moments but it's a choice.  We often don't realize our emotions as a choice and some will fight to the death of a relationship to prove that fact wrong but consider this...When a child must put away his toys and resists, mother or father will take the toys from the child and put them away.  In the child's mind, not understanding what is happening, he will generate thoughts that he is not loved by mother or father because they are creating his unhappiness by taking his toys away.  The reality is that mother or father loves the child very much but its time for dinner, a bath or bedtime to help promote better health, safety and security for the child.  You cannot explain this to the child because he  has not yet gained an appropriate level of awareness to grasp the reality...the truth.  And so, it goes that we feel emotions and often do not understand why we are going through what we are going through.  But consider further, perhaps, there is a very good reason you are experiencing what you are experiencing just now.  Take it a step further and consider that what you are experiencing is something you wanted to experience to enrich your soul and teach you about the strength and love you are truly made of.  When you begin to understand you'll no longer react feeling unloved because something you wanted has been taken away.  You may realize that you are choosing these feelings only because you don't yet know any other way to process what you are experiencing.  You may further begin to understand that you can seek the deeper meaning of an experience and change the resulting emotions you are left with. You can learn to soar higher with your understanding and, thus, change the landscape of your vision - your experience and choose a different set of emotions. 

This is a very difficult lesson that takes time to fully appreciate.  But once you gain this understanding in one simple situation, it will forever change the way you view the experiences in your life.  As your life unfolds, you will begin to look even more for silver linings or the real truth rather than the provisional ones your uneducated minds may reach for.  Then, then you begin to free yourself from the lower limits of existence.  You begin to think about things differently, try on different thoughts and then begin to experience different resulting emotions which will bring to you greater understanding.   It takes only a willingness to be open to the possibilities.  As a small child grows and learns more about the construct of the world he exists in, he begins to react less negatively when mom or dad says its time to put the toys away.  In fact, over time the child chooses not to be a victim by resisting the actions around him that exist for his own good.  In time, the child puts away his own toys, no longer resisting what is best for his own well being and the experience changes.  He no longer feels unloved but understands the love being displayed before him.  The child then is free to grow into adulthood and greater lessons and much deeper understanding of the construct that is his life.  It gets easier over time the more we learn and allow our own growth and begin to accept and move with the events that unfold in our lives rather than continually and on auto-pilot - railing against what unfolds.  We are only victims when we do not understand.  Its a hard lessons, no doubt about it.  At the same time, its a beautiful one when we shift from a being that has things happen to them randomly without seeming cause - to a being who creates from his or her thoughts, emotions and energy, understanding and love.  ~Blessings

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo is not mine but a random internet find).