A Split Decision and Peace

I had occasion to visit a local theme park a few days ago.  Aside from letting my inner child out with much excitement, I made an unexpected discovery.  I’ve never been one for amusement park rides or fast-moving roller-coasters that take you way up high away from the Earth’s normal pull on your being and let you free fall quickly back down.  There is a feeling in it that I just never cared for.  To describe it might sound strange or to some of you, not but its that tightening sensation at the core of my being during free fall that I just never ever liked.  I don’t care for the feeling of gravity forces on me at any rate of speed.  I guess I just never found any joy in it.

Well, upon my recent visit to the “Happiest place on Earth,” I went on one of those rides…not a big one or a fast one, mind you, but one with a bit of a drop.  This time as I  approached the few seconds before the drop I knew would be coming, instead of tensing up, I let go.  I let go and let whatever would happen, happen.  The rise in the darkness came and then the drop and I relaxed so fully into the experience of it I felt near out of body.  Time slowed in my consciousness and I felt a very familiar sensation.  It was nearly just like that moment in the void during my NDE (Near Death Experience) where there was no motion, no body to tense, no light, no anything but just me, my consciousness and a presence.  Well, that is what I felt this time.  I let go so fully without any concern.  I found myself for mere seconds in a state where nothing in my life held any significance for me and that meant, there was nothing for me to fight against.  In that moment "life" as I knew it didn’t hold significance because I knew whether I tensed up or relaxed, all was going to be as it was.  It needed no interference from me focused or not and it would go on as it was meant to.  It's hard to put the exact sentiment into words.

When I reached the bottom of the drop, my senses came back to me with the sounds of rushing water and the screaming of exhilaration from the children I traveled on the ride with (grown up ones too) and I just smiled from somewhere deep inside of my being.  I knew what was coming, I knew I didn’t care for the feeling of gravity pulling me back to Earth but I enjoyed it truly for the first time in this life.  Now, I’ll not be setting my sights on bigger and faster roller-coasters for that just isn’t my way.  I don’t derive joy from getting a fix of my own adrenaline.  Every day life does that enough for me, honestly.  But, I did feel a sense of triumph.  Not for making it through the amusement park ride but rather for a moment of letting go so completely that I felt myself disappear into a place of pure peace, quiet and freedom.  I can’t explain it any better than that.

It was a perfect day in every other way but in this moment, I found the day to be extraordinary and it took the least amount of effort.  It took only a split second decision to shift my focus from a point of resistance to a point of complete and total surrender and I have to tell you that it freed a part of my psyche in a way I can’t say I’ve enjoyed much in my life.  Now, I don’t intend to run around the rest of my life extrapolating tiny moments of decision making to give myself a little buzz of triumph but I will hold gratitude for every moment that I am granted and have wits about me enough to recognize that in much of this life I am given a choice in terms of how I will experience something.  That, to me, is an epic outcome to a simple and yet at times very complex, adventure…Life.

Copyright 2017, (photo and words), Jaie Hart

Inside Out - Outside In

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Interesting it is to me our habitual outward focus on what everyone else is doing from the rich and famous, to co-workers, family and even friends.  We watch as the ego compares itself continually to everyone else to judge where it is on the food chain.  There is no shortage of things to find wrong with everyone else when your ego has trained its eye on that kind of filter.  The challenging part for us all is understanding that the more we extend and expend our energy in an outward focus, the more what needs healing within us remains hidden and so very out of reach.

What if we were to shift our focus from pointing out all the wrongs of this world inward and observe what is going on inside of our own bodies, our sensations from inside our own skin and our own thoughts and emotions?  What if we were to explore more our inner world of amazing beauty and endless passage ways into the heart of our own being?  What might we find?  What better things might we learn about ourselves, this world and life if we could just learn to habitually shift that focus inward?

Sometimes the best way to influence behavior you find outwardly displeasing is to return that focus to self and live up to our own expectations, sweeping our own porch clean and setting a very fine example of all that we think is good in this world.  If we could follow our own bliss instead of the manifestations of pain in others, we might just help create a greater loving space for all to grow, to learn and awaken on their own terms.  We need not complain about others to lift ourselves up and in fact that lift up, well, it’s just an illusion that will lose its effect pretty quickly.  When we go deeper within and find all that is loving, good innocent and gentle, the lift up we can achieve is by far longer lasting.  We’re not readily taught this but if you try it and create this as a habit, you’ll find your life shifting and changing around you.

You might even learn what you’re attached to that causes you to notice what you call bad behavior in others.  There is a belief hiding in there I can almost guarantee it.  But it is okay to have beliefs hiding.  It’s okay to leave them alone and do nothing other than what you’ve always done.  Truly.  I merely intend to point out an alternative for those who may be considering it.  My way isn’t the only way or the best way.  It’s just a path.  Every step we all take is on a path and one that is truly perfect for each and with some understanding and lots of love and no fear, you begin to see what was once unseen and what was once so very misunderstood.  When you get to this place, the eyes of your soul begin to open and you start to see with love instead of fear.  It feels better, I have to say.  But old groves are hard to move out of.  Practice makes perfect so why not for one day practice focusing on you and your behavior, the love within you, the gratitude you didn’t take time to notice, the beauty all around you and the unique beauty of everyone and everything in existence?  It’s just a day.  It may be the best day of your life and one you may wish to practice more and repeat again some time or every day.  Just some food for thought.

 

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© 2016 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Shifting Focus and Entertaining Change

A silent morning spent sipping warm coffee and I find my mind wandering.  Days and weeks have had me thinking, wondering and worrying about way too many things.  I feel the change in season and very much love the fall but within me grows the need for more change, a deeper change as if a new direction is about to open up and I'm so very curious to see what that might be.  I need to change some things in my life as I've come to learn that some things no longer fit.  More accurately, I no long fit a framework that I, myself, have created.  The challenge or worry comes in that this one thing has kept everything so very consistent for so long and has assured me of a level of comfort.  The change feeling runs deep though and I know the only thing that I really have to do is just remain open and meet it graciously when it comes.

What does one do when they don't know what to do but the feel they must do?  I know the answer and my ego doesn't like it.  My ego wants to control and establish a security that doesn't exist except within its construct only.  Security is a funny thing.  How secure can a tiny life form be on a giant round rock spinning on it's axis somewhere around a thousand miles per hour while traveling through space around a little star at over 33,000 miles per hour in a much larger galaxy that is also in motion?  We are subject to anything and everything from biological, geologic and astronomical forces from a physical perspective.  If that were not worrisome enough, we have our own tiny microcosmic psychological matters to deal with as sentient beings.  I'm not writing this to scare or worry anyone really, just to point out a huge illusion that we all hold and the pointlessness of worry - even though I seem to have become a master of that particular negative activity at times.  Thankfully I look at those very moments as opportunities to realize fear is somewhere in my midst and its time to focus not on what is big and scary in this world but the lies I tell myself that generate unnecessary fears.

I watched a program on the Discovery Channel yesterday about an experiment conducted using random number generators and how at times of different significant events in the world, the randomness of the generators was affected by the morphic fields surrounding this Earth's inhabitants.  It made me realize how much I did not want to be an individual putting more negativity out there into the mix that everyone else must contend with.  I'm a sensitive soul who feels energy.  When tragedy occurs in the world, I feel it.  When beautiful things occur in this world, I feel it.  I realize at some level that I must be responsible, entirely, for what I put out there.  So, I come back to my local worrisome meanderings and realize they stem from my own ego's need to control a change I feel coming that cannot be controlled.  It's really ridiculous and humorous at the same time.  So, I stop the anxious thoughts for a moment and breathe in the peace and cool of this most beautiful fall morning.  We are always in a state of flux and change and no matter what happens, we go on whether physically and psychologically sound or, well, not.  It is what it is and what we think determines our experience.  I do not wish to have a negative experience in this life as that is not why I came here.  I wish to learn to relax a little better a times in my own skin and realize that everything in my play happens for a reason, a reason I wanted or a reason I needed (whether I liked it or not).

So, I shift my thought process as I sit here typing away to a completely different paradigm.  If I go over the facts of my own feelings that lie much deeper within at my core than mere random egotistical thoughts and ignorantly attached emotion.  Deepest within my knowing, I implicitly trust me.  I also know my own limits, strengths, challenges and opportunities.  I think rather than superficially feeling uneasy about seemingly impending change I will rest more peacefully knowing that it's my play and I will cast it and direct it and set the scenes up in a way that ultimately supports me quite positively.  I open myself trustingly to this change I feel is coming and the anxiety and uneasiness falls away.  It's not an easy process to trust....trust self or trust others, let alone trust in a plan you cannot easily recall.  Opportunity here in this place is endless.  We can seek the wisdom of opportunity rather than dispair over the perception of challenge experienced negatively.  It's all in our minds as is this entire experience of life anyway.  We're so amazingly powerful but we forget just how much so.

I think I shall sit back and breathe for a bit, take comfort in the void of nothingness, relax into curiosity rather than trepidation and learn to be a bit more present.  It's so hard sometimes but as I've often written, its worth the effort to work at it until you get it right, until you breathe in that one moment where you feel the energy within you rise in perfect harmony with all that is.  Those are precious moments and infinitely more rewarding than entertaining continually the bouts of discomfort and fear.  There is love to be had here and not the kind that can hold any definition of full and complete meaning in any dictionary or other book.  Love is the expansive energy that holds so much of what we experience together.  Trusting in that to bring about positive and necessary change in life is a beautiful experience.  I'm off to some silent contemplation of nothing for a short time.  I find comfort in the silence, peace in the stillness and love when I can silence the mind by letting the thoughts go one by one.  ~Blessings for a peaceful journey beautiful dreamers.  I pray you find your own spaces of curiosity over control, peace over worry and love over fear.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo copyright as noted on photo)