I've been preparing for a talk I'm giving on Wednesday night titled, 'How Ego Prevents us from Living in the Now' and it is quite amazing how when you start putting thoughts out there, you start becoming conscious of your thoughts, your every move, how you are living your life, etc.
It's uncanny how this always happens to me. If I am exploring a love theme, I will be tested in every way possible almost as if to check whether my love is the genuine thing. I will experience all manner of entanglements and difficulties with my loved ones and friends, after which, feeling quite shooken up, I will question myself and wonder if I am genuine or fake. If I have it so together in my head and my understanding, then why am I suddenly clashing in the flesh and blood, in my interactions with real people? And why am I hitting the wall all of a sudden with the ones who are dearest to me?
I have started noticing how often I am locking horns with my youngest son of 14. Am I trying to control him? Am I trying to win him over to my way of seeing and doing things? My husband has been telling me lately that I'm a control freak. That is the one lesson that I'm thrashing around and wrestling with right now.
Isn't it funny how once we perceive a snag in how we are living, we become so acutely aware of it in every aspect of our lives? I guess the point I'm trying to make is, that we become conscious and it is for this reason that suddenly it is as if someone has taken a highlighter pen and highlighted every little event in which that snag occurs. We look this way and there it is highlighted. We forget about it and are having some fun and there it pops up again. And ooh... not again!
It is rather like that in life, isn't it? We go around not noticing much detail around us and then one day we get a new red t-shirt and suddenly there seem to be so many people wearing red t-shirts. It's as though we are wearing rose coloured spectacles. We have become conscious of red and now we see red everywhere.
I guess the key to making any sense of this is that once we gain consciousness of what it is that needs attention in our lives, we start to notice all aspects of our existence that need our attention. It is almost as if we peel back the layers of the onion. We strip away all the layers that no longer serve us or are no longer a part of who we are. And the more we peel, the more we notice how much of what we have cluttered ourselves with is not what we choose. It is not our inherent nature. It is not actually who we are, but rather a bunch of habits and old conditioning we've accumulated along the way of our journey. We peel and peel and we seem to get lighter and less burdened. Actually, the more layers we shed the simpler life gets.
Parenting is tough! It certainly challenges us to walk the talk. How difficult it is to really let go and trust the process that each of our children will grow up fine exactly as they are predestined to and to back off with trying to steer their paths for them. There seems to be such a fine line between helping our young by guiding and instilling good values and discipline, and outright trying to control them. The former is steeped in love and trust and faith, the latter is smattered with FEAR.
Now that I have become conscious of doing this in my life, I see how easily I hop over the line from faith to fear.
I guess life is like walking on a tight rope. We really have to focus constantly on where we put our next foot. We cannot afford to allow doubt to dominate our minds. That could be the catalyst that causes us to fall. We cannot afford to look down because that would threaten our 'status quo'. We should never look back because we'd topple, yet we know where we have come from. We should also not focus to the right or left, but keep awareness in our periphery. We know where we have set our intentions to cross to, but to focus intently on our destination would lessen our acute awareness of the present. Our success hinges on our staying focused on the subtle shifts of weight within our bodies and the shifts caused by the elements around us. We have to remain fully present and conscious.
So easily said, now let's see what life highlights for us this week.
with love and laughs (because we must remember not to take life so seriously)
Nicolette
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