“This too will pass.”
— Persian adage
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I’m sitting here in a grump. A funk. A “What’s the point?”, grumpy, snappy, dark mood.
It’s been this way for a few days now, and that’s actually okay with me.
Seriously, it’s all okay. Because I know what this mood is. It isn’t me.
These kind of clouds used to often descend on me, and for weeks. So a few days every now and then is actually a blessing me thinks.
All I’d want to do is retreat into my cave. I’d make some super poor decisions, wanting to burn everything down, push everyone away and isolate myself, all the time thinking this feeling was the totality of my life.
You know, as I write this, I’m thinking, “Should I really be sending this out to you?”.
One of the cornerstones of my life is seeing how I can make a negative into a positive.
But I think it’s important to acknowledge that life won’t always look the way you want it to.
Sometimes just choosing to be present is hard enough, but always just choosing to be present IS enough.
I get a lot of messages and talk to a lot of people, and I know some of you are living through some seriously tough times. Much tougher than my current dark mood.
In this season of goodwill, it’s a blessing to have a little goodwill pointed back at ourselves.
And that’s the biggest thing that I’ve learnt about these kind of feelings, about any kind of feelings …
They don’t last, especially when I don’t try and fight them.
Especially when I look after myself and do what I need to do.
Especially when I don’t think that they mean something about my whole life.
One thing I hope for in these words to you is that you realise that life can be so much better.
But “better” is relative, isn’t it?
A little bit better is still better.
And a lack of resistance is the way to all kinds of “better”.
I learnt a long time ago that, with practice, I can calm these emotional storms way before they begin, most of the time.
The rest of the time, I just have to calm myself while the storm blows itself out.
It’s the judgement, the comparison, the expectation, the “should” that makes whatever I am, and you are, experiencing tougher, stickier, seeming more permanent and more the total Reality of life.
But:
This too will pass.
It all passes.
And that’s the point.
Life changes; but the essential You does not.
There is so much you can do to make your life better; but the best thing of all is to get out of the way of what you cannot change.
Focus all your awareness on what you can.
Something Anthony de Mello once wrote really resonates today:
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“Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.
You don't make a goal out of relaxation and sensitivity. Have you ever heard of people who get tense trying to relax? If one is tense, one simply observes one's tension.
You will never understand yourself if you seek to change yourself. The harder you try to change yourself the worse it gets. You are called upon to be aware.”
— Anthony de Mello, from his book “Awareness”.
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My Ascension teacher once told me that the only reason I experience anything – positive AND negative – is so I can help someone else from the point of view of having lived through it.
Alrighty?
Keep going; you will get through it … and you’ll have the wisdom, compassion and understanding that will help someone else.
And if I can assist in some small way, please let me know.
Go well!
Arjuna