Events unfold as they will, and I can raise my level of acceptance instead of my level of frustration (or despair, or…) – with some effort, and commitment – or I can stand idly by while my frustration increases, until… well, there’s the thing. The ‘until…’ part is somewhat individual, isn’t it? Some people lash out at others, some people turn on themselves, and being so very human there is the unpredictable complication of what limits any one of us has on resources to manage our intense emotions; we haven’t all got the same tools in our toolbox. Frustration, fear, anxiety, rage, grief, despair…these are all every bit as human as delight, joy, love, contentment, and bliss. I spend more time attempting to manage the negative ones; I often don’t accept them in myself, and my own disappointment piles on top, and then I sometimes add insecurity about how someone else might also be disappointed – or ‘worse’ – and self-criticism that I am ‘indulging’ in such a pointless negative waste of precious time. Ouch. I’ve been pretty hard on myself, and too often. Emotions are part of the journey; making room in my heart to have my experience without judgment gives me room to grow, and a chance to more easily move on.
Perspective offers a chance to make changes.
Have you ever stopped to consider that in the privacy of your own heart, your own thoughts, you can be as kind and compassionate with yourself as you choose – and that ‘no one is watching’, or able to change how you treat yourself within? That’s yours, 100%. Make it as luxurious, as loving, as kind, as wholesome, or as deep as you like; it is all yours. With that in mind…why would any one of us treat ourselves poorly?
Realistically, I am finding I can nearly always change something. That seems simple enough. I forget it sometimes. The biochemical elements of emotions, the challenges I specifically have as an individual, and the fundamental reality of the nature of will are such that it isn’t always easy to choose to feel differently than I do; it is still an option, and still possible. Now if I can learn to do it without experiencing ‘struggle’…
We choose our path.
…But is the difficult path difficult because it is difficult, or is it difficult because it appears so, and I have adopted the assumption that it will be so for that reason alone? My traveling partner said something yesterday that has been lurking in the background, keeping me thinking about this idea of what we perceive to be, becoming our experience because we choose the experience based on the assumptions we make due to our perception – whether that perception is accurate or not, whether it is an experience that can be communicated, even whether we are ‘really’ having that experience we perceive ourselves to be having at all. There’s a lot of free will muddling up the everyday distinction between ‘real’ and whatever else the options are.
Storms pass.
Today is a good day to make choices about how I experience my experience. Today is a good day to be awake, aware, and open to the possibility that the world is not entirely as I see it – and that others see it differently than I do, either way. Today is a good day to treat myself with kindness – why wouldn’t I do at least that for me, today? Today is a good day to change my perspective on the world.
Evening Light 