What if we were brave enough to weather any storm, trusting that the turbulent winds of life would always bring about something greater? What if, instead of resisting the changing forces, we leapt into them will full vigor?
Most of us are not willing to experience change.
Our first reaction is to resist it. That resistance can come in many forms - denial, passivity, or an active push against the change. Regardless of how it looks, at the end of the day, we're not respecting life's flows, so we resist.
We do this because we're unwilling to experience what life would be like if the change took place. And since we have little to no control over the outside world, we feel that by resisting, we have some control. It gives our egos, or personal selves, exactly what they need to feel in control.
The problem is, this only creates suffering. While our minds get what they need, we're forgetting that our true selves now get to suffer while we watch this inner resistance take place.
We think that by resisting change, we'll hold onto what we have, and won't have to experience tremendous loss. But is what we have what we actually want, or is it just a set of temporary conditions that point to what we want, which is already within us?
We grasp at the outside world like it's our only hope. We get so scared when people, places, and things - all temporary in their nature - change or disappear. We see their disappearance as the end of life as we know it.
Rarely are we willing to accept this change and trust that the universe knows what it's doing, for it's been doing it for billions of years without our involvement. Why isn't this enough for us to understand that we're not in charge of anything other than our inner state?
The fact that life was around long before us, and that it will go on long after we die, should be enough reason for us to realize that maybe we don't need to control the outside world. Maybe we can trust that things will work out, not because we're special, not in an "I'll get what I want" kind of way, but simply because life is far more intelligent than any of us will ever be.
You may be smart, but did you make your mind which you use to be smart? Did you make your heart, which beats over one hundred thousand times a day without you having to do a thing? Did you make the chair you're sitting on? Maybe you carved the wood and hammered some pieces together. But did you make the atoms that formed the molecules that make up the wood?
If you think about it, we're really not doing any of this. We're just here, along for the ride, yet so many of us think we need to control things that simply cannot be controlled.
When you realize that all you can control, and that all you actually care about is your inside world, life gets lighter.
Sure, it might be messy in there, but you're still in there, aware of the messiness.
You're not messy. You're just living in a messy environment. You have the right, regardless of what's going on around you, to devote your life to cleaning up that mess. Just because people are dying does not mean you need to create another mess inside. Just because your finances are in trouble does not mean your inner environment has to be in trouble. Is the natural pain of life not enough, or do we need to add our own layer of anguish on top?
You're allowed to experience the effects that the turbulent winds of life bring about within you, without resisting or trying to change them.
You are all you need. Everything else can be shed like the skin of a snake. Eventually, the day will come when you realize that everything you've ever been looking for was just pointing to something you've already had.
All the struggles, the screaming, the crying, the suffering, was an effort to keep the things you thought were the truth. Then you realize, they just pointed to it.
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
