Something To Disturb My Inner Peace
So much inner and outer conflict seems to happen because we take things personally! Things that we don’t need to take so personally. Take for instance a very small incident last week whilst I was out doing my weekly shopping.
The man running the vegetable stall - with whom I usually have a good banter - shouted out to me across the carrots "What’s up with you today? You look scary!" My response was to retract, get angry inside and judge him for being an insensitive brute as I was feeling quite vulnerable that day and really just wanted to burst out crying!
The thing is, I took his comment personally and have both judged him for being unkind and myself for having done something wrong to have invited such a comment in the first place! A small blip in the ocean of my consciousness, I know, but one that I have to admit has disturbed my inner peace for a couple of days.
Often it's the small things that have a cumulative effect. How many times do we blame someone else for our bad moods or do we curse the bird that flew over our heads for ruining our day? And how many times do we berate ourselves for 'bad things' happening to us?
We Control Our Reality
The thing is, we cannot control what happens in life … but we can choose how we respond to what happens. This one realization has been perhaps the most powerful teaching in my life.
It’s what has allowed me to transform my life from being a victim of circumstances to being a co-creator of life.
'Poor me' is a common reaction to life when things don’t go the way we want them to, when things are difficult or painful. But 'poor me' is always a story-line that keeps us limited and disempowered. It just doesn't work to alleviate the suffering: in fact, it prolongs it because what we resist persists.
We can believe ourselves to be victims of other people’s feelings and actions or of situations that happen at work or of world events - or even of a punishing God - but if we examine this belief we will see that it is not the truth. How do we examine this belief? By recognizing that it is a story-line created by our 'small self' to justify our sense of smallness.
If we ask ourselves "Is it true?" most often the feeling of 'poor me' evaporates pretty quickly! When we realize that it is only our expectations of how things should be that keeps us fighting What Is (that other people should be perfect and treat us lovingly or that the world should recognize our true worth or that God should reward us for being good by giving us a pain-free life), then we learn to stop looking outside of ourselves for that which we think we need and instead look within.
Pay Attention Instead Of Needing Attention; Be Love To Have Love
Instead of looking to external sources in order to feel loved, worthy, powerful, happy, peaceful, wealthy, we can learn to be love, be happiness, be peace, be abundance. What we seek is what we are: and what we are lies in our hearts. All the treasures we desire are available to us in the jewel of our Being.
In opening wide to embrace life as it is - not how we expect it to be - we step out of our heads and into the unbounded spaciousness of the heart. The heart is able to hold everyone and everything in absolute tenderness and without judgment.
Even though something may hurt we can still stay open and not create a story-line about it. We do not have to be a victim. We can forgive ourselves, others, the world and life for not living up to our expectations. We can even forgive God for not giving us the perfect life. Forgiveness is not necessarily condoning acts that hurt us: but neither does it mean tightening into blame or shame. It means just being OK with What Is.
We really don't have to take things personally! And the great thing is, when we learn to be more open with life, life becomes more open with us. What I mean by this is that life offers us the possibility for a miracle to happen. Miracles come not only in the form of turning water to wine, but also as the little nudges that awaken us to the blessedness of life: like insights, inspirations and synchronicities.
Whereas all our options get tied up in a ball of tightness when we take things personally, a whole new world of unimagined outcomes reveals itself when we "get ourselves out of the way." It’s as if we are uplifted to a higher dimension where all the angels are waiting to assist us if only we could stop being so self-absorbed.
It's as if our eyes open to the perfection of God's world when we stop seeing life as a problem to be solved. When we realize that there are no mistakes or accidents and instead see that everything is part of the divine plan, we are filled with joy and gratitude. I suppose you could call this a state of "amazing grace."
Amoda Maa Jeevan is the author of a new book How To Find God In Everything (Watkins, 2008), http://www.amodamaajeevan.com/