As
human beings we have the potential to disentangle ourselves from old
habits, and the potential to love and care about each other. We have the
capacity to wake up and live consciously, but, you may have noticed, we
also have a strong inclination to stay asleep. It's as if we are always
at a crossroad, continuously choosing which way to go. Moment by moment
we can choose to go toward further clarity and happiness or toward
confusion and pain...
Taking
the leap involves making a commitment to ourselves and to the earth
itself--making a commitment to let go of old grudges, to not avoid
people and situations and emotions that make us feel uneasy, to not
cling to our fears, our closedmindedness, our hardheartedness, our
hesitation. Now is the time to develop trust in our basic goodness and
the basic goodness of our sisters and brothers on this earth; a time to
develop confidence in our ability to drop our old ways of staying stuck
and to choose wisely. We could do that right here and right now.
- Pema Chodron, "Taking the Leap"
The
above quote found its way to me through a newsletter I received in my
inbox this morning. It was a good reminder for me because I have found
myself slipping into that whole "victim" mentality that says we have no
control over our circumstance, our thoughts, our emotions. Deep down
most of us know this is not true, we always have a choice.
We
can choose to see the events in our lives as an experience to be
learned from even when it involves great physical or emotional pain. The
lesson sometimes takes to time to unfold and the wisdom time to take
hold but we do find our way there eventually. We can also choose the
opposite of that and see things as random occurances with little to no
meaning for us, keeping ourselves in the mode of victim. Victim of
ourselves or a vengeful random "other" out there wanting to mess with us
and we cower in our literal and psychological corner reacting rather
than living.
At
this moment I am grateful for the timely reminder that there is a
better way than cowering in a corner. A better way to be, with arms
open, breathing in deep the experience we call life. I know I have some
inner work to do in order to walk that better way, how about you? How
will you choose to view the events that take place in your life?
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