Ever wanted to meet a wonderful person
The Covid-19 Virus has given us a wonderful opportunity to get to know ourselves.
Do we like what we see.
Perhaps we need to learn that it’s not our choice what the world thinks of us but what we make of it, is.
We always have an opportunity to make the best of what we have.
TGI Friday
People that used to complain about work are probably still complaining because most of humanity thinks from Outside-in. That is to say, what happens ‘out there’ effects how I feel.
Many of us now don’t have work, traffic, or lack of time to blame for how we feel. Those that live for the weekend or can’t wait until Friday, may learn to miss a normal weekday. Perhaps we will learn in our isolation, that there is just us. It’s always just us.
It’s an opportunity to realise that we have become what we have become because we expect others to become the source of our joy. We all want to meet that wonderful person or people.
It’s not totally our fault as it is my observation that the World is set up this way. Set up so we keep searching everywhere for feelings of pleasure to complete us and convince us we are OK
High expectations
We just simply need to realise we are already OK and there is nothing to do except unlearn stuff. There lies the problem as we don’t believe we are OK, and for good reason.
Most of us learn early on that comfort and joy come from an external source and as soon as we cried for the first time we got the positive affirmation or the attention we craved and now continue to seek it. Amazon is almost becoming as instant at gratifying our needs as our mothers used to be as we confuse temporary pleasure for lasting happiness. Perhaps we should have lower expectations, but are low expectations of life really the life we want or deserve….Why can’t we have high expectations?
I believe we can as long as we understand that we are the source.
Thinking Inside-Out more often than Outside-In.
We have several weeks to find the wonderful person inside us we aspire to meet. To be the wonderful person we expect others to be. the person in the mirror not the one on Facebook.
Waking Up
If In this global shutdown, the best we can do to help others is to isolate so we don’t become the source of the virus, then perhaps we can repay society, those in the front line and indeed ourselves, by using this time to wake up?…Not to be confused with Woke. The former working on ourselves whilst the latter appears more like telling others to what you are not able to do or even try ourself.
Wake up to realise while many of us have more time with just ourself that there is nothing we need to do, be , buy, change, practice or learn in order to be happy, loving and whole.
The paradox of listening to best advise is that until we quiet our mind, we cant use it; Once we quiet our mind, we don’t need it
Personal Epiphany
I feel I should declare my desire to share my experiences and thoughts with others is primarily to help me, but have found that they have helped others on a similar journey. I had an epiphany in 2015 following the passing of my 18 year old son, James, to a brain tumour. I am told that it often takes something devastating to have a complete paradigm shift in life perception. Having had many father son conversations and latterly before contracting cancer, about how he suffered anziety in larger groups of people, I realised he internally beat himself up, like so many of us do. All I could think to do was reassure him that he was not on his own and most as us believe that we are not OK but others are. After treatment began James subsequently changed and behaved differently. He seemed more confident happy and complete after contracting the tumour than before. You may presume it was the realisation of a limited life span and he was determined to make the most it, but I know having spent 18 months off work with him, he now experienced the world as an internal place and he could effect is own mood and ironically now knew he was OK.
The Teacher
He discovered Inside-Out by Micheal Neill on-line, naturally, he was 16, and shared it with me. I now share this book with everyone and sell it for no profit in our salon. This in turn changed my philosphy and I totally rebranded Combers ensuring the story would never be lost and It would form a foundation to share more wisdom than just hairdressing. Words of wisdom written in a book brought to life for me by my son. Like many of our children if we choose to listen become the teacher. It took something devastating for both of us to change.
……. “Our deepest fear is that there is something wrong with us and we’re not enough. ….That until we achieve sufficient levels of spiritual wealth, material success or both we won’t be worthy of love. And without something tangible to show for it, we have a wasted life.”
The Covid-19 pandemic is a collective experience in devastation, one that the world is experiencing together. One that can’t be expressed easily or too lightly as we come to terms with and share each others experiences online. When we look ‘outside’ now, most of us are grateful for community and the Worlds medical professions in the front line and the Government and experts doing their best to guide us and come up with answers.
Normal Behaviour
Yes we will still have thoughts of blame, it has begun already. We have been doing it all our lives, it’s natural or sadly become normal behaviour, but it does not need to be this way. There will only be a change when we become the change we want and choose to take personal responsibility. This takes courage and belief as when we take away the safety net of blaming the outside, there is only one conclusion, That we are not enough and that frightens more than it empowers us…..
“…….We could no sooner be ‘not enough’ than a tree could be the wrong colour. We don’t have to become worthy of love, because love is what we are made of. “
Hope
I hold on to hope. Hope that this shared experience and global tragedy of such proportions can have a positive global paradigm shift in perception.
Just imagine the energy of a global critical mass change of perception that evokes a tipping point that leads to a new and irreversible development in the way we lead our lives and interact with each other on the ball of mud we call Earth. Perhaps the more we understand where our experience comes from the less frightened we will be of that experience and resist picking up pieces of this mud and throwing it at each other in an effort to find someone to blame.
This change can happen when we get through this latest global challenge, if we each take personal responsibility. Responsibility to look at everything we see or think we see and look again with new eyes.
The power of ‘I don’t know’
It starts with a change of reference which for me starts with ‘I don’t know’. Instead of ‘I know that’ or assuming ‘I know that’. Wanting to prove we know, or needing to have an answer is natural as we navigate life and try to make sense of our experiences. I often felt inadequate if I did not know the science question at school and now later in life I find myself questioning or challenging the science question and many other universal laws, principles or doctrines that benchmark our existence
Philosopher Sadhguru, shares this concept well. ‘I know’ closes the mind and the ears and opens the mouth. ‘I don’t know’ is full of possibility. The world is a fascinating place when I allow myself to explore the idea that perhaps, ‘I don’t know’. It reminds me of a quote by TS Elliot which when I was first introduced to it in my younger days I did not understand. As it turns out I was doing too much learning and not nearly enough exploring.
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time…TS Elliot
Meet the most wonderful person
If we discover the wonderful person in the mirror and have the courage to meet and get to know them, others will also get to know you better and enjoy your company, but more importantly we will and when we do our World changes which after all is the only World we know. With a tipping point of thinking everyones World can change or a revolution as Michael Neill calls it.
……Finding that wonderful person is just the beginning as when my life gets busy and stressful again I know that person is easy to lose. He seems to slip through my fingers and temporarily forgets who he is or where or why. Perhaps in a new world we can look out for each other, not by trying to take care of each other in order to meet our own perceived needs, but gently and kindly remind yourself and others that they/we could no sooner be ‘not enough’ than a tree could be the wrong colour. They/we don’t have to become worthy of love, because love is what they/we are made of, and while you’re there, say hello to a wonderful person.
