A Walk In The Park…

“It’s only energy“, my teacher would say. It was a bit of a mantra for him. “It’s only energy“.

It didn’t matter what we were talking about. The point was, it’s only energy. No matter the situation, no matter the picture, no matter the dream, it’s all only energy.

You know how someone says something, and you hear the inherent truth of it, but don’t get how to make it applicable? This was it for me. “What’s he talking about? ” I would silently ask myself.

“You know you don’t want to hold on to the hurt or the anger or the guilt. Yet you do. Sometimes for years. You hate it every time it comes up. And you know it will come back up sooner or later. It always does. How do you let go?”, he would ask.

We often try to shake off those unpleasant, even downright painful feelings that come up and it’s a bit like trying to flick a booger stuck on our fingers by violently flapping our hand. Our friends are happy to see us or a love interest is finally opening up, something we would enjoy is occurring right in front of us, but we’re still fuming from being mistreated at work or still resenting how our father treated us as a child.

These pictures light up and keep hammering away inside. As our attention is distracted as we try to flick our fingers, we miss our golden moment of receiving a precious gift.

We miss it.

When we know we don’t want those feelings and thoughts hanging around a minute longer, what makes it so difficult to get rid of them and move on?

Can letting go be just that simple? It seems easier to just get rid of the thought, smush it down and cover it over. At least we can still keep an eye on it, so to speak.

And yet, it returns. Time and again it returns until we finally look at what it is we’re fearing, what we’re resisting, what it is that bothers us and causes us pain.

By looking at it from a space of observing what is, we don’t have to engage it, rather simply watch ourselves interacting (or inner-acting) with it. We call back the energy we’ve invested in it and find some space from it. With a little amusement and neutrality, we let it go.

The ego will tell us that its job is to protect us from the pain. Sometimes we listen. We justify our right to stay angry, hold onto the pain. But we’re slow to realize that the ego did a pretty lousy job of keeping the pain out in the first place!

One of the functions of the ego is to deem a thing positive or negative. What the ego deems positive, it attracts to itself. What the ego deems negative, it repels from itself (far be it for us to judge what the ego deems as “positive” and “negative”). What the ego is neutral to, it pays no mind.

As it assigns this energetic charge to a thing, it forms a picture, a thought, a belief. To keep things in perspective, it cross references and associates with other pictures to weave a tangled tapestry which we peek through to view our world. In this way, we can say the ego has “pulled the wool over our eyes”.

We can’t get rid of what bothers us as long as we are energetically engaged with it. As long as there’s a negative charge, we’ll end up throwing more energy at it to override its effect on us.

Until we stop. Until we get out of resistance. It’s not too difficult. A little amusement goes a long way. In amusement, we can gain a little space, a more neutral view. As we grow our neutrality, we have more freedom of movement and less pull from the ego.

In amusement, problems can’t exist. It’s simply a decision to be made. (think of a time when you were really amused and someone came along and tried to give you a problem to solve. The only way it became a problem was if your energy lowered to meet it. See what I mean?)

When we see a thing for what it is, we can let go of the energetic charge that keeps it in place. In so doing, we get a little bit of our space back. There’s a little bit more room for us. The energy we once invested in the picture, we can now use toward being more of who we are and creating more of what we want. Thread by thread, we unravel and reweave the tapestry.

With each thread we untangle, we release a little bit more of the pain, get a little bit more of our space back, grow our neutrality and increase our enthusiasm and amusement.

Simple? Yes. Easy? Not always.

But it helps to remember that, well, it’s only energy.

Let it go…

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Without a mirror, your eyes can’t see themselves. Check it out; as you sit there reading this, bring your attention to a spot right behind your eyes.

See? You can look through them, but you can’t see them. Weird, huh?

The same thing happens with the ego. It can’t see itself, either.

So, if the eyes are the window to the soul, there has to be some glass in the window, or else it would be stated “the eyes are the sash of the soul””. Ehhhh, not so catchy…

In a window, the filtering piece of glass is sometimes called a light” (as in a window with different smaller pieces of glass) and sometimes they’re referred to as “panes”.

So, if we look out through our eyes and see the world through our filtered glass (as in “through rose colored glasses” ), maybe it can be said that the filter is our ego.

I guess we could then say that…

The ego can be a real pane sometimes!

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My friend, Paula, was so excited that her friend was coming to town. They were going to a retreat together and Paula wanted us to meet before they left. Her friend’s time was limited, so Tuesday night was the only opportunity for us to meet.

I’ve enjoyed my friendship with Paula. At the heart of it is some incredible conversations where we’ll talk about life and things and I give her my unique perspective. She enjoys ‘translating’ my words into phrases she’s more comfortable with. Paula is very sharp and can grasp heavy concepts easier than most. I enjoy these conversations, too, because they push me to keep things simple while pulling out some good stuff!

So, we’re having dinner and Paula’s friend, J, is asking me things and I’m answering just like I would with P. It’s all very fun and J and I are hitting it off like we’ve known each other for lifetimes (which we have, but that’s a bit out of the realm of a Presbyterian conversation).

J then asked me, “Why Atlanta?” to what must’ve been a ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ look from me. “What?” I ask. “Why Atlanta? What are you doing here?”

I sat with her question as I fiddled with my cashew chicken. I contemplated how best to answer this query as I chew, enjoying the flavors and textures of the meal. As I twist and turn the question 6 ways to Sunday in my mind, nothing is coming to me.

Certainly, I thought the spiritual community here would be different than in North Carolina, and it is. Only, not like I thought. And my career hadn’t taken off with more opportunity, either. I hadn’t cultivated a very large circle of friends and romantic relationships were all but non-existent.

Finally, the only truthful answer came out; “I don’t know”. Any other answer would be bullshit and I knew it.

I’ve been sitting with this question since then. I believe that my life is what I say it is. I also believe that who I am in relationship to it is what I say it is. I believe the answers can change any time we want them to. As our perspectives change, so do our perceptions. From new perceptions come new beliefs, which provide a new experience, which validates our perspectives. And the cycle is complete. Until it isn’t.

Then it’s time to change perspectives. Which is what this blog is about. I hope you enjoy the ride as I figure out why I’m here, what I’m doing and what comes next.  Yes, I also believe we’re making it all up as we go along. And that’s the point of life!