Early in the morning… I am usually walking at this time but this morning, my walking buddy was not feeling too good and I too was sore anyhow so I am a bit glad that I had a reason not to go. I will do some yoga later to try to stretch that body of mine that is fighting me lately.
At least, I started meditating again yesterday and it did me good. I will try to keep it up even if there is always something else to do, which is taking me to what I want to talk about today:
Resistance and control.
First of all, for about 6 months now, I have felt like my energy is being blocked. I don’t know why. I feel out of sort. It’s like I’m trying to push through something but my head gets stuck against some kind of flexible membrane that will not break and I am stopped from bursting out… I don’t know… I feel the membrane stretching but it does not rupture. Figuratively, I suppose I am trying to be born into something different, something better, freer and more creative.
There is so much I want to do but at the same time, I am afraid it will not work and I feel there is never enough time. Furthermore, life has been trying to show me that I am not in control of anything lately. I do not control what is around me, my kids (their moods, their lives: I just want them to be happy), my friends, my projects, events around me, nothing. All kinds of curves are being thrown my way. And I like control. I admit I like when things go the way I want. But who doesn’t? This has not been happening lately.
Resistance: I came across a good exercise about resistance the other day and it made me think a big part of my wasted energy is going into fighting my own resistance. When you are trying to do something you want to do but somehow, the whole day goes by and you haven’t done it. What is happening? The exercise consists in trying to hear the voices in our heads, identify them, and see how they influence our lives. That never ending tape: Parents’ voices, old friends’, people from the past, old teachers and mentors, sometimes only a comment or a smirk coming from a pure stranger but that, somehow, that day, affected us because we felt vulnerable. Voices from the past that still affect our lives today, that push us down, that slow us down, that change where we are heading, what we are becoming. Why do we stay with these voices, why do we tend to listen and believe what is negative instead of positive?
What does it have to do with control? A lot because we should not let these voices from the past control how we react to things today.
I have read somewhere that life is all an illusion anyhow, a story we tell ourselves through our perception of what is going on around us. If we are telling ourselves a story, why not tell ourselves a good one? How many of us do not believe in compliments but accept without question any negative comments?
I realized yesterday that life was trying to teach me a lesson, a very valuable one at that. I have known for a long time that you do not control anything but your reactions to any event, to what is around you, to life. But I also have tried to fight this. I like control. Even if I am sometimes myself out of control in my habits, my home, especially my painting room… which is a mess most of the time, I try to feel like I have some kind of control over events around me. I try to make people happy, I try to influence (what a shame) my environment All this is always with good intentions really, but I realize these good intentions are according to my own values and ideas. Like I want the world to smarten up and reduce pollution and protect the earth. I want the government to stop the exploitation and expansion of tar sands which is totally motivated by greed. I cannot understand whatsoever why human beings feel they have to destroy the earth in order to survive. It makes no sense to me and I don’t see how people don’t realize that with no earth, there will be no life, or money, or comfort, so what’s the point? Where is the voice of reason?
I naturally assume people are acting in goodwill but have found lately that it is not so. People are acting more out of fear than out of reason or goodwill. Fear of not having what they want, fear of not being loved, fear of losing control. Fear and greed… I very often feel lost in that world that is so different from what I am. I still think that peace and love will win out. I still hope for it. I just can’t figure out where the world is going right now, or how come nobody wakes up and respect one another.
Does is have to do with evolution and the survival of the fittest? Because as I see it, the fittest is also the meanest and the greediest. And it is all about control at this point.
