Two parables, Your life is what you make it.
So today I want to share about two proverbs.
One is Taoist: Let Go or Be dragged.
It is the way. Life is dynamically changing. Sometimes the time comes to shift a situation. You see this often in relationship. The relationship has come to a place where a shift is required for it to continue in a healthy manner, but the individuals don't want to let go of the habitual way they had interacted.
Releasing each other from the habitual or routinized interaction allows for the two individuals to float up and flow with the wave of change, perhaps coming back together in a better more healthful fashion; perhaps moving away from each other and into a healthier relationship with themselves, leaving space to create a new relationship.
Holding on can result in a spinning inward of negativity that ultimately drags down the energy of the relationship until it implodes. This is just one description of the proverb, but the idea is to go with the flow, allow the flow of the universe to guide you and to release yourself from holding on to something that does not serve you.
The other proverb is the donkey in the well fable.
One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried and struggled to get out but the sides of the well were too deep and too smooth for the donkey to exit. For hours the farmer tried to figure out what to do. He could not figure out a way to help the donkey escape. Finally, thinking the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway. Rather than retrieve the donkey he decided to cover up the donkey and fill the well with dirt.
At first, when the donkey realized what was happening he cried horribly. Then, he quieted down and let out some happy brays. A few shovel loads later, the farmer looked down the well to see what was happening and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was shaking it off and taking a step up.
As the farmer continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, the donkey continued to shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!
The moral to the fable is this: Life is going to shovel dirt on you. The trick to getting out of the hole you are in is to shake it off and take a step up. Every adversity can be turned into a stepping stone. The way to get out of the deepest well is by never giving up but by shaking yourself off, and taking a step up. To do this you need to change your inner perspective, your inner attitude, your interpretation of what is and what is not. This allows you to see your situation from a differently and allows you to find solutions and take actions that help yourself.
What matters is how you choose to respond to what happens to you.
Your life is what you make it. Your paradigm defines what you see and what power you perceive you have, even what power you perceive others have over you. The donkey could have lived (and died) in the paradigm he began with in his journey into the well; but in the fable he used his observation skills and thinking to shift his perspective and paradigm to change his circumstances by using the tools given to him – the rising dirt.
Both of these parables can be interpreted in a physical way, but they are equally as applicable to psycho-emotional and spiritual circumstances that require a shift in perspective.
In the donkey circumstance the shift from victim to thriver, creating his own way to safety was a physical, psycho-emotional and spiritual shift. This is also true when faced with a circumstance where let go or be dragged applies.
Wake each day renewed in your belief in your self, belief in the world around you and in the people in your life that matter. In this way you can be centered in your attention your unexpected and habitual experiences that require a shift.
Recognize that letting go is sometimes the most loving thing you can do even if the other is unaware of the gift.
And hold true to your inner strength even when those you believe in have let you down.
Model thriving. Have your thriving rub off on those around you so that the world around you, and the people around you can all shift perspective in unison to walk out of the well they have fallen into.
Categories: Balance of Spirit Mind and Body category, coaching category, consciousness development, Mindfulness living category, Paradigm shifting, spiritual development | Tags: attitude of gratitude, change, consciousness development, effective communication, faith, inner balance, inspiration, let go or be dragged, mind-body-spirit connection, paradigm shifting, spiritual development, the donkey and the well, the way, upleveling | Permalink.
I have been doing some research on Taoist principles for a new book and I have found some amazing, powerfully enlightening information.
It is Cleary's contention that from this Taoist vision, "Taoism is not, as usually thought, a product of Chinese civilization. Rather it is the other way about – Chinese civilization was originally the product of Taoism in the sense that like all successful original cultures it was initiated and guided by people in contact with the Tao or universal law."(The Book of Balance and Harmony, Cleary, 1989) What a powerful concept and a perfect focus for renewal and transformation.
The various methods and techniques of the enlightened adept to worldly conditions in order to liberate people. The enlightened provoke deep faith by being in the world yet unaffected by it, just as the lotus grows in water yet water does not adhere to the lotus.
With extraordinary thoughts and profound talent, as cultural leaders, like magicians the enlightened manifest all the various arts and crafts of the world, like song and dance, and conversation admired by the people.
What I love about this is how it gives a prescription for how to live in these times.
It is about how to trust your inner knowing, your internal guidance sensory system and connect to a higher wisdom and light so that you can identify and act from a universal law or truth rather than propaganda or third dimensional pulls toward power over others to feel successful.
The ebb and flow of nature and the return to balance is the way. Living in that way, guiding your actions to be in connection to that is the highest form of instinctive medicine, balance, and harmony.
Focus on what is and the light allows that to be what is produced or created, rather than a disconnection from self, an embracement of self in harmony.
One way to find your way back to balance is to pay attention to where you feel discomfort and that can give you a clue to where you are out of balance.
You may also feel, hear as another speaks or the world shifts to attend to a lack of congruence or harmony. This is the best way to avoid following propaganda rather than the truth.
Trusting yourself, your internal sensory guidance system includes intuition and connection to extradimensional experience through mediation, visualization, and dreamwork.
Categories: Balance of Spirit Mind and Body category, consciousness development, Mindfulness living category, Paradigm shifting, spiritual development, spiritual sociology | Tags: attitude of gratitude, change, consciousness development, faith, God, healing, inner balance, instinctive health, internal sensory guidance system, mind-body-spirit connection, propaganda, the way, truth, upleveling | Permalink.