How do you expend your energy? Where are you putting your attention? Are you doing things that are good for you or are you doing things that deplete your energy stores? Learn to protect yourself from energy drains. Give yourself time to recharge, to replenish, to rejuvenate in good ways, for you are like a battery with a limited charge. You need rest. There comes a time when it is right to slow down, pull inward, and take care of yourself for a change. That time has come. Watch your energy.
I share a passage I was reading this morning from an old favorite of mine, Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. He reminds us “that everything changes is the basic truth for each existence. No one can deny this truth, and all the teaching of Buddhism is condensed within it. This is the teaching for all of us.”
He goes on to say, “Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transiency, we suffer. So the cause of suffering is our non-acceptance of this truth.”
Those of us who have difficulty accepting our own truths may also find difficulty in accepting the transiency of life. Often we want things to stay the same so we don’t have to feel or re-experience what once caused so much distress, that which fragmented us and sent us into depression, dissociative habits, and any number of behaviors that we deemed necessary for our survival.
The truth is that life is all about change. Life would not exist without constant change. We know this to be truth in our own lives. If we don’t change nothing happens, we stay the same, and yes, we suffer. We aren’t able to more fully live and embrace life if we are afraid of making a move to change something in our lives. In the end we may even find pleasure in our pain and in our refusal to change; we elect suffering over change.
Recapitulation is all about daring the self to accept the changing aspects of life. It means we are saying that we are ready to face what holds us back so we can finally live in this world. Otherwise we remain entrenched in a world that is not real, a world where perhaps only fear and loathing exist, where change is given the boot, and we miss out on the true reality of this world. I spent most of my life in that other world. It’s what my books are all about, the rediscovery of my traumatic beginnings but also the discovery of just how entrenched I had become in the world I had created for myself in order to feel safe.
If we can dare ourselves to investigate just what it is that has us in its grip we slowly begin to find ourselves evermore ready to accept the changing aspects of life. And it’s then that we realize change is life, and that in daring to change ourselves, through the deep inner work of recapitulation, we offer ourselves footholds in new life, in a changing world. As we do deep work on ourselves we begin to trust and enjoy that changing world in previously unimaginable ways.
As we accept that life is change we begin to flow with all the changes that come our way, bidden and unbidden, knowing that this is how life is, and that this time will soon change too. Every time we accept that life is change we let ourselves experience more of living and eventually we are flowing right along, no longer afraid of change, no longer suffering in the way we once did.
Part of accepting that life is change and change is life is accepting that which we run from, that which we hide from, that which scares us the most. It entails turning and facing and finally accepting what once happened to us without judgment, without self-hatred, without fear but with compassion for our frightened self, with kindness for our traumatized self, with love for our noble and strong self.
We remember that those bad times in the past eventually changed too and that new things happened to us, so we see that we have already learned the lessons of change, but to learn those lessons in full awareness is what the process of recapitulation entails. To consciously elect change and allow ourselves the benefit of life in a new way is to readily accept what life offers us to help us grow and evolve.
Then we understand what Suzuki means when he says, “When we realize the everlasting truth of ‘everything changes’ and find our composure in it, we find ourselves in Nirvana.”
The road to Nirvana—to composure and to acceptance of all that is as it changes, without attachment—is one well worth traveling. If I can do it, so can you!
-A blog by J. E. Ketchel, Author of The Recapitulation Diaries
Let not your big heart close its doors but keep open and exchanging energies, for it is what the world needs now—heart centered goodness. In times of divisiveness look inward and ask your heart for answers to your difficult questions. Without fail it will give you the right answer, for the heart knows. Trust it.
Energy in action… – Detail of Artwork by Jan Ketchel
We live in the most stupendous of times for ego development. From the moment we awaken each day we are barraged with outer world events, bodily needs, and an internal dialog which all clamor for our attention. Attention is where we employ our vital energy. Ego must decide in rapid succession how it will spend this vital energy.
Will our decisions enhance or deplete our energetic reserves? Will our decisions be in alignment with the state of our body? Will our decisions channel the deeper calling of our spirit? These are examples of the myriad of decisions the ego must make in our hyper, fast-paced, rapidly shifting modern world.
Ego has gotten a bad rap. This is largely because it is associated with enhancing one’s self-importance and outer-world possessions to the detriment of others, as well as to the detriment of the spirit. Indeed, ego can decide to employ the vital energy of the body and the spiritual self to its own aggrandizement.
In fact, perhaps the most exaggerated example of this attitude confronts us daily in the governance currently in power of our world. We all must face the real possibility of nuclear holocaust in the hands of such leadership, but here also lies the very heart of opportunity for the moment we live in.
We must all choose whether to spend our energy worrying about this fact, and this is an ego decision, or not. True, we must acknowledge the threat to our survival, the existential anxiety of pending destruction and disintegration, for not to do so would be to dissociate from our animal knowing of the real and present danger to our existence.
However, as the shamans discovered long ago, death is our greatest advisor. Knowing that we are beings who are going to die is our greatest support to stay awake and take full advantage of the opportunities of life in this dimension. The ego must decide what to do with this information.
The ego can employ the classic defense of denial and go about daily life as if nothing is different, all is predictable and unfolding as it should. Modern events, however, are really rattling this defense.
The ego could become concretely opportunistic, gobbling up power and wealth to enjoy its time here in material abundance, paying little heed to the side effects of its choices. Nature is dramatically confronting this attitude right now.
The ego might alternatively choose to face reality and attend to the impact of its animal knowing on its central nervous system through a variety of meditative and breathing practices.
Further, ego might turn its attention inward to the subtler energies of its spirit. These are the energies of manifestation, these are the energies of intent. These are the energetic pathways open to the evolving human. We all may glimpse them in the magical occurrences that frequently follow shortly after the loss of a loved one when, in heightened awareness, we are opened to the energetic possibilities of quantum connection.
Ego turning its attention materially toward outer control and accumulation are Old World technologies. It is obvious that from an evolutionary standpoint they are not favored. Don’t be fooled by the current last stand of the worst of these practices, they need to have their last dance.
We are being prompted now to discover life at a deeper energetic level. This entails tuning into the subtle energies of synchronicity and serendipity where the ego is presented with feedback and energetic possibilities that can guide life into truly sustainable evolutionary directions.
These are the amazing opportunities for ego refinement in our current volatile times. We are evolving into a New World of energy as well as a world of concrete objects, a far more expansive world, with a wise ego at the helm.
Breathe and let your breath be the breath of compassion. Let every breath carry forth the beauty of this human trait, for no other creature stirs with compassion. It comes to you in times of personal crisis and stirs your heart and asks you to be compassionate more often. Its healing balm and soothing messages make you feel that you are loved. It brings love to you from deep within yourself and in this loving you know its power. Let it begin with you. Let it stir your compassionate heart to be just that, compassionate toward yourself and others more often. In this way let your love flow, within and without!
