You never know what you are truly made of until you put it to a test, especially until you face a challenge uncalled for or undesired. Only then will you find out who you truly are. Do not shy away from the challenges you face but turn your face toward them with all the fortitude you can muster and let the inner you teach you a few things about yourself. You might be surprised at what you discover and so might everyone else. You are more than you think you are. It’s never to late to find out what that means. Be thankful for every rare opportunity to find out.
Perhaps you know yourself pretty well, but are you stuck on a few old ideas of the self, that you are this way or that? Perhaps it’s time to know the self in new ways, to find out who you really are beneath the current status quo. Begin with a blank slate today. Don’t write anything down on that blank slate. Let it be filled in by the deeper self as the day progresses, the knowing self who has a lot of new ideas to implement. Just be open today and see what happens. You might be surprised at who you really are. Your other half has a lot to offer, if only you’ll let it live a little. So, just be open and available to you, the real you!
Challenges come in may forms. For some people they are all inside of them, sparked by outside occurrences. For others they come from outside, awakening inner strengths as they are put to test after test. It doesn’t matter where your challenges come from, if they are visible or invisible, for they all require an inner process of reconciliation and renewal, for all challenges contain the same thing, the germs of transformation. Embrace your own challenges as just that, the seeds of your own newness. Know that they carry within them all the unknown forces of power that will carry you forward. Own your power and use it wisely, for self and other, to move forward on your journey of change and transformation. Don’t stop now, the end is in sight! Power on!
Repeated efforts are necessary if real change is to happen, so do not be disappointed in the self as attempts seem to fail. There is no failure. Keep the self motivated with new ideas, with new outlooks, and with new dreams. The self is but a mini-world though as vast as space and so although you can see the whole of you on the outside the inside is infinite and full of possibilities, capable of more than you now know. It is in the challenges that life brings that the inner vastness of strength and fortitude are revealed. You still have so much untapped potential. Are you ready to experience it? For that’s what intending change is all about, discovering all that you really are, all the infinite possibilities of the self. So there is no failure, there is only the next step in your infinitely unfolding journey. Trek on!
This year, a bunny has set up refuge in our backyard sanctuary, affectionately called Camp Ketchel.
As we descend the hill and go into our screened abode Bunny sits totally still in the grass save for its mouth, which always seems to be munching, food or not. Bunny lets us pass within a couple of feet, clearly relaxed with our energy; we are not the danger.
The danger is all around, however, be it the fox family that lives very near, or an owl, or perhaps even the occasional eagle that makes its rounds. Death is but an instant away. This is nature. This is nature’s deepest truth: we are all stalked by the greatest predator of all: death. No one escapes.
In the meantime, Bunny eats, ears perked, always alert as it forages food for survival. Bunny has a friend, perhaps its mother who no longer accepts the role; all must take responsibility for their own lives.
Bunny engages friend in play. They pause in their eating and spring several feet into the air, jumping over one another in pure abandon, their customary alertness to danger momentarily relaxed. Play is part of nature, as important as eating and protecting. The bunny’s playful moment might indeed be the predator’s opportunity but that doesn’t matter, nature’s imperative to play must be enacted, regardless of cost.
Humans are animals as well. Though we hide behind a mote of reason and civilization, the truth is that the predator is always stalking. Despite all our medical genius no one and nothing can change our ultimate appointment with death.
At a primal level, the animal within us is well aware of this truth. On a primal level we are no different than the bunny, always watching, waiting, listening for the predator’s knock. Hence, anxiety is, at least on some level, a normal primal feeling in everyday human life. To think this shouldn’t be would be to deny our human animal reality. We may indeed be spirit beings who will live in infinity, but our animal selves will most assuredly die.
But let us learn from Bunny as well. As important as it is to be on our guard, it is equally important for us to completely release our guard and relax into pure play. Nature absolutely demands this of us. We must play with abandon to fulfill our animal nature.
We must allow ourselves to breathe deeply into the abdomen and break the constriction of rigid fear. We must completely relax our muscles, going deeper into calm and utter joy in our animal being. And when we are called back to alertness and fear, we must acquiesce and be present to it.
This opposition within our primal selves, of fear and play, can only be resolved by allowing ourselves to oscillate between each pole, flowing in accord with the true nature of each moment.
