Humans Being

In Service of Truth...and Ease There are some things that are true about the way life happens, whether we choose to recognize them or not. Denying or distracting ourselves from dealing with them will not make them less true and will not make them disappear. The first and most basic is that all living things are constantly changing and growing. They do so in ways that either produce or erode their continued health and ability to flourish. We humans are the only species--that I know of, anyway--that puts change out there as something to be feared, managed, and controlled. At some level it's time to get real. Every cell in our body is alive and changing all the time. Because we can't see change happening, we may dismiss it as irrelevant or not worthy of our attention. Every seven years or so, we will have regenerated the cells in our bodies. That is significant change! In the same way, we age a little bit everyday, but somehow seem shocked at how we reached thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty years of age and are wherever we find ourselves at those points. It is as if life happened to us and then we are surprised with what it brought. We tend to pay attention to and give meaning to changes that disrupt whatever path we are on or thought we were on. Then we stop to notice. For example, you may love your job for several days, weeks, months, or years and then realize at some point that it is not fulfilling, or just simply doesn't work for you anymore. This "sudden" awaremenss of what is happening can apply to marriages, partnerships, your relationship with your Self, your work, your beliefs, and with other situations in which you find yourself. If you stop to examine what is going on, you recognize that you have been less than satisfied for a while. Rather than acknowledge the initial inklings that something was not serving to bring out the best in you, you listened to one of those voices in your head that distracted you from doing something to change the situation. Maybe it's the voice that directs you to be happy with what you have, that now is not the time to change anything, or the one that says it will only be the same if you go anywhere else, so just learn to accept where you are and deal with it. Whatever you told yourself to shut down the awareness that something was not serving your Best Self, it was a mind distrcation from the truth in your heart. Typically, what we do is to keep upping the ante with more and more self talk, or we choose some other way to numb the awareness of the heart's message by self-medicating--compulsively rewarding ourselves with food, new toys or other indulgences for putting up with less than exhilarating lives. These tactics or medications can take forms like the obviously unproductive ones of soothing ourselves with comfort foods, alcohol, or other drugs of choice to the less obvious distractions of staying busy and focusing on being "productive". Compulsive anything, whether shopping or exercising, can serve to numb or distract us from paying attention to the body signals and emotions trying to get our attention that we are not feeling fulfilled, not acting on our own wisdom, and that we are off path. The beauty of these wonderful signals that we work so hard to deny, shut down, and otherwise dismiss is that they are all part of a conspiracy to help us choose purposeful lives, to help us live into our potential--strongly, boldly, and with vibrancy.