In the last blog (Grievance VS Grace) I explained what grievance was, and alluded to the idea that when we find ourselves in grievance we are actually facing an amazing opportunity for growth and happiness. Let me explain that a bit further. Sadly, most people on planet earth today are not walking around in a state of the awareness of grace, or the happiness that comes with that. Nor are we spending most of our time utterly miserable. The general status quo is one of a low level state of suffering and unconscious complaint. Most of us manage this with a range of stimulants (caffeine, cigarettes, alcohol) and distractions (tv, reading, radio) that keep our true state at an unconscious level. In this way life limps along from one shade of gray to the next with just a few moments of either joy or misery breaking the surface into our conscious awareness.
It is these moments (when we are paying attention to our internal state) that are the doorways to reconnecting with the grace that transforms our life. One well known teacher of grace by the name of Papaji once made the comment that "it is hard to wake up from a pleasant dream", meaning that in those fleeting moments of joy and comfort in our life we lack the motivation to seek a deeper experience. It is our suffering that makes us question the status quo. It is misery that provide us the motivation and the opportunity to discover something more. The trick is to learn to recognise these opportunities for what they are, rather than trying to minimise and avoid them.
These moments of grievance, stress and suffering usually involve some sort of emotional pain, physical discomfort and psychological disturbance. It is however important to understand that these things are not actually the cause of the suffering. Our suffering and stress are the result of how we respond to these events, how we are being 'with' them. When we are living in the belief that we have the power to meet these events and resolve them, there is no suffering, just a natural move to action. When we believe that we are powerless in relation to them, we suffer and resist. From this context there are a number of ways in which we can view these moments as opportunities.
(1) Reclaiming Power & Transcending Limitation.
Whenever we are suffering we are in the grip of a delusion of powerlessness. We have forgotten the truth of who we are, which is Human Beings (def: Hu-man - God Manifest). Instead, we have bought into an identity of limitation that has us at the mercy of the world. These moments of suffering give us the opportunity to question our own minds and rediscover the truth about ourselves and our true power. One of the most effective methods for doing this has been given to us by an extraordinary teacher of Grace called Byron Katie. You can access her work for free at http://www.thework.com/
(2) Resolving Trauma
In future blogs I will be talking in more depth about the nature of human trauma, but for now I'll define it as 'undigested emotional experience'. When we have an experience that we are unable to naturally 'process out', whether because the situation is not safe or because it is simply overwhelmingly intense, the emotional energy gets locked in our body. Our body mind responds to this trauma much the same way it would to a foreign object in a wound. It isolates it from the surrounding energy by contracting around it and diverting our psyche away from it. This usually results in chronic tension, distorted behaviours and self limitation to avoid re triggering the held trauma. If we wish to become once more healthy and fully alive, we need to release this trapped trauma and resolve the event that caused it.
The Grace within us wants us to be whole and happy, and tries to achieve this by recreating situations that are similar to the ones that caused this original trauma and pain. Thus much of our suffering is repetitive, the same emotional triggers over and over again, until we stop resisting the experience and embrace the opportunity to finally free ourselves from this old trauma.
(3) Rediscovering Grace
The king of all opportunities is this one - the chance to reconnect with the grace inside us and discover who we are beyond our limited and sick identities. All suffering arises from the disconnection that occurs between our ego mind and our natural state of grace. If we can learn to recognise suffering for what it is, it becomes the signal that tells us to reconnect. It informs us that we have become lost in a dark delusion of being separate from God. In that moment we can respond by seeking the grace inside us in whatever way works for you (prayer, meditation, centering, breathing, gratitude, etc) and once more discover the joy that exists in every moment.
The great part about this response is that it naturally incorporates all of the others. When we once more become aware of grace all our delusions naturally dissolve. When we reconnect, our traumas naturally begin to heal and release with an ease that is remarkable.
Nobody wants to suffer, that's why we try to avoid it and numb it with addiction and distraction. Unfortunately, these things do not resolve it but only extend it into the future. It is through embracing the opportunity which our suffering presents that we can become truly free. The opportunity to surrender to the grace and the truth inside us.
Blessings
Showing posts with label Opportunity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opportunity. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Grace VS Grievance
The book "A Course in Miracles" explains that what takes us away from the 'awareness' of grace (because we can never be truly taken away from the reality of it) is a Little thing we do that it calls GRIEVANCE. Essentially, this means that we look at our reality and judge it to be 'not right' in some way.
Grievance can take a great many forms, including complaint, self pity, believing that we need to change things, and trying to take control of events. It can also be found in a great many of the 'new age' philosophies like positive thinking, creative visualisation, 'creating your own reality' and some of the resurrected older philosophies like spell casting. Even the act of praying can be a form of grievance if we are asking the divine to make our life different in some way. That isn't to say that these things are necessarily based in grievance, because we do them naturally all the time. Most everybody finds themselves daydreaming possibilities for their future and motivating themselves to action with bright imaginings of the things to come.
However, usually when people sit down to consciously try to apply these techniques they are doing it because they have decided that something in their world needs to change, that something is not right. So, what's the problem with grievance? Well, this is a classic example of the distorted egoic mind trying to make itself the boss in life. Its attempting to usurp the role of the natural faculties of feelings, intuition and inspiration, which are the ways that grace guides us in life. Through our natural sense of attraction, desire and excitement we are guided to follow the path that is right for us. Through our natural feelings, aversions and pain responses we are guided to avoid that which is harmful to us. When we are aligned with these natural events, we have no need for grievance, no need to resist our reality, because we are able to 'gracefully' respond to it.
It can be hard to tell the difference between grace and grievance because grievance often takes these natural signals and uses them as evidence for its attempt to take control. For instance, if I am in a career that is unfulfilling to me I will feel naturally dissatisfied and want to move towards something else that attracts me more. My distorted ego can take this and turn it into a 'problem' which it has to sort out, rather than allow the normal flow that would bring graceful change. When this happens I have stopped responding and started reacting to the situation, I have stopped trusting in grace.
Tricky isn't it? Do not worry though, 'A course in Miracles' also offers us the sure way to tell the difference, what it calls the test of truth. It states that the truth will always leave you feeling fearless and peaceful. In other words, you can always tell when you are in grievance because it always carries a sense of stress and suffering with it. From a place of grace we know ourself to be powerful and creative. From a place of grievance, we believe ourself to be vulnerable, powerless and at the effect of life.
The obvious question now is how do we return to a state of grace? the first step is to recognise that we are in grievance, and to understand that the suffering we are going through is not because of the situation, but because of the way that we are seeing it. To echo the words of Echarte Toll (in his book 'A New Earth'), "the minute you can recognise that you are insane, you are just a little bit saner".
The second step is to recognise that grievance give me an opportunity to bring love present to my reality. Grievance is the act of resisting reality, which denies the situation the energy that is needed to continue it's natural evolution. There's an old saying, " what you resist persists". I believe that this perfectly defines the effect of grievance. When I judge and resist my reality I am attempting to create distance between it and me. I do this because I believe that reality has the power to threaten and harm me. While ever I believe myself to be less powerful than the situation, I negate my natural creative resources and give my power away.
The completion of that saying is "what you embrace, evolves". When I meet my reality with love, I transform the consciousness in myself that is bringing that reality into being. I rediscover my power and I am once more aligned with my natural resourcefulness and creativity. From this 'grace place' I organically come to understand the lessons and opportunities being presented, and to heal my perceptions of self limitation. When I respond with love I once more recognise that I am the power in this situation.
If the above ideas make sense to you this naturally leads to the question of "how do we respond with love"? There are many forms of love, but one of the most powerful for me is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a funny thing, the more I do it the more I realise just what I have to be grateful for, which leads me to do it more. I had a very strong experience of the power of gratitude about ten years ago. For over 12 years I had been working in hospitality, of which 11 were spent in a state of grievance and resistance. I hated my job, seeing it as demeaning, unchallenging and beneath my potential. For 11 years I had been unsuccessfully trying to get out of it.
One day I grew tired of constantly complaining to myself and decided that it wasn't really all that bad. I was well paid, worked hours I mostly enjoyed, was making a valuable contribution to other peoples enjoyment of life, and wasn't harming anyone. I resolved to appreciate my work, to be grateful for what it gave me. That day turned out to be my last shift in hospitality. Two days later I found myself working in a completely different field and my life underwent radical change in every area, without me doing a thing. After fifteen years of struggling to 'get out' I discovered that I had to 'get in' before any thing could change. I finally stopped resisting my reality, and it rapidly evolved in directions as yet undreamed by me.
In my next posting I will talk more about how grievance gives us an opportunity to grow, heal and find fulfilment. For now, I'd like to finish with the invitation to see what happens when you stop believing those thoughts of grievance and limitation and meet your reality and yourself with a choice for gratitude, which is another word for an attitude of grace.
Together we rise.
Adam Blanch
Grievance can take a great many forms, including complaint, self pity, believing that we need to change things, and trying to take control of events. It can also be found in a great many of the 'new age' philosophies like positive thinking, creative visualisation, 'creating your own reality' and some of the resurrected older philosophies like spell casting. Even the act of praying can be a form of grievance if we are asking the divine to make our life different in some way. That isn't to say that these things are necessarily based in grievance, because we do them naturally all the time. Most everybody finds themselves daydreaming possibilities for their future and motivating themselves to action with bright imaginings of the things to come.
However, usually when people sit down to consciously try to apply these techniques they are doing it because they have decided that something in their world needs to change, that something is not right. So, what's the problem with grievance? Well, this is a classic example of the distorted egoic mind trying to make itself the boss in life. Its attempting to usurp the role of the natural faculties of feelings, intuition and inspiration, which are the ways that grace guides us in life. Through our natural sense of attraction, desire and excitement we are guided to follow the path that is right for us. Through our natural feelings, aversions and pain responses we are guided to avoid that which is harmful to us. When we are aligned with these natural events, we have no need for grievance, no need to resist our reality, because we are able to 'gracefully' respond to it.
It can be hard to tell the difference between grace and grievance because grievance often takes these natural signals and uses them as evidence for its attempt to take control. For instance, if I am in a career that is unfulfilling to me I will feel naturally dissatisfied and want to move towards something else that attracts me more. My distorted ego can take this and turn it into a 'problem' which it has to sort out, rather than allow the normal flow that would bring graceful change. When this happens I have stopped responding and started reacting to the situation, I have stopped trusting in grace.
Tricky isn't it? Do not worry though, 'A course in Miracles' also offers us the sure way to tell the difference, what it calls the test of truth. It states that the truth will always leave you feeling fearless and peaceful. In other words, you can always tell when you are in grievance because it always carries a sense of stress and suffering with it. From a place of grace we know ourself to be powerful and creative. From a place of grievance, we believe ourself to be vulnerable, powerless and at the effect of life.
The obvious question now is how do we return to a state of grace? the first step is to recognise that we are in grievance, and to understand that the suffering we are going through is not because of the situation, but because of the way that we are seeing it. To echo the words of Echarte Toll (in his book 'A New Earth'), "the minute you can recognise that you are insane, you are just a little bit saner".
The second step is to recognise that grievance give me an opportunity to bring love present to my reality. Grievance is the act of resisting reality, which denies the situation the energy that is needed to continue it's natural evolution. There's an old saying, " what you resist persists". I believe that this perfectly defines the effect of grievance. When I judge and resist my reality I am attempting to create distance between it and me. I do this because I believe that reality has the power to threaten and harm me. While ever I believe myself to be less powerful than the situation, I negate my natural creative resources and give my power away.
The completion of that saying is "what you embrace, evolves". When I meet my reality with love, I transform the consciousness in myself that is bringing that reality into being. I rediscover my power and I am once more aligned with my natural resourcefulness and creativity. From this 'grace place' I organically come to understand the lessons and opportunities being presented, and to heal my perceptions of self limitation. When I respond with love I once more recognise that I am the power in this situation.
If the above ideas make sense to you this naturally leads to the question of "how do we respond with love"? There are many forms of love, but one of the most powerful for me is an attitude of gratitude. Gratitude is a funny thing, the more I do it the more I realise just what I have to be grateful for, which leads me to do it more. I had a very strong experience of the power of gratitude about ten years ago. For over 12 years I had been working in hospitality, of which 11 were spent in a state of grievance and resistance. I hated my job, seeing it as demeaning, unchallenging and beneath my potential. For 11 years I had been unsuccessfully trying to get out of it.
One day I grew tired of constantly complaining to myself and decided that it wasn't really all that bad. I was well paid, worked hours I mostly enjoyed, was making a valuable contribution to other peoples enjoyment of life, and wasn't harming anyone. I resolved to appreciate my work, to be grateful for what it gave me. That day turned out to be my last shift in hospitality. Two days later I found myself working in a completely different field and my life underwent radical change in every area, without me doing a thing. After fifteen years of struggling to 'get out' I discovered that I had to 'get in' before any thing could change. I finally stopped resisting my reality, and it rapidly evolved in directions as yet undreamed by me.
In my next posting I will talk more about how grievance gives us an opportunity to grow, heal and find fulfilment. For now, I'd like to finish with the invitation to see what happens when you stop believing those thoughts of grievance and limitation and meet your reality and yourself with a choice for gratitude, which is another word for an attitude of grace.
Together we rise.
Adam Blanch
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