Panache Blog

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Living with Catastrophe

I see all of life unfolding in an upwardly evolving spiral. And its momentum is continually moving you forward.

Even those events that appear to be catastrophic are propelling you onward although you swear they are giant steps backwards. Bad marriages, crappy jobs, financial challenges, health crises, the loss of a loved one… each appears as a debilitating or even disastrous set-back, further complicated by the stress and emotions that flood every sensory point within your body.  Fear of what’s unfolding and the mind’s need to analyze and label renders you hopeless at times and further cements your reality as depressing, insurmountable, and even crippling.

Yet the truth remains that even in the face of tremendous odds, each is challenging you to a greater way of being.

The vast majority of those who find themselves on the path of enlightenment do so with the belief that when you reach a certain level of consciousness misfortune miraculously evaporates; that somehow years of practice and austerities provide immunity to the bad stuff. Nice concept… but again, not true.  Bad things happen to good people all the time regardless of the level of consciousness they inhabit.

From the moment you take your first breath until you draw your last, the rollercoaster of life will continue to unfold as the vehicle for a veritable smorgasbord of highlights and train wrecks, celebrations and tragedies, all for your benefit, and each ultimately providing the opportunity for you to flow with what’s unfolding.

Every challenge – big or small – serves as the catalyst to bring up whatever is unresolved within you. A bad marriage feeds into your story about being inferior, unworthy, and unlovable, but it’s not the divorce that is causing you sadness, grief and stress; it’s your resistance to the experience of the divorce.  Unexpected job loss and financial hardship is the outward manifestation to support your life-long story about not being smart enough and a failure, but it’s not the job loss that is causing you anger, fear and depression; it’s your resistance to what’s unfolding.  And the unforeseen death of a spouse confirms your darkest beliefs that you will always be betrayed, abandoned and alone but again, but it’s not death that cements your story but your escalating interior battle with what’s unfolding, that leaves you drowning in fear, stress, and victimhood. 

Whether it’s a minor hiccup in your daily experience or the most unspeakable tragedies, it is your RESISTANCE to what’s unfolding that causes you stress, pain, grief and sadness. As long as you externalize the problem by waiting for the event to go away, life to get better, or people to change, you remain hopelessly trapped. You have placed your BEINGNESS outside yourself and you diminish your ability to be present, to grow and evolve.

The only thing you have control over is how you meet life as it unfolds. Each event is a messenger calling you into greater possibilities. The first step to meeting life with presence is to consciously BREATH and fully FEEL what is coming up within you WITHOUT JUDGEMENT.  Your emotions are the vehicle through which the unresolved energies move through your body. Step out of judgment and blame. As you sit with the emotion you move into presence by simply feeling. Your tears are merely salty water running down your face – you are making up the rest. 

Indeed each of life’s events is a bridge to higher and greater consciousness.  Through the catalytic experience of each, your unresolved issues are being drawn out of you so that the underlying energies can be experienced. Every trip and fall along life’s path calls into your awareness any and all unresolved emotional content. Fear, anger, sadness, insecurity, and most definitely stress. As you evolve along this spiral of evolution, you meet each of life’s challenges from a higher perspective and a greater level of being and self-love. 

With conscious awareness and presence a miraculous shift unfolds. You move away from the limited critical evaluation and judgment of the mind into the spacious and loving presence of the heart. You are able to flow with life and miraculously your perception of suffering begins to evaporate.

This truly is a huge step in human awareness and not an easy one. So be gentle with yourself as you navigate these new waters. When you trust in the greater evolution of life as an ever unfolding spiral it becomes easier to acknowledge that the universe is on your side and working in your favor. And know that always… something greater this way comes.

Posted at 6:58 pm  |  Send to a Friend