Wednesday 20 March 2013

The Right Way? Or Another Way?





I wonder, am I really alone in admitting that I still sometimes think there must be, somewhere, The One Way, the right way? Am I alone in these brief moments of thinking - albeit subconsciously - that when I get 'it', or else everyone else gets whatever I already think 'it' is, our world will be fine and dandy and cooked and sorted and everyone will be happy ever after? Go on, be honest....at least have a ponder and tell me what you find? I know we think we never do this, but if we already know there isn't any such thing as The One Way, the 'right' way, why do so many of we humans spend so long arguing or defending our points of view? Especially in the world of 'personal growth'? Why do we endlessly 'debate' methods, names, titles, teachers, tools, authors, top people to go see.....? The endless searching and or convincing just seems to go on and on....a maelstrom of unanswerable questions. The searching bit is good, if we mean it to enhance our way of living, to shine a brighter light on our truth, on who we truly are, but it does only enhance; most of the work is done during our dark and grim moments. It's at those times that we finally meet ourselves coming back the other way and, with no room to avoid the feelings, something changes.... Bringing our presence to The Now of that moment, we wake up and at last become conscious.

And yet, no matter the methodology, are you Being Who You Truly Are? Do you rejoice in your uniqueness? And in the diversity of methods out there? Or are you, deep down, hoping to goodness that one day you'll find The One Way that is the Right One, and then, phew, in living That Way, you’ll Be Ok. Or that your already magical way will be shared by everyone you know, and that will prove that it’s Right, and you’ll Be Ok because of that instead? I am sometimes brought up short in discovering that I do, hence my writing this; I want to shine a light on all the vagaries and confusions about this to see what might be revealed.

I am so much clearer than I was, yet up the question pops when I least expect it - usually lurking just under the surface when I am experiencing inner doubt. Which of course comes from the thinking that I am 'missing the right way'. Mostly I can smile now whenever I meet this feeling; it's just new layers of old beliefs coming up for clearing, and as I can’t change anything until I can see it, it is really a time for gladness.* 

I have seen the damage to our bodies, to our selves, by the tension built up inside us from the chronic un-ease about all this... From all the effort we put into 'living the right way', being who we think we need to be in order to be liked, good, useful, right, and my mother's favourite, 'nice'. And yet wouldn’t it, wont it, be wonderful when, through the recognition of the gift to us all of brilliant variety, we can simply offer all that we each are to all the each others who come into our life? And, offering ourselves without the fear of comparison, judgement, conditions, we can just get on with the purpose of revealing All That We Already Are and Always Have Been. When we cease the endless trying, which will then let us see ourselves as extraordinary beings, each with unique qualities, and when we can rejoice in that, we will then be able to drop the tensions, breathe easy, smile inside, and feel joy-full.



And yet none of this is wrong - nothing is wrong. And nothing is right. Shocking, eh?! It is a series of choices, ever changing - my truth in this now, which may be different in the next now, and the next... Your truth is your truth, not mine, and it is right for you, but only you can tell me what that is, I cannot.* And none of us will mind from the place of no fear, from knowing we are just beautifully human, 'trying with all our heart to get it right’. But when we let go of all that effort, accept the possibility that some of our intentions do go awry, and just love the fact that they came from our hearts, we can live the ups and downs without the crippling conditions WE place on ourselves. Yes, we do do that; no matter what we imagine anyone else says about us, isn’t it ourself who judges our self the hardest? As don Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements) says, “No one will ever judge you as harshly as you judge your self.” 

For me, where I am headed is to live in ‘how it is right now’ more and more. 'The Power of Now' is wonderful, and it works; it is where joy resides! But it's how to allow my self to wake up over and over again to this magical place and to not be pulled out of it so often. This is the work of the Alexander Technique, and it explores the part our psycho-physicality plays in allowing us to be in The Now without being way off in the future, or in the past with our old, habitual tensions pulling us back to the old way, the way we did it back along, however hard our mind might want us to do otherwise.* 

So, in the light of the fact that the Right way and the Wrong way don't exist, and the Future way and Past way are just different names for the first two (think about it!), maybe it could be said that there is actually a Way That Works, The Now Way!


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 * "The things that don't exist are the hardest to to get rid of." FM Alexander

 * "You are free to announce and declare Who You Are in every moment of Now. Indeed you are doing so, without even knowing it. You are not free, however, to declare who someone else is, or who they must be." Neale Donald Walsch

"It's far easier to buy into someone else's reality than to discover and live your own." Douglas Toole, a friend of a friend (with grateful thanks).

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