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Peeling The Onion
Breaking Through Barriers
The human psyche is almost infinitely complex, made up of layers upon layers of thoughts, experiences, emotions, fears, loves, and goals. Those who seek to find the true essence of being or to move past a fear find that there are many intermediate steps along the way. When we first look inward, we look at ourselves as a whole, when in fact we are only seeing the surface. Like an onion, if we move past the surface, we will find another layer. Moving past that, we find yet another layer. These layers are barriers and everyone has them. You may work past one fear only to be confronted with a deeper, underlying fear. Or you may fully assimilate a revelation only to find other aspects of that revelation that you had not discovered. How many layers you will confront before finding a resolution is unknown. This is the journey, this is life.
But the journey to the center of the onion - what they called sunyata in Sanskrit or mu in Chinese - can be an enlightening experience in and of itself. As you break through each barrier, you gain a more profound understanding of your own mind and come to learn the unique facets that make up who you are. You will become intimately acquainted with your needs and wants, reactions, aversions, pleasures, and pains. You will discover qualities within yourself that have been buried by the years or by old hurts. This knowledge is cumulative. As you break through one barrier and confront the next, oftentimes more powerful, barrier, you will be equipped with the knowledge of self that you have gained during your searching.
During the "peeling of the onion," you may feel frustrated because it can seem like progress is slow or nonexistent. But don't let the multitude of layers bother you. Many of the qualities that make us who we are may be hidden at first. The process can continue indefinitely, for with self-discovery comes growth and thus further discovery. The more you learn, the more you will inevitably find, as you travel deeper and deeper within your soul.
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Closing Cycles
by Paulo Coelho
One always has to know when a stage comes to
an end. If we insist on staying longer than the
necessary time, we lose the happiness and the
meaning of the other stages we have to go
through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending
chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters
is to leave in the past the moments of life that have
finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship
come to an end? Did you leave your parents'
house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting
friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend
a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won't take another step
until you find out why certain things that were so
important and so solid in your life have turned into
dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be
awfully stressing for everyone involved: your
parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your
children, your sister, everyone will be finishing
chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with
life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a
standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at
the same time, not even when we try to understand
the things that happen to us. What has passed will
not return: we cannot forever be children, late
adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards
our parents, lovers who day and night relive an
affair with someone who has gone away and has
not the least intention of coming back. Things
pass, and the best we can do is to let them really
go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it
may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of
things away to orphanages, sell or donate the
books you have at home. Everything in this visible
world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of
what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of
certain memories also means making some room
for other memories to take their place. Let things
go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so
sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do
not expect anything in return, do not expect your
efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be
discovered, your love to be understood. Stop
turning on your emotional television to watch the
same program over and over again, the one that
shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:
that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting
love relationships that are broken off, work that is
promised but there is no starting date, decisions
that are always put off waiting for the "ideal
moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old
one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has
passed will never come back. Remember that
there was a time when you could live without that
thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a
habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it
may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity
or arrogance, but simply because that no longer
fits your life. Shut the door, change the record,
clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being
who you were, and change into who you are. | | |
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Living Exploration
Discovering What You Want Through Experience
The
road to knowing what you want is often paved with many moments of
learning what you don't want. This holds true in all areas of life,
from work to love. Knowing and accepting this can give us the courage
to keep moving forward when we might otherwise paralyze ourselves with
fear of making a wrong move.
All too often, we expect ourselves
to know in advance what will or won't work. But this would be like
accepting an invitation with a new dance partner only if we are sure,
before dancing with them, that we will want to dance with them forever.
We need to accept the invitation without knowing where it will lead us.
When we accept the invitation, what we are committing to is exploration.
It
helps to remember that choices and decisions are not permanent or final
actions. They are just the first steps in an unfolding process of
inquiry. Many people go to school for one thing and end up in a
completely different career path. This does not mean that they made a
mistake by studying English Literature and then becoming a nurse. One
thing leads to another in ways we can't always foresee.
Try to
remain open and curious all along the way, asking questions. How does
this feel? How could it be better? What changes can be made to improve
the situation? With each modification, you move closer to creating
exactly what you want. But remember, sometimes we need to experience
what we don't want to determine what we do want.
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All love shifts and changes. I don't know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.
Julie Andrews | | |
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