Surrendering the life we didn’t end up having is a messy process. It requires us to look deeply at how we got where we are and what our choices are that have led us to this place.  We are most likely hard on ourselves for all the “mistakes” and even torture ourselves further by telling ourselves that there are no mistakes.
I believe there are mistakes and that it is ok to admit that. Frankly, I find myself to be more forgiving when I acknowledge the wrong turn in the road, instead of claiming it as if it was all perfect in reality and I am just having to catch up with the consciousness of that perfection.
We are resilient beings, if we do make the wrong turn and get into a head on collision with life in one way or another we find a way to work it into our story so that it “makes sense”. We are obsessed with belonging to our hazardous waste so that we can some how fit it into the logic, learn our lesson and say how such and such “collision” gave us the time to think while we were in bed nursing our injuries. That life “asked us to stop” so we got sick or whatever voice we choose to assign to the universe to make the whole thing fit together. We do this to survive because our brains want to have randomness eliminated. We don’t trust random, we trust instead tragedies ordained by the universe for our “education” or because we deserve it or it is our karma.  I know my mom wouldn’t teach me to learn through the method of hardship we have been assigning to the “universe”.  Not to say that there aren’t ways that we DO call on our own tragedies for our learning, I just don’t believe it is 100% of the time.
I am, in a sense, proud of us for learning how to do this, how to put our challenges into context. We are so resilient! I think it taught us a powerful coping skill that we would need to navigate the hard times of every age. When my girlfriend tells me what a big lesson she learned from her “no mistake” divorce or from her “all on purpose” job loss or “divine timing” car accident my first reaction is to be proud of her for making sense of it, for finding a way to work with it. My next reaction, which I often keep to myself, is the desire to tell her it is ok to feel like “why did that happen to me” for at least a little while, to be angry and dismayed a little while, to wonder why God abandoned her, for little bit, traverse a short journey through victim-land and then move on when she is really ready. Then, only then, to consider how to use the ingredients of that story for something really useful. Something, perhaps….legendary? Those who have had the hardest lives, sometimes create the most incredible lives because of what they went through – how they have learned to use it for good, and how they translated their own life story into something really worth living.
We are so quick to organize what is not working into tidy little piles of universal wisdom filled meaning that we miss the opportunity sometimes to truly grieve. And to offer forgiveness when we have been hurt, or to forgive ourselves for perhaps making a wrong choice which could have turned out differently. Why has making mistakes become so unpopular?
What we are 100% responsible for, is how we live with and transform that tragedy into something we can use. From tragedy to the tool box. What I call, legend making. Taking our story, and the hard bits of it and making it into a legend. It may be ok to have regrets and unfulfilled wishes. It may be ok to listen to our conscience inform us of the wrong turns. It is not always the critic – sometimes it is the protectiveness of our inner wisdom speaking to us, or maybe even God, saying – watch out little one, and here is how you can use this experience for good.
Those who have lost their breasts, those who were molested, those who have been harmed by natural disaster – are they served by thinking it is their direct lesson served up to “make them slow down” or get closer to their families or so that they can help others? The key to this quandry is the order – once we experience the pain, we can make it our own – and use it for good. What I am taking about is HOW IT ARRIVED. Was it uniquely ours or did we just walk into something randomly that is already not good?
The question is – did it show up in the first place because that specific person called it on? Or was she caught in the random crossfire of the chemicals in her town water system? Or something else all together?
Maybe we can’t figure it out and don’t have the answers. I would rather think that we may have no idea what is going on with all the bad things –  than tidy it all up into little piles called law of attraction or karma.  But frankly I have no idea and my exploration is an attempt itself, to make sense of the madness!! Many theories running around right now make people think they got sick because of their thinking. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t, but are we in a position to SAY?
I am not. I am just exploring this seemingly vast and impossible topic because the guilt and shame in my community seems to be worse, instead of better, and they are saying their prayers, thinking positive and doing good in the world. So why do bad things keep happening?
Well, I shall turn it over one more time to the Divine. Drink my coffee. Pet my kitties and ponder the mysteries of the universe. Give thanks for all the beauty and blessings we have. Pray for revelation and healing and world peace. And, not lose hope no matter what.
Have a thought on this topic? I would love to hear it….it is infinitely interesting to explore!
Blessings to you all –