The world we live in functions by using rules and laws and structure to control and manipulate our experience. Following a schedule and using clocks and calendars keep us bound to a consensus way of thinking and behaving that at first glance, appears to be serving us in that it makes order out of chaos. However, upon deeper examination, one soon sees this order comes at great cost: our freedom and autonomy. All these rules and laws ultimately make it nearly impossible to know how we really feel or what we really want at any given moment. Thereby the very thing that makes life feel safe and predictable, also become the greatest obstacle in self-awareness, imprisoning us in a mostly reactive daily grind.

What this comes down to is an outer directed life versus an inner directed one. To make the shift from outer directed to inner directed living requires nothing less than a monumental shaking up of one’s entire believe system — literally taking it apart piece by piece and essentially discarding almost all of it, only holding onto the basics required for engaging with others.

What is required is spiritual disobedience: a revolution of the self.

If you have any desire for freedom from the shackles of daily living dictated by the mass shared consciousness,  you will have to say no to anything and everything that is not an authentic expression of you. Anything that you do because someone else says you should has to be put aside.  I’m talking about shutting off the Greek Chorus (parents, teachers, friends, co-workers, the media) in your life, ceasing not only to listen to them but also act on what they tell you.

This is the way out.

The only place where real freedom exists is when you realign with yourself and let your heart lead. Trust ourselves? No easy task. The habits of doubt and second guessing and patterns of insecurity run deep and fast within us. We have been scrutinized and judged and micro-managed by the external world for so long, for many of us, our inner voice is an unknown.

Luckily, for some of us, self-denial seems to have an expiration date. There is only so long we can survive on a shallow scant diet of people pleasing motivations. We crave real food that will sustain us, and we can only discover what that is when we begin to listen to our own inner directed wants and needs. The more we shift to this inner directed place, the better our lives will flow. Sure, there may be fall out when we stop accommodating others. Relationships and situations may shift dramatically. But in order to really breathe again and feel at home in our own lives, we must heed our own directives.

For many people this happens in mid-life, a catalytic time when our bodies are changing as well as our circumstances. For others, it may be a car accident, a sudden illness, or the death of a loved one that opens them up to a new way of seeing the world. Regardless, the inner call for attention becomes impossible to ignore.

Disobeying the world and the people in it and heeding our own directive may feel foreign at first, especially if we built a life around avoiding confrontation and smoothing the edges over for others.  We may make messes and stumble around awkwardly until we find our rhythm. Others may not understand our radical behavior changes, as it looks like we’ve suddenly become selfish or narcissistic. We have. We’re talking revolution here. The pendulum has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum and it will come back into balance in time.

In the meantime, enjoy the new found freedom and while you’re transitioning, feel free to put up a temporary smoke screen by telling others you’re involved in a big project that is taking up a lot of your time and you’ll get back to them soon. Because for right now, the answer’s no.

Each of us lives in our own self-prescribed little boxes defined by our ideas, beliefs and boundaries.  Each decision we make is made with the assumption it will provide comfort and safety and be the best option for our well being. Some of these decisions are made by default out of habit and due to very old constructs and ways of seeing the world.

One of the most powerful gifts you can give yourself, is to step off the merry-go-round and take a look at the boxes you live in to see if they’re still serving you (or if you’re bold – if they ever have). If they are, but you’re feeling stifled and confined, why not stir things up a bit by changing your routine or the people you spend time with.

If you see that the boxes are no longer working, make some new choices that break down those walls. Start by saying yes to new ideas and new ways of being and doing things and no to things that aren’t working.

It’s rejuvenating to open windows and doors and let fresh air and energy into your life. Taking down walls is far more radical, but the result is the same: life becomes more magical when the dimension of the unpredictable and mysterious is let in. You become teachable and open to the new and unknown and ready to receive the many gifts on the other side of those walls.

When you start saying yes to the whole that life has to offer rather than restricting the flow by your need for control, your world expands and unforeseen possibilities appear out of nowhere. It is then that we realize how much we were missing living inside of our small boxes with our endless filters refracting and distorting what was right in front of us, engaging instead with only our projections.

This is the world of delusion where many people reside because they truly believe that a constructed, controlled world is better (read safer) than the real world. It is a reactive, survivalist stance that instigates this limiting viewpoint, typically based on a deeply wounding heartbreak or disillusionment. I’m not suggesting that the need for withdrawing from the world and licking one’s wounds isn’t worthwhile, when needed. Rather, it’s when this temporary retreat becomes a habitual way of living that a refuge becomes a prison. The longer one resides there, the more difficult it becomes to leave, requiring something of a catalytic event to change things.

I have experienced all different degrees of walls coming down in my own life, some imposed by people and events outside of me and others initiated by me. Either way, it ain’t always easy to move out of our comfort zones, but it is almost always for the best.

Saying yes is another way of putting down our weapons of resistance and greeting what shows up in our lives with open arms. I used to joke with people that I’d rather raise my hand and volunteer for life’s lessons and tests than wait around until I hearing a loud banging on my door telling me I’ve been drafted.  What that means is that saying yes is akin to showing the universe that you’d like to take your medicine the easy way, not by having to be forced.

I know, sometimes the most direct route can be rough, but it’s usually so much less dramatic and time consuming. Go right up to your fears and issues and meet them halfway and ask them what they need from you. If you turn your back and run, they will follow you around making your life miserable. Plus, the idea of them is far more terrifying than the reality. I’ve found when I walk right up to the things in my life I’d rather avoid, they are so much smaller and easier to deal with than I expected.  I’ve also noticed that when I’m willing to face my demons, I score some pretty nice karmic points and I become aware of how life seems to be on my side a bit more and even conspiring to help me out.

Becoming aware of the boxes we’ve created can be done in a number of ways. One of my favorites and one I’ve used with my clients, is to look at the things we say we always do or never do. Start there and that will show you all kinds of things about yourself. These are the boundaries that we’ve erected around us. Look at them and see if they make sense anymore. Watch your habitual ways of thinking and behaving. Chances are there are some areas that really need updating.

If you feel stuck, it is up to you to see how small your world is and do whatever you can to break down the walls and live a bigger, more expansive life.

Saying yes works well if you need to push through your resistance to the unknown.

Saying no works well if you need to stop people pleasing and accommodating others’ needs instead of your own.

Only you know which one will shift things in your life.

1.    What are you afraid of?
2.    What are you obsessed about?
3.    What/who are you attached to?
4.    What /who are you cut off from?
5.    What is necessary to have, do, be for you to feel happy?
6.    What must you do before you die?
7.    What limits, burdens and imprisons you?
8.    What is the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams?
9.    What is your biggest regret or failure?
10.    In what areas of your life are you living a lie?
11.    Do you feel that you are doing what you were born to do? Why? Why not?
12.    What is the greatest gift that you have to offer others?
13.    What is lacking the most in your life right now?
14.    In what area of your life are you thriving?
15.    If there was one thing you could change right now what would it be?

According to Wikipedia, the illusion of control is “the tendency for human beings to believe they can control, or at least influence, outcomes that they demonstrably have no influence over”. This belief, I think, stems directly from how much our lives seem to support that illusion. In other words, when things are going well or going our way, it “appears” as though we are in command to some degree, bending life to our will.

However, when things begin to fall apart and our circumstances abruptly change, we usually feel as though we’ve somehow lost control. We throw around words like lucky or unlucky, depending on what happens to or around us. We talk about how certain things are “meant to be” or that there are no accidents.

The bigger the change, the more it becomes clear that we have much less control than we think we do. At any moment, without notice, our lives can change dramatically. We can have an accident, be involved in a natural disaster, get sick, lose a loved one, get fired, etc. We all know this; we have all experienced this, and yet we still behave as though we have control over our lives.

According to a recent study, the illusion of control is strongest when we are in a position of power.  From an article in Science Daily, called Power and The Illusion of Control:

CEOs of Fortune 500 companies routinely overestimate their capacity to turn mergers and acquisitions into huge profits, leading to financial losses for themselves, their companies, and their stockholders. Even ordinary people seem to take on an air of invincibility after being promoted to a more powerful position. The consequences of these tendencies, especially when present in the world’s most powerful leaders, can be devastating.

In a new study, Nathanael Fast and Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Niro Sivanathan at the London Business School and Adam Galinsky at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, show that power can literally “go to one’s head,” causing individuals to think they have more personal control over outcomes than they, in fact, do.

“We conducted four experiments exploring the relationship between power and illusory control – the belief that one has the ability to influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance,” said Galinksy, “In each experiment, whether the participant recalled power by an experience of holding power or it was manipulated by randomly assigning participants to Manager-Subordinate roles, it led to perceived control over outcomes that were beyond the reach of the individual. Furthermore, the notion of being able to control a ‘chance’ result led to unrealistic optimism and inflated self-esteem.”

If control is an illusion, then why do we hold onto it so tightly? My guess is that we need this illusion in order to suspend our disbelief long enough to fully engage in our lives. Without it, we’d be paralyzed with fear, looking over our shoulders wondering when something bad might happen. Our illusion of control gives us a feeling of being able to do the impossible, transcend limitations and create new opportunities. Our greatest inventions come from the belief that we can create something out of nothing. If we simply resigned ourselves to our mortality or the fragility of human life, we would never attempt to do anything.

Problems arise when this belief in our ability to control things goes too far. People with lots of power and/or lots of money often fall prey to this because their lives are buffered by the ability to manipulate or buy their way out of problems and suffering. This option is not available to people without authority or means.

What fascinates me is that those without power or money often turn to each other to solve problems. Or to the divine, in whatever way they understand that. They use inner resources rather than outer resources. Of course, not all. Some take a negative approach and manipulate others by stealing or simply escape altogether through addiction. But for the most part, those without power or means  tend to live life with a greater awareness of change and death, and therefore approach life with respect and humility.

As evidenced by our failing economy, the illusion of control at its extreme can extract a tremendous price (there are endless examples throughout history that reveal the same thing). Life is not a casino, and when it is seen as fodder for manipulation to be used for personal gain, the illusion falls down hard and fast. Life has, and always will have, the upper hand, and it has some not so subtle ways of reminding us of that.

Anything that flies high eventually has to come down. Like it or not, there’s no way to outsmart change or death. They’re inevitable. We can only pretend they’re not, but sooner or later, they’ll come knocking at our door.

Is it not better then to meet life as it is and stop the pretending? To some extent yes, as long as we learn to accept change and death without fear.  Nothing wrong with wrapping a bit of illusion around us for comfort. The trick is to not to buy into it too deeply or get too attached to things staying the same. This is where a bit of Zen acceptance and surrender comes in handy.

There is some freedom in letting go of the illusion of control. We can relax our vigilance and begin to allow it all to unfold, as we would a movie. However, life is not a spectator sport. For as long as we live, we are players on the field, engaging in the game. What we think, say and do matters, but not in the personal way we typically think of it, but rather in a big picture kind of way.

To get a glimpse of that you’ll need to speak with the director.

From Ernest Holmes:

We are intelligent beings living in an intelligent universe that responds to our mental states, and insofar as we learn to control those mental states, we shall automatically control our environment. This is what is meant by the practical application of the principles of Science of Mind to the problems of everyday living. This is what is meant by demonstration.

Naturally our first thought is that we would like to demonstrate health of body, peace of mind, prosperity in our affairs, to neutralize a circumstance which is unhappy, or to attract to ourself some good which we have not been enjoying. Such a desire is natural and in every way normal, and the possibility of such demonstration already exists within the mind of every living soul. Every one of us has within ourself the power to consciously cooperate with the spiritual side of our existence in such a way that it will create for us a new body and a new environment and a greater happiness. But the greatest good which this philosophy of life brings to us is a sense of certainty, a sense of the reality of our own soul, of the continuity of our own individualized being, and the relationship of this self to the great Whole.

The greatest good that can come to us is the forming of an absolute certainty of ourself and of our relationship to the Universe, forever removing the sense of heaven as being outside ourself, the fear of hell, or any future state of uncertainty. We are each a part of the only life there is, some part of the Eternal God. We are forever reaching out, forever gaining, growing, expanding; Spirit is forever incarnating Itself in us.

Such an understanding teaches us that there can never come a time when we shall stop progressing, that age is an illusion, that limitation is a mistake, that unhappiness is ignorance. We cannot be afraid when we know the truth. The greatest good accompanying such an understanding of truth will be the elimination of fear.

This understanding will rob us of our loneliness and give us a sense of security which knows no fear, a peace without which no life can be happy, a poise which is founded on this peace, and a power which is the result of the union of peace with poise.

From Rob Brezsny:

“Ninety-six percent of the universe is stuff we’ve never seen,” cosmologist Michael Turner told Geoff Brumfiel in the March 13, 2003 issue of the journal *Nature.* To be exact, the cosmos is 23 percent dark matter and 73 percent dark energy, both of which are missing. All the stars and planets and moons and asteroids and comets and nebulas and
gas clouds together comprise the visible four percent.

So where is the other 96 percent? No one knows. It’s not only concealed from humans, it’s imperceptible to the instruments humans have devised, and its whereabouts can’t be predicted by any existing theories.

What will happen as the implications of these data filter down to the other sciences? Maybe there will be a reversal of a long-term trend documented by Nature. In 1914, the magazine found that 30 percent of the world’s top scientists believed in God. In a second survey in 1934, the number dropped to 15 percent, and by 1998 it was seven percent.

If the fact that most of reality is hidden doesn’t spur them to reconsider the possibility of a divine presence working behind the scenes, maybe it will move them to become more sympathetic to a project like ours, which has the intention of adopting the scientific approach to an exploration of the invisible.

From Jacquelyn Small:

Self-remembrance is remembering that we are both human and divine and already connected to the higher order that rules this universe. It is remembering that we are co-creators, a fragment of divine purpose that governs reality. To move into self-remembrance, most people need to go into a state of meditation or prayer. If we begin each day with remembering who we are, we enter a state of consciousness where we are prepared to take responsibility for how creative we actually are, realizing that everything that goes through our minds creates something. Obviously, if I think negatively, I see all the negative things in life and draw those things to myself. If I can enter a state of consciousness where I remember that I am a daughter of a Higher Power, and not my conditions, I can use that awareness to start out every day with a sense of purpose. Everybody has to decide what he or she wants his or her spiritual purpose to be. It can be as small as wanting to have the characteristics and qualities of a very good person, or as big as wanting to be a change agent for the world, a world server.

An enormous awakening is happening and many people are waking up to the consciousness of the mystic. Mystics are born, they are not created. People recognize themselves as mystics when they remember that all of their lives, they have known there is something more grand going on here than is obvious. Once we move into self-remembrance, or self-creative observation, we start to change our course. We focus on what we spiritually intend rather than letting life’s conditions overrule us. When you start your day with prayer, meditation or invocation, your day unfolds with intention. Otherwise the outer circumstances will create your reality: You go to the grocery store, have an argument with somebody, lose your checkbook, return home, become frustrated because you are late for an appointment, and at day’s end, you are worn out from how the day’s conditions took you over. When, upon arising, you spend ten or fifteen minutes focusing on who you are, what you are here to do and be, remembering with compassion the state of the world and how you might have a part in making it a more loving place to be, you start your day in a state of compassion and high self regard.

From Evelyn Underhill:

Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of one whole. If our practical life is centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions, distracted by ambitions, passions, want—and worries, beset by a sense of our own rights and importance, or anxieties for our own future, or longings for our own success, we need not expect that our spiritual life will be a contrast to all this. The soul’s house is not built on such a convenient plan: there are few soundproof partitions in it. Only when the conviction—not merely the idea—that the demand of the Spirit, however inconvenient, comes first and is first, rules the whole of it, will those objectionable noises die down which have a way of penetrating into the nicely furnished little oratory, and drowning all the quieter voices by their din.

The spiritual life, then, is not a peculiar or extreme form of piety. It is, on the contrary, that full and real life for which man is made; a life that is organic and social, essentially free, yet with its own necessities and laws, just as physical life means, and depends on, constant correspondence with our physical environment, the atmosphere that surrounds and penetrates us, the energies of heat and light, whether we happen to notice it or not; so does spiritual life mean constant correspondence with our spiritual environment, whether we notice it or not. We get out of gear in either department, when this correspondence is arrested or disturbed; and if it stops altogether, we cease to live. For the most part, of course, the presence and action of the great spiritual universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light. Our field of attention is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not sufficiently alert. Most people work so hard developing their correspondence with the visible world, that their power of corresponding with the invisible is left in a rudimentary state.

But when, for one reason or another, we begin to wake up a little bit, to lift the nose from the ground and notice that spiritual light and that spiritual atmosphere as real constituents of our human world; then, the whole situation is changed. Our horizon is widened, our experience is enormously enriched, and at the same time our responsibilities are enlarged. For now we get an entirely new idea of what human beings are for, and what they can achieve: and as a result, first our notions about life, our scale of values, begins to change, and then we do.

Years ago, Emmet Fox wrote that the word, individual, means indivisible. Upon reading that recently, I decided to do a bit of research. Sure enough, indivisible is listed as one of the definitions of individual, though most of us don’t think of it that way. The idea that an individual cannot be divided or separated from the whole illuminates the deeper truth that we are all connected. Though we are unique, individual expressions of the divine, we are not separate or apart from it. To think so, is to deny the essence of who we are.

The illusion of our separateness is what makes our lives exciting, but it is also what gets us into the most trouble.  It is a double-edged sword requiring a delicate balance between our needs and desires and the needs and desires of those around us. Selflessness as well as selfishness are both necessary as long as neither is taken to extremes of martyrdom or narcissism. Navigating this fine line seems to define a lot of our experience in this 3-D world.  Loving oneself is a necessary prerequisite of loving others.

Giving and receiving are part of the circle of life and when the input and output are in balance, life feels good. It is when the scales are tipped too heavily on one side or another, that life feels painful. It seems we are constantly making adjustments in both extremes, in order to find our way back to the middle again. The costs of living too selflessly or selfishly are great to our health and well being, but in order to know those extremes we often have to touch them. Some of us get stuck in those extremes and life becomes a living hell for awhile. Some of us don’t ever find our way back a place of balance. Some of us are fortunate enough to get help and support to do it.

We are not alone, and it is our belief that we are that puts us in danger. Feeling cut off from others, unloved or undervalued leads to a distorted perception of our place in the world. By the same token, feeling worshiped or overly important can create a false idea of us and our place in the world.

As a friend once said to me, he neither wanted to be placed on a pedestal nor crucified; instead, he preferred having his feet on the ground. Staying grounded requires finding our place in the whole, seeing each and every one of us as significant and necessary for our evolution. This, of course, has never been more clear than it is now. There is no escape from the mistakes of the past or from the current destruction of the planet we call home. We collectively created the mess, and it is up to us to solve it. The economic crisis drives this message even deeper. The era of the individual in the sense of the word that means separate is over. The true meaning of that word is bubbling to the surface in the midst of our turmoil, reminding us that are are indivisible, that we are in this together and that we need each other.

The earth is a ship traveling through space and we are its passengers. There are no lifeboats or evacuation plans, therefore, we must work with what we have: together. Those who think only of themselves will continue to lead us astray into certain destruction. It is those who think of the survival of the whole who can save us.

All the best spiritual and political leaders taught that love and cooperation are the answers. Competition implies that someone has to win and someone has to lose. We are now past the point where there will be winners and losers because we are all in the game. The question is not so much will we survive, but rather if we survive how much of what we have now will remain? The answer seems to me to be based solely on how quickly we are willing to stop operating as independent agents and acknowledge our connection to the whole.

Why is it so easy to take the people, places and things in our lives for granted?  We get comfortable with the old and familiar. We get lazy and unconscious and begin to feel entitled to what we have rather than grateful as we would be for a gift.

With all the collective emphasis on the Law of Attraction and manifestation techniques, there is the risk of putting too much attention on what what we want or what is missing from our lives rather than on appreciating what we have.  With our economy in crisis, it is illuminating so many things that we falsely assumed were permanent fixtures of life, barely realizing their fragile roots or that their very existence was based on a mass agreed-upon illusion.

As the John Lennon lyric so aptly states, “You don’t know what you got, until you lose it,” we are waking up to our own blindness to the incredible privileges that have graced our lives: work, housing, food, clean water, material goods aplenty, a multitude of entertainment choices…the list goes on. Suddenly, these aspects of life that we assumed were a given, are now threatened, and oh how much more precious they seem! Suddenly, our lives are not so much about what we don’t have, but rather being grateful for what we do have.

The restlessness and incessant need for more lessens when we shift our perspective even slightly and see the value in choosing what we have. It is as if a veil has come down and America has been caught with its collective pants down. No longer can we deny that people on this planet are living unsustainable lives under intolerable conditions. This awareness is now bumping up against our formerly sheltered and buffered lives. No longer can we pretend that we have transcended our humanity. We, too, are facing issues connected with our survival and there is no where to escape that reality.

In this context, the self-help movement with its promises of salvation and material wealth, seems a bit shallow. We cannot survive this major evolutionary shift by continuing to support the every man out for himself mentality.

That chapter of our story is over.

There is no denying now that we need each other to survive. We have to come together to share resources, not accumulate them, to share knowledge freely, not turn it into another product to sell, to cooperate, not compete.

The spiritual naturally becomes political when it involves the survival of our planet. Hiding on a mountaintop is no longer an option for anyone who considers him- or herself a member of a global community. Yes, we still need to meditate and we still need to practice principles of conscious living, but we also need to take action. We can no longer afford to be spectators in this game of life. We are being called our to take ownership of our lives and accountability for the lives of everyone on the planet.

Choosing what you have, sharing what you know, and being who you are with all of your wisdom and skills are some of the first steps in this process. Just the simple act of opening up your life to the bigger picture will shift things in miraculous ways.

Human beings are tribal in nature, always have been, always will be. We need each other. Even our natural affinity with online social networks reveals this. The post WWII model of nuclear family life is outdated and unsustainable. It is a model of excess, draining resources and creating waste. Our planet and our economy will no longer support that lifestyle. Instead, we will be forced (since most of us didn’t volunteer) to live more cooperatively in relationships and networks of interdependence. Bartering will replace monetary exchange as people look for more creative ways to purchase what they need. Sharing big ticket items among a group of families will make them more affordable and accessible. Gardening, public transportation, free local entertainment will replace their higher cost alternatives.

None of us knows how far down the rabbit hole we have to go to learn these lessons, but go we must, the window to turn things around already past. In the meantime, look at what you have and see it for all it’s preciousness, because tomorrow it may be gone.

A friend and I were speaking yesterday about the fact that there is no arriving in life. There is no destination. It’s all about movement–constant movement. Yes, there are plateaus and periods of stillness and rest, but ultimately, we cannot hang onto any state of being.

This is a double edged sword. When we achieve equilibrium and a sense of contentment, we tend to want to stay there. Instead, something comes along and dashes our best intentions. We start feeling antsy or restless or bored or just plan depressed–life feels off again, and we question what happened. Life happened. Change happened. We are cycling through something, learning something, getting another perspective, whatever you want to call it. The break is over and it’s time to experience something different.

This can be frustrating and even agonizing, but imagine where we’d be if our feelings and state of being never changed? When we’re feeling depressed or out of balance, all we can think of is wanting that to change.

Accepting the full spectrum of experiences seems to be the only way to navigate this 3-D world. We can either be with what is as it is or we can fight against it. In my experience, resistance to what is, only makes it last longer and feel worse.

This is a tough thing to get. Perhaps I’m a slow learner, but most of my life has been spent seeking a solution to the way things are. The search for transcendence and enlightenment is all about wanting things to be different. I’ve always assumed that if I looked long and hard enough, I would finally find someone or something with an explanation that would help me escape the pain and challenges of existence.

The answer–acceptance–had been there all along, but until recently I didn’t like that answer. I saw it as giving up or resigning oneself to a life of quiet desperation. I didn’t see it as the powerful tool it was, until recently. A convergence of a number of circumstances in my life had brought me to my knees leaving me with few other options, so I decided to give it a try.

And to my amazement, it worked. I began to feel glimmers of peace and contentment in ways that I never had previously. Instead of working hard to change the externals, I focused on changing my reactions and overall attitude. It made a huge difference. I shifted my viewpoint from seeing circumstances happening to me to simply happening.

It was as if I’d found a port in the storm, a place to be in the midst of the apparent chaos unfolding around me. A huge breakthrough, to be sure. However, there is also a trap here. There is a fine line between acceptance and complacency or acceptance and passivity, which goes back to what I wrote earlier: there is no arriving. Great, I can control my reactions and experience more peace and comfort in my life, but I cannot then get stuck in this neutral zone, hang out there avoiding and ups and downs.

To be truly awake and alive, we need to stretch; we need to break down the barriers of the familiar and the habitual on a regular basis. To do this requires coming out of our caves and putting ourselves deliberately in situations that keep us on our toes.

Think about it: where are you playing it safe? Hiding out? What are you avoiding? What limitations define your life and your being? To really look at this you need to take stock.� Make a list of things you believe you can’t do. See what that looks like. Beyond that you can make a list of things you ALWAYS think, feel or do and things you NEVER think, feel or do. You will� begin to discover how small your world is, how much of a box you live in.

Basically, if you’re not stretching on a regular basis, you’re not living. If you’re not trying new things, challenging yourself, scaring yourself and making yourself uncomfortable, you are living a limited life.

Muscles that aren’t stretched become toxic and stagnant. So do we when we don’t stretch. Acceptance and surrender and being in the present are all beautiful tools to create peace and equilibrium. But we also need movement and change and growth. For each of us this looks a little different. That’s what makes it so exciting.

Where are you willing to stretch?

It is one of the greatest presumptions and violations of another to ever think that YOU knows what’s best for him or her. A couple of years ago, a good friend of mine scolded me in the middle of a tirade about my desire to change someone, telling me that none of us can EVER really know what another person needs.

This stopped me cold, and when I considered it, it made perfect sense. Yet, it is so easy to project our values and beliefs and preferences onto another. We assume that because it is good for us, it must be good for others. However, when you go deeper, you see that the people in your life are not that simple, not by a long shot.

Think about it. How receptive are they when you impose your will onto them? Not very. No one likes advice, unless it is solicited. Unfortunately, the impulse to throw advice at someone in trouble, comes up and is difficult to resist. We only want to be helpful, we claim. Perhaps. But I think we also like agreement and validation that our way is the right way.

Then there is the uncharted territory that lies in the depths of the subconscious. This is our forbidden zone, invisible even to us most of the time, and yet powerful in its impact on our lives. It is not a place for meddling or to push into uninvited. Yet so many self-help gurus, ignorant or at least, disrespectful of this sacred hot spot, do exactly that–pushing people too fast, churning up old wounds, tearing down precious structures, and leaving massive fallout in their wake with no clue how to put the pieces back together.

What it comes down to is this: trusting the process of our path, as well as the path of others, no matter how much stumbling and suffering accompanies it. Who are we to rob someone else of their lessons? It only delays the inevitable, perhaps even makes it worse when one finally encounters it.

There is so much of life that we cannot see or know. It’s part of the great mystery. It is too vast and large to grasp the methods and workings in its entirety. Instead, we must settle for our small viewpoint of the whole. Therefore, it behooves us to reign in our tendencies to want others to confirm to our will for them.

Let them be. Let them have their experiences. Let them learn by doing.

Not easy, I know, especially if you’re a parent. Stepping out of the way and allowing our children to stumble and fall, helps them learn how to walk, and to find their balance and their strength. Overdoing for others, only cripples them and restricts their ability to move and grow. It makes them dependent and weak. No parent really wants that. However, most of us naturally want to relieve the suffering and heartache of those we love.

A delicate balance, to say the least. In the end, I have found that giving people enough space to move, but letting them know you believe in them works pretty well. We all want support, but no one can live our lives for us. Nor would we want them to. Occasionally, when we can’t walk, we may need someone to carry us for awhile. But eventually, we need to stand on our own two feet. Then down the road, someone may need us to carry them for awhile. It’s part of the interdependence we all need to survive.

In the meantime, though, let us stay our of each other’s way a bit, so there’s more room to move for all of us.

Without change, and especially without movement, life grows stagnant. We cannot rest on the laurels of past achievements or actions. Old stale air will resuscitate no one. Water that has been sitting is not sustaining to life. Relationships without regular infusions of new energy wither.

Change is not like a bus. We cannot always stand around waiting for things to happen. Sometimes, we simple have to stir things up. Rattle the cage of our lives. Create some momentum. The movement alone can be a curative to the dead zones of our consciousness, jolting them into wakefullness again.

Sameness and predictability can be lulling in the ability to pull us into complacency and dullness.  We need some edges in our lives to keep us sharp and focused. So before we get slammed by the bus of unexpected change, it is far better to take off running into the abyss of the unknown. Do something, anything that is not the norm, that makes us nervous and uncomfortable. Give yourself a shot in the arm once in awhile, just to feel the rush of alertness pulsing through your veins again.

We can always count on things to change. We can hold onto nothing. When we’re suffering, this can bring us hope that the suffering will eventually pass. When we’re experiencing pleasure, this can trigger feelings of fear that we will lose what we have. But alas, you can’t have it both ways. Life is always moving, changing, growing and seeking the unknown, the fresh, the new. Better not to look back longingly at where we’ve been. Sure, mourn the passing and falling away of what was, but stay in the now with it. Hold it close to you for awhile, and then release it to fly into the ethers of time. Clinging to it will only delay your departure into the future.

Not easy to trust this transience.  It can leave us feeling a bit powerless and out of control. Like a strong wind that whips through and knocks things about, it’s force can be intimidating, revealing our smallness in the scheme of things. However, the humbling aspects of change are really only make worse by our rebellion against it. When we fight it, we tend to rail at it’s agenda, because we cannot how the whole thing is unfolding. We haven’t a clue how it’s ultimately going to play our. Our narrow little vision, keeps us in the dark, when big changes show up in our lives without forewarning.

Pulling the lens back a bit can remind us that we are part of the bigger dance of life, and our role is shifting to accommodate many layers of unseen dramas playing out on the large screen. Releasing our grasp so that we flow with it rather than against it, can reduce the number of bruises and complications along the way.

With time comes wisdom gained from experience, and eventually we begin to expect change, maybe even greet it at the door or even better, go looking for it. Because we can tell when we are no longer being fed by our current circumstances and we recognize the call to stir things up, move them around, rearrange them or even let them go completely.

There is something life affirming when you initiate change in your life. There may not even be an obvious reason to do it except that you haven’t done it for awhile. The process itself introduces you to aspects of your being that were dormant or buried under layers of other stuff, and are now finally coming to the surface for expression.

We are so much bigger than the narrowly defined boxes our lives reflect. So it can be absolutely rejuvenating to open all those doors and windows of our being again. The fresh air feels so good as it moves through the dank and stale rooms, the light penetrating the darkness.

The invitation to change your habits, routines, ways of thinking and being and doing is always there, it is just a matter of deciding when to heed this calling out to shed those dry layers of old dead skin, so that you can become pink and new and open again. Resurrection forever a metaphor for change, for replacing the old with the new, and rising out of the ashes of what has been burned down.

Life is change and renewal. The cells of our bodies mirror this constant death and birth cycle. So much change is happening without our even thinking about it. Kind of an interesting exercise then to take a moment and reflect on which aspects of our lives are stagnant and dead. What areas could use an infusion of energy or even an entire makeover?

The answers can either be exciting or terrifying…or a perhaps a little of both. Regardless, whether we initiate it or not, we can always count on things to change.