What is not working for you any longer?

 

What is not working for you any longer?

There is a Buddhist parable about a man trying to cross a swift moving river- he has no way to get across. He builds this great raft from twigs that saves his life and gets him across the river.  He ties it to his back, thinking, this saved my life, I will carry it with me always. He then begins to walk through a forest. Now the raft on his back is banging into things, trees, and limiting his progress. He comes to realize that even what once saved his life is now limiting him, and he needs to make a choice to either carry it and be limited, or let it go in, enabling him to move forward.

 

I was reminded of this parable the week after my therapist told me that maybe I could do some things differently than I always have.  That even though I’ve learned to build some walls over my life, that maybe I don’t need to anymore. That maybe I would be better off “softening” and trusting and not always going along with my guidebook on how to not get hurt.

Isn’t it always like this?  When something you need to hear arrives repeatedly in your eyeballs.  First, my therapist, then hearing this reminder from the raft parable. Then, a devotional on trust and love, then a yoga focus on stepping into curiosity of new ways. All right after each other.  I get the message.

It is so easy to follow the ways that we have lived our lifetimes. It is scary to slowly learn to release the reigns, discard the “rules” you built for yourself that have kept you safe and literally saved your life. I’ll be the first to say, I really like following these rules that do box me in, but also protect me in ways. And I also realize, I’m more in the forest now and the raft is totally banging on trees and dragging me backwards.

It is difficult to reprogram our way of thinking, activing and learning to be open to new ways.

It is difficult learning to be open, to have a greater sense of trust is at times against our survival instincts.

To learn that working to the death of you isn’t all that life is.

To experience the awakening of being able to sit with yourself in moments of ease, to even just sit STILL and not feel guilty for that.

To not follow the ridges of the path that you have carved over and over with repetition for a lifetime, to look in new places, to open eyes to even considering there may be another way.

If we remain tied to old ways of doing and communicating, we will not be able to move forward towards the change and growth that the people we have developed into now need. We are not the same person we were a year ago, 10 years ago or 40 years ago, so the same tools and rules don’t always apply.  When you look at someone and wonder why they are doing that thing that isn’t serving them, it is so easy to see from the outside (and judge), without knowing the story of their life, the story of how that developed.  

I’m in the hard work of being awake and noticing and trying to be open to some new ways in my life. I know I won’t be able to just snap and begin to live a different way (nor do I want to), but I owe it to myself and others around me to think really carefully about how I show up, how I don’t show up, how I open myself, how I protect myself, how I am in the world. It’s of course another gift of awareness and a privilege to do my best in this life I’ve been given.