Claim Your Power, Choose Your Perceptions
Affirmation: I have the power to choose my perceptions of all the events of my life.
We are presently into the third week of 2016. It’s the beginning of a whole new year. Many people have shared with me their goals or resolutions. One person when describing her expectation of the new year used the word “awesome!” Another told me she always gets excited at the beginning of a new year with all the possibilities that will be presented to her. Certainly we get to choose how we want to imagine our unknown future. I have one person in my life who says she doesn’t imagine the future at all. She simply allows it to unfold, there’s no expectation of any sort. Do you think that’s actually possible? She must be making plans for some things and she, I would imagine is planning for a good or at least a pleasant outcome. When we start out on an adventure, and yes a new year (even a new day) is the beginning of an adventure, we will normally carry in our minds and hearts some sense of anticipation. When the angels appeared to the shepherd to announce the beginning of Jesus’ life here on earth they heralded, “Be not afraid.” They were offering them a choice and guiding them to be at peace. Our response to what happens to us is in most respects what we get to choose. We may be anxious about the unknown but we can choose whether we want to be excited or filled with fear.
At this year’s Immaculate Conception women’s retreat I found myself pondering the question of how to hold the future events of my life in a positive, blessed light? I began by trying to believe that everything that will happen to me will be for my good and while that may be true, the real truth is there are some things that I would rather avoid, even if they are for my good. I guess it’s like not wanting to require medicine in order to get over some illness or even not having to eat Kale in order to stay healthy. When unpleasant things arise and someone shares with me that’s it’s probably for my benefit, I think of my husband Sandy’s expression when he says, “that’s like practicing bleeding.” It’s not anything with which anyone wants to deal. So, I began to go around asking people how they make peace with all the aspects of their lives, those we label “bad” or “disagreeable” or worst of all “disastrous.”
The Seekers, one of my study groups, usually does a year end review together and we present a few questions to help shape the vision of the future year. This year we have chosen several questions from Sarah Susanka, renown architect and author of The Not So Big House and The Not So Big Life. She actually sent out the questions to promote a workshop she was presenting in Chapel Hill. I share them here for your perusal:
What has inspired you over the past year?
- What were your sorrows and disappointments from the year, and how have you been changed by them?
- What were your enthusiasms, accomplishments, creations and joys, and how have you been changed by them?
- What new patterns of behavior have you adopted over the past year, and what effects have they had?
- How are you different this year than you were last year at this time?
- Are there any things you are being asked to do right now that you are rejecting?
- What recent synchronicities do you recall?
- To what part of yourself are you giving birth?
- Specifically what is it that you wish to focus on or experience in the coming year?
Father Jude Siciliano was our retreat facilitator this year. He leads gently, not with commands but with a soft voice and reflective questions and readings. This year he opened the first session with Rumi’s The Guest House.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
What does it take to “welcome them all in?” Once I learn to do that will I have peace, will I no longer carry fear and anxiety with me into the unknown? If my faith is true and strong will I be protected and gently cared for and be spared the travails and disasters of life? If they do come is it because I wasn’t “good enough” or faithful enough? This was my question to all I met as I began this new year? I am pleased to share that I have found the answer or perhaps a better phrase would be that I have been blessed with an answer.
The answer, for me, is that life will happen no matter how strong or great my faith. Life will present challenges and disappointments no matter how many positive affirmations I create to try to avoid suffering. Pain is a part of our human existence and no one gets to go through life without it. Sometimes it’s in small things, like a festering splinter or a bad cold and sometimes it’s heart wrenching and debilitating. We all know what those events can look like. There’s a popular phrase used in the media right now, to paraphrase it it says, “stuff happens.” We may be able to welcome it all in, like Rumi suggests but it’s the challenge of a lifetime. What I have discovered is that after, yes after, not normally during, I will get to choose how I want to perceive the “stuff.” Will I see it for the blessing it can be, it may have brought, the lessons I may have received or will it remain nothing but continued pain and suffering? I began to make peace with who I am and how I have previously responded to the challenges of my life and I realized that with my faith, from all these years of practicing my faith, I have the free will to choose how I shape that experience, no matter how I labeled it at the moment of its conception. I am a strong, resourceful, loving person and I fully recognize that things will happen to me that will knock me down but I also believe that I have created the inner and outer resources to rise up again and to believe that I can,
“meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
So in answer to Sarah Susanka’s last question, for the following year I want to focus on the fact that I can choose to believe 2016 will be exciting because I know I get to choose my response to whatever happens to me and I choose “Awesome.” In fact, I’ve decided to choose “Awesome” for the rest of my life.
Recently the magazine Cincinnati had an article about being prepared for the challenges of life, especially as we age or as our loved ones age. It was about being aware and taking steps to bolster our resources. As you probably know if you read this blog I am the ultimate Girl Scout. “Be prepared” is their motto. I am the queen of preparation and while it’s true I see the changes taking place in my life and the lives of my family and friends, I don’t want to walk around always waiting for the “other shoe to drop.” It is so very easy to await the next mishap or disaster. It’s so easy to allow my mind and imagination to go to the difficulties that might arise, to enter into “the cave of phantoms.” So, I’m working on finding a balance between being overly prepared and letting go of the probability of pain and suffering.
The secular approach to pain and suffering is to simply be the obverse of whatever is, not to judge it, not to get caught up in the dualistic mind of good or bad, right or wrong, black or white. It’s one of life’s simple concepts that is without a doubt one of life’s most difficult to practice, impossible to master. The Christian faith, however, takes the simply observing concept to a whole other level. That which we judge as pain and suffering, if laid at the foot of the Cross or placed in the arms of The Christ is transformed into blessings beyond our wildest imaginings. The naked, tortured body of God, nailed to wooden beams over two thousand years ago was the ultimate gift. His message was not clear as he was going thorough His persecution. Once He had given up His spirit, however, this poor, itinerant, misunderstood preacher turned our civilization inside out and upside down.
Many can’t and don’t fully appreciate how he changed the value of human life and dignity. If we lived in some of the third world, repressed regimes today we might better appreciate the impact of Christ’s teachings. He came to teach us that no matter what happens to us it is all redeemable and we get to choose how we perceive our lives. We can see ourselves as victims or as victors. His message was that we are all children of the Divine and we are loved. Our afflictions are not punishments.
