The Good News is... it's Not Your Job, it's You
With love and compassion… it’s not your job or any seemingly outside circumstance; suffering begins and ends with you.
While this is meant to empower you, at first it might be hard to hear or impossible to believe, because most of us have been taught that situations happen to us rather than from us. But if that’s true then we are victims of circumstance and we don’t have any control over our lives. This is exactly how it feels when we let other people and situations dominate our mental-emotional state and therefore, our experience of life.
It feels instinctual to point our finger at someone or something else because our lower nature urges us to defend our beliefs and opinions, whereas our higher nature grants us the awareness to reflect and Know why particular people and situations are drawn to us. Both are necessary - we need our instincts to survive - but ultimately, we can (and must) go beyond surviving to thriving by way of our higher nature.
Ayurveda says, “Like increases like,” which means, the frequency of energy - or vibration - within us brings people and situations to us (or repels them). For example, if you have a vision or goal that’s been challenging to achieve, your energy doesn’t match it, at least not yet. That’s the work, to align our mental, emotional, and physical bodies with Life itself so we can experience flow while staying in control - which is a sweet spot most of us do not know.
Life is flow; the only thing we control is our experience. In this regard, our attention is our greatest asset, it’s the main factor that determines our experience. Which begs the question, where are you placing your attention?
Are you accessing a Higher Intelligence - your inner Wisdom - to guide the decisions you make and the actions you take? Or are your current thoughts and actions based on past situations? If it’s the latter, that’s the lower nature - your limiting beliefs and opinions that aim to protect you but ultimately keep you stuck, producing similar situations and results.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that when you leave a toxic person or environment, it happens again. The person is different, as is the situation, but the toxicity follows you because it is you - the energy/vibration within you aligns you with those same frequencies. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t leave a toxic situation, but unless you get to the root cause of it - you - it will continue to follow you.
While we wouldn’t choose to be upset, we lose the choice to choose when we expect other people and situations to change...
Limiting beliefs and opinions create undesirable situations. We yearn for others to be more like us and when they are not, it’s upsetting. While we wouldn’t choose to be upset, we lose the choice to choose when we expect other people and situations to change… when in fact, it’s we who need to change.
When we have a negative reaction to something or someone, it binds us further to that vibration/experience. For example, if your boss or co-worker does something you believe is wrong and it upsets you, are you not the one who suffers? That’s how powerful we are - we create our experience and in this case, suffering. In addition, we can, and often do, build an entire story around what happened to us which deepens the mental and emotional reactions and can lead to physical disease.
That was certainly what led me to develop a stress-induced ulcer. I was in a toxic work environment, and while all the signs were there, I didn’t have the Understanding to take action from a place of Wisdom. Rather, I let my negative feelings about the situation and the attachment to my beliefs and opinions create the mental and emotional suffering that ultimately produced the ulcer. And eventually drove me to higher ground.
We forget who we Truly are because we identify with our physical experience as the only experience…
Essentially, the people and circumstances that bother us are gateways to our Higher Nature - a state of Being where Love, Peace, Harmony, Joy, Compassion, and Gratitude are always present but often overridden by our temporary mental and emotional state. We forget who we Truly are because we identify with our physical experience as the only experience; but to have a physical experience, there must first be the energy to create it.
It’s wise to be aware of wrongdoing and use discernment in how we engage with it. However, if we react negatively, we perpetuate that same negative energy within us and it blocks our higher nature from providing a harmonious resolution. However, if we use challenging experiences to understand ourselves better, we can dissolve the associated unwanted emotions and stop producing the same undesirable situations and outcomes.
Awareness is the gateway to change. When we realize our negative emotions are a part of the human condition and not who we Truly are, we can release that which binds us and experience a more expansive life.
It takes curiosity, courage, dedication, and faith to realize that other people and situations are reflections of our inner well-being. As humans, we will suffer, but if we understand the purpose of suffering, we can rise above it (hint: that is the purpose). So rather than letting other people and situations determine your quality of life, be the change you want to experience by Knowing that everything happens from you.
