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| Sunlight through the trees - Photo by Maria Reber |
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The one inevitable thing in life is change. Change is happening all around us, all the time. All of us have changed from the children we were into the people we are now; even the trees are changing with the coming of spring. The changes that we’ve seen over the past several years have brought about sweeping changes, not only in our economic reality, but in how we look at our lives, our place on this planet and in our families as well.
We can allow these changes to provoke fear and uncertainty within us, or we can allow them to bring us into a new state of thinking and understanding; a state of existence where we can fully appreciate the interconnectedness we have with all other living things.
Fears arise out of our perceived expectations of things that have yet to come into existence. In other words, FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. Isn’t if funny how we can never fear what has been in our past or what is happening today, yet we construct all kinds of scenarios around what is to come tomorrow and then fear what we think may come. The change may be real, but the fears of what will come from the changes are solely in our minds; until we focus on them so intently that we bring them into our reality. Concentrating our thoughts on the things we fear will only serve to manifest our fears into our lives.
I’ve seen many of these fears as I’ve encountered changes in my own life. Some of them have been milder than others. When my wife Lisa’s twin sister contacted us four years ago and was leaving her husband, I didn’t expect the changes their relationship would bring into my life. Lori and I are a lot alike, which antagonizes change for both of us. Thankfully, her stay was short lived at that time.
However, with the recent economic changes, Lori and her husband have once again joined our household; which has brought another wave of changes, on top of those affecting our lives.
For several months Lisa has been quite ill and even spent some time in the hospital right after the first of the year. With looming medical bills, dwindling resources after losing my day job and picking up the slack at home the changes they are bringing by moving in with us are mostly welcome ones. So, instead of turning my attention to all the fear-filled scenarios, I’ve turned my attention to the small blessings and trusting that solutions will present themselves; along with a sense of humor.
Ask most any man if he ever had a fantasy of being with twins, and he’ll most likely say ‘yes’. Well, let me tell you, it’s not at all the fantasy. When you are being given instruction ‘in stereo’ by them you’ll understand what I mean; and after they say the words in unison there is always the ‘laughter in stereo’ that lingers. The biggest thing to always remember is to not take any of life so seriously.
Sure, there is the old expression that there is safety in numbers, however, sheer numbers can’t take away the thoughts that lead fuel our fears. It is the nature of our human mind when we don’t consciously watch the thoughts we are thinking.
Our thoughts are very important and revealing. The emotions we feel stem from our thoughts and fear is just another one of our emotions. Consciously paying attention to your thoughts is critical not only for manifesting the changes you want in life, but it’s imperative when events are changing in your life. Without casting your awareness on your thoughts, there is no way to know what your mind is paying attention to.
Ever have those days when you feel drained and worn down? Well, those are the days that you never paid attention to your thoughts. Your awareness was outside of yourself and your emotions got the best of you. That’s how it is with the fears that change provokes in our lives. We are so concentrated on managing the events that are causing the change that we aren’t aware of our thoughts; then our mind wanders into the fears of tomorrow.
The changes of our modern time are creating changes in our fundamental ideas on how we live our lives. For my family that means coming together to allow for us so that we can create a new reality amidst the changes that are happening. This has brought with it a new understanding of unity as well.
What is interesting about unity is that we can never define what unity is. Ironically, the very act of defining it means that you are not a part of it; you have to define unity from a point of view of duality. It is from duality, or separateness that we have built our society, that is now undergoing tremendous change. Our focus on the Individual and their Individuality (indivi-duality) has perpetuated our sense of separateness, and kept us from recognizing our connection to each other.
We perpetuate our separateness not only through our thoughts, our striving to express our indiv-duality, but also through the judgments we place upon the differences between us. When we place our own beliefs, thoughts and desires above those of another, we perpetuate that duality and separateness. Yet, this separateness itself is changing and as it does it is creating its share of fears. Just look at all the doomsday prophecies about 2012 if you don’t believe that fear is rampant in our thinking.
Let go of the fear and know that we are all connected. Loose the fear of being lost in the unity and let go of your indivi-duality. Become consciously aware of your thoughts and come together with others in unity to create changes amidst the changes of our time.
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