I saw a photo on the cover of the newspaper recently, of an overweight woman at the counter in a store buying items during the day-after-Christmas sales. She was totally focused on her purchases, as if that was the point of her life. It defined her world.
Many people live their lives this way. They are focused on (what I would call) addictive substitutes for what would really make them happy and fulfilled. They are focused on what feels to them in their control, based on if things are going their way or not. They are disconnected from a larger, deeper reality that isn't in their control, but that would connect them to the deeper meaning in life.
This photo could be described as capturing an image of our consumer society, which many people have negative judgments against, and think is a moral issue. I know that it isn't. What I was observing wasn't about a weakness in character. It is, perhaps, about a deep hopelessness and misunderstanding about what would be truly fulfilling and how to receive it. It is a fear of the nature of how life is. It is a mistaken belief that it is possible to get life under our control, to manage life in a way that removes the unknown variables, as if that would finally make us safe.
Taking responsibility for our emotional state is one way to begin the process of stepping out of that dysfunctional perspective. That is a crucial step toward coming into the present moment, where everything that could be truly nourishing and meaningful can be accessed. The present moment is not in any human person's control. It is stepping into the unknown, where we are in contact with a larger source. It is stepping into the living material of life itself.
This is one of the challenges of humanity, as a result of having evolved past feeling at the mercy of nature (or at least to the massive degree we did in the past). It is where we can have the mistaken belief that we are actually in control of life. By doing this we have lost the magic and wonder of what we can't control, the mystery of the unknown, where we are in relationship with a Larger Source than human perception. We have gone too far on the pendulum, in terms of control. We have proved to ourselves that we can control life. But now we have to realize we have only been able to do that by limiting our experience of life to what we can control.
What we need now to do is shift our relationship with what is not in our control so we are working with it, or in positive alignment with it. We need to be in our empowerment at the same time as engaging in the unknown, rather than feeling at the mercy of it. In order to do that, we have to evolve to the place where we know that the unknown Larger Source is for us, not against us.
I invite you to leave any questions or comments in the below comments field.
Author's Bio: Jane Ilene Cohen is an Intuitive & Transformational NLP Counselor, and an NLP & TimeLine Master Practitioner, with a private practice in San Diego North County (Encinitas). She does individual counseling (includes the NLP TimeLine Process and hypnosis), works with couples and families, and facilitates groups and workshops. She is also the Founder of the "Life is Meant to Work" thought system.
For more about Jane's counseling services, go to www.janecohencounseling.com/content/counseling-services . For a free phone consultation to decide if this is right for you, call Jane at (760) 753-0733.