These are no trifling questions.
Asked truly, and sat with fully, they can reveal insights that help us out of repeated, robotic and ruinous patterns that might otherwise feed a cycle or cesspool of experience that is limiting and uninspiring.
The irony of being human is that we often know what the right and best thing to do is but make trade-offs, deals, bargains and excuses with ourselves to justify why we choose to ignore it. Enter cognitive dissonance.
Our patterns can be so hypnotically addictive we live them out in ways that reveals how asleep at the wheel we are and how much auto-pilot simply runs our life. Our programmed predictability can produce great outcomes or can also leave us living a stale and stagnant life as though imprisoned in ways that hold us back and keep us small.
We can have the very best of intentions and yet our actions can be entirely incongruous and while we may know it we may feel powerless to alter it. That is key; it is the notion, the thought or belief that we are powerless or that the thought, pattern or behaviour is bigger than us or owns us that can make us feel helpless or listless in the face of it. Notice even that, and be willing to look at that with clear eyes.
Our desire for freedom can be like a mirage in a desert that sees us drawn to things that promise much but remain an illusion. Indeed, it can see us look for shortcuts and quick fixes that offer the hope of awakening but carry the risk of injury, even death. Like seeking to crack open the proverbial nut with the sledgehammer, we can run to things that are heavy-handed and that might open us up, but does it also damage or destroy our body (i.e. the kernel) in the process?
What we run to can then be an addiction too. What we turn to for liberation can also become just another thing – outside of us – that enslaves us.
In one moment or one night, we can do to ourselves decades or even a lifetime of harm.
Sure, everything has its purpose and a place, but presuming anything is our saviour or salvation can be a trick when the truth is that our journey is ours and ours alone and it is often what we release and leave out that allows more of who we truly are to enter. What we truly are, to just be.
When we can turn from and simply drop things that no longer serve us or that are less than the love and kindness, nourishment and beauty we deserve, we have grown beyond it and have risen above it. Until then, keep climbing higher and getting clearer!
Live well. Live clean. Live true.