14 August 2017

Significance.

What does it mean? And who determines what is significant and what isn’t?

I have lived a life, this far, in a rather insignificant way. Those things which mark milestones of significance in our culture have passed me by – those markers of wealth and industry, of promotion and house ownership. Still it would be false for me to present the situation in any other regard than to acknowledge I chose to NOT live in the so-called American Dream/Nightmare. I chose not to live a life which others would deem as “significant.”

In fact, for a while, I found so much significance to my own personal experience on this earth that it never occurred to me that I was missing out on anything much. I had little regard for money and for all that is involved in the pursuit of it and the things it can buy. So long as I could work in a profession which I enjoyed and earn enough to cover my expenses then I was happy.

The problem was that conditions in my family impacted my profession & my career and eventually led to the situation where I could not work in my profession the way I wanted, nor could I earn enough to cover my expenses. In order to save my family the embarrassment and shame, I refrained from exposing what their negative behaviour was doing to my career and my financial stability.

The more negative someone close to me was, the more I retreated into long states of prayer & meditation. At the time, it seemed like a solution which was working. However, after prolonged withdrawal from things which were important to me, a pattern emerged which consisted of the family member acting in a negative way and my spending time in meditation. It would be nice to have a professional career in meditation but that is not reasonable in this day & age so eventually I had to change my patterns and start dealing with the issue in a new way.

That marked such a significant change within me which was a lot like coming ALIVE to myself. The transformation coincided with the timing of learning to process nightmares in a way which would more fully allow me to change the old pattern of withdrawal and begin a new pattern of facing the negatives in strong ways.

When one embarks on a personal transformation like this, there are no awards or ceremonies. No gifts. No trophies. No bursaries. I had just learned to face my enemy, within my self and in the outer world. Could there be anything more significant than this?

It wasn’t easy and it took 8 long cold years to completely re-wire my old patterning and create a host of new skills, capacities and qualities. But eventually, in time, enough inner and outer work had been done so that there is hardly a trace left of the old fearful me.

Courage has replaced fear. Confidence has replaced uncertainty. Capacity has replaced weakness.

The key to this kind of long-lasting change is daily work on recognizing the negatives & striving to make efforts to create positives. The key is to remember what has worked well in the past and to repeat it often. In time, there is so much positive in life that there is just no room for negatives.

What could be more significant than this?

The biggest challenge most people face in this journey is to let go of the want, need or desire for recognition, for awards, trophies and the lime-light. If that is what you are going for then you will surely be disappointed and never reach your goal. But if you are true to yourself and are going for a thing which really matters – transformation – than you will achieve it for sure and whether anyone notices or not bares no influence on your own inner & outer progress.