Life has a way of bringing us back to the very things we thought we’d moved beyond. Old hurts, familiar reactions, and deeply ingrained patterns resurface, offering another opportunity to see, understand, and respond differently. Will we recognize the invitation or fall back into the same old story?
. . .
Life has a funny yet brutal way of bringing us back to our sore spots. Sometimes they’re so well masked that we don’t realize they’re still causing harm, quietly shaping our ongoing, sometimes clumsy search for understanding and self-realization.
Somewhere deep within us is the desire to feel truly alive, to savor each moment rather than simply pass through it. When we drift from that calm center, desperation takes hold. Superficial salves and cheap bandages rarely restore our sense of meaning or mindfulness. Instead, we find ourselves bleeding into the familiar abyss of routine and preset rigmarole.
Original presence keeps calling through the din of the ordinary. It draws us beyond the predictable and mundane: celebrity and self-importance, bold headlines, conformity with the crowd, the recycled missteps of passing generations, and the deafening hubris of a fading West.
We have built-in means of self-correction, individually and collectively, of balancing the boat and righting the rudder. And time isn’t always the constant we imagine it to be. In any given moment, we may hear or feel something that hurts, or witness anything from a passing insult to a devastating act of violence.
What happens next?
Do we reach for the familiar and react as expected? Do we grab the moment by the throat and yell, “Wait a damn minute! What is this, now?” Do we step forward with greater recognition and self-awareness, seeing things through a clearer lens? Or do we trip and fall backward, resorting to the same old cynicism, indifference, drama, and conditioning?
Our bodies will only hold out for so long. Our minds, perhaps even less, unless we deliberately reconnect with the pulse of the vast, untamed world beyond our practiced defenses and inherited programs.
Time and time again, we’re given opportunities.
Listen closer. Be open. Elevate.
Iterum atque iterum
Written by Trance Blackman. Originally published on tranceblackman.com on 13 October 2017.
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