When we take experience as our basis for living, we value everything that happens. No matter what it is, we look at it, feel the feelings associated with it, notice how it fits the long term patterns in our lives, and say, “What am I to learn from this experience?”
There is no good and no bad, just what is. After an unpleasant encounter, I say, “What am I being shown about myself?” Everything becomes an opportunity to learn and to grow.
Soon we see consistencies and we notice that what happens around us reflects what happens within us. If I’m critical of myself, I’ll find others who criticize me. If I’m insensitive to my child’s needs, I’ll find others who will not treat my needs sensitively. I learn that reality inside and outside is seamless.
We all have healing work to be done psychologically. Perhaps it’s healing fear or a co-dependency that hides vulnerability or an addiction that masks rage. Whatever our challenge this lifetime, we are given opportunities to work through our defenses and then our wounds. Life presents these opportunities perfectly. Our minds don’t understand but we acknowledge that they are not important in our healing anyway. We learn to trust Life more than our minds and to say “Yes” to what comes, because we know an intelligence greater than ours is choreographing our healing for us.
Life is for healing. And Life will show us how to go about healing in a way that is precise for each of us. We experience what we don’t expect and often don’t want and, by not resisting life, we heal. We form an alliance with life and cooperate with the forces that move and shape our days. Thus, we practice non-resistance.
Healing requires trust and surrender and a willingness to experience everything. The openness to experience frightens, but strengthens. We pass through feelings which shake our deepest roots and we live through it. The next time we’re not as afraid, because we’ve been here before. Feelings are just feelings – important to acknowledge, important not to resist, and important not to get stuck in.
We learn that we’re just “moving through” on this journey with nothing to attach to. Everything is a lesson. One step in healing and owning our power is letting go and allowing. We accept whatever life brings and we look deeper. Always we say “Yes.” We don’t have to understand, but we do have to cooperate with Life in our healing.
At mid-life, the unconscious becomes more active than it has been since childhood. This is when we truly leave the driving to Someone Else and tolerate the ride. By the end of mid-life we know ourselves differently, we may live somewhere new, and our work may be different. We have surrendered and let life lead us. Because we have learned to cooperate with life and to trust its guidance, the changes are an exciting part of the adventure.
