Post #68- Change, Part 2: You Have Everything You Need

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“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the moment.”

 ~Lao Tzu

Are you mad at me yet? If you read the last post you might be, and I understand why? When you have experienced (or are experiencing) tough times, you don’t necessarily want to hear about the purpose behind it. You simply want it to end. However, what I’m suggesting is designed to do just that. Understanding this will not only help you cope with the pain of the past and present, but interrupt the pattern so that you can be freed to live your best life in the future. However, it all begins right now.

As we try to wrap our minds around the chaos that is often our lives, we must engage in meaning-making. I believe that meaning-making, or rather making meaning or sense of who we are in the world, is the most important exercise we can do. Therefore, in doing so we have to consider or reconsider our life experiences, thereby reinterpreting the totality of our lives, including the most difficult moments. Remember, if you change the way we look at things, the things you look at change (Dr. Wayne Dyer). So, perhaps you’re not in trouble, just in transition (Bishop Carlton Pearson).

Positioning ourselves for change requires us to be awake and present for our own life. I, for one, have been guilty of being M.I.A. for life. In the past, when things became difficult or uncomfortable, I simply checked out...both mentally and emotionally, and sometimes physically (men are good at that…we don’t like that which we don’t or can’t do well, so we’re more likely to check out than deal).  Being present for life requires us to live in the now… the right now, as we attempt to best interpret the experiences of yesterday and envision the us of tomorrow.

Let’s be honest. Everything must change. Change is inevitable; it can’t be avoided. So, in order to participate in the change, or better yet evolution of who and what we are, we must have appropriate relationships with the past, present and future. As Lao Tzu’s quote suggests, it’s the only way to have peace.

Firstly, we mustn’t live in the past, for the past has a way of imprisoning us. If we’re not careful, our ego has a way of either romanticizing the past, causing us to fawn over the “good ole days,” or memories of the past can cause us so much pain the ego spends wasted time and energy reliving it while anticipating future pain and thereby deriving ways to avoid it. Both take our attention from the present, the only thing we really have.

Secondly, the future, while seemingly more innocuous, can also cause us to become stuck. The future can either be closely related to the pain of the past, thereby paralyzing us in fear (see above), or it can take our attention from what is needed today as we get stuck in the “some day things will change” or the “one day things will get better” or the “God is gonna’s.” You know those right, God is gonna move/save/heal/bless (or in the South we might say, God is “fixin-to”  ___[fill in the blank]____).  No, let me stop us right here.  God is not “gonna” move or bless. God is moving and blessing, RIGHT NOW.

That brings us to best gift we could be given....because it’s really the only thing we truly have. We have the present. We have been given the power of now. As we reinterpret who we are and how we experience the world and ourselves in that world, we must wake up to what is right now. Don’t sleep on your life, wake up and be fully present.

We must be so in love with our present that we don’t have time to be preoccupied with the past or future. Please don’t get me wrong, the past and future are very important. The lessons of the past have made us who are today (if only we would learn from them), and envisioning a future that is robust with peace and prosperity is the purpose of God’s gift of imagination (which is the point of vision boards, understanding the law of attraction and calling those things that are not as though they were). However, we can’t get lost in either. The past is exactly that and the future belongs to God; but right now is ours. 

We must be fully persuaded and thoroughly convinced that God is working right now, that the universe is rising up to meet us right where we are. So, don’t waste one moment in regret or anxiety about what has been or what might be.  Likewise, don’t panic about what is, but know that if your intention is to move forward, to be the best you you can possibly be, then you have all of the tools necessary to do exactly that. What tools? Just wake up and look, they’re all around you.

I’ll end by simply saying that this life is a journey of discovery, but the funny thing about discovery is that one can only discover something that is already there. Whether it’s an archeologist uncovering artifacts, a treasure hunter excavating a shipwreck or an infant finding her toes, discoveries can only reveal what is already there. Listen to me and listen closely….there is a wealthy place for you…a place of contentment, peace, joy, love and prosperity. Know it, feel it, and now discover it. Know that whatever you need in this process, you already have. Simply be fully present and use the tools within your grasp (even and especially the challenges and difficulties) to discover what’s already there. Whatever you need, you already have right now. For….

This is not the end of our story. Our best days are not behind us; they are ahead of us. Leave behind the depression of the past and the anxiety of the future and reach for the peace of the present. Discover what has always been there on your journey to  #bigthingscoming.

NOTE: If you’re new to the site it might be helpful to read the first (introductory) post. Also, feel free to post your questions or comments here and you can always reach out to me on Twitter @raycjordan using the hash tag #bigthingscoming.

(Copyright, 2014, Ray Jordan)

The Incomparable 

Barbara Streisand 

"Everything Must Change"