One of the most challenging concepts to comprehend is the understanding that life is happening for you, not to you. In Sanskrit it is defined as Karma (the action). Our actions are what ripple out into our environment and our environment provides us the feedback.
Understanding that our life is the consequence of our decisions is the beginning of making choices that move us towards a happier, more fulfilling existence.
When we believe that life is happening to us, we become separated from not only ourselves, but from our environment, negating our ability to learn from the present moment. The lessons in the now are the universe guiding us through situations, trying to open our eyes and see what is happening for us. Unfortunately we haven't been taught the importance of being present. Instead, we are taught that achieving, excelling and keeping motivated on our goals is most important, but all of this is in the future, therefore these teachings keep us from being in the moment.
Even the way we think prevents us from seeing how the universe is trying to communicate or nudge us in a different direction. When we are not present in the moment, we cannot listen to what is happening for us and we continue on taking the same action. In turn, we keep getting the same response, as if we were stuck on a merry-go-around.
How can we deeply listen when we haven't been taught how to process our feelings in a way that helps us guide our path, rather than react to it?
Most people suppress heavy feelings as they are not sure what to do with them. Our culture encourages us to remain in a state of high focus on external matters. So if our feelings are the gateway for how we navigate in life, what is more important than processing our feelings in any moment? What if our minds are only meant to process our thoughts and feelings, in response to what's happening in our environment at the time? and not for work, education and other distractions. We simply don’t give ourselves enough space to listen to what is happening for us.
When we don't listen to what is happening and our eyes are closed, we attract the same lesson, which only gets tougher and tougher the more we endure it. We are stuck in a pattern of behaviour, thinking and feelings that we cannot transcend. It's no wonder why people are suffering from anxiety, depression and mental illness.
Approaching life as it is happening to us negates our responsibility of choice. The result is that we believe that our action and decisions are not the consequence of our lives, leaving us feeling battered, like the ball in a pin ball machine. We are the victim of our own lives.
Also, when we blame others, we are simply handing over the control to them. We give them the responsibility and disempower ourselves from seeing the lesson.
You are as much happening to life, as life is happening to you.
In taking ownership for every action, no matter how hard it seems, we take back control of our lives. When we have the control, we can then choose what we do with it. In this state, we are listening to our actions and responding to them, rather than ignoring or reacting to them. We finally begin to learn the lessons or see the guidance that our environment offers us in any moment.
For example, when we are angry and we project our anger, our environment attracts others who are also angry, so that we can experience our own feelings and learn the lesson. When we resolve our anger, other angry people simply disappear. This is the universal reflection and changes are made real time.
For our lives to change firstly we must listen to what happening in our environment, as it is a direct reflection of what is happening for us internally. Once we have taken responsibility for our actions, we can finally begin to master our responses to life.
