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MidLife Psychology—Febuary 2009
by Ruth Cherry | Email me if you questions or comments| Back to List of Articles
Just Do It
We’ve heard about surrender and trust and perhaps those words sound
appealing if somewhat unsettling. You may roll the thought around in
your head and debate the advantages of each side. But at some point
it isn’t an intellectual decision anymore. When you just can’t convince
yourself to put one foot in front of the other in the same way you’ve
always done it, when the moments of your life are so precious that even
if you are terrified it’s preferable to being comfortably numb, something
shifts in your heart and you know you must commit.
Then you are ready.
And you jump.
Into what--you can’t imagine. But you haven’t felt this much yourself
in a long time so you know it’s exactly the right thing to do.
You consult that voice inside you with every step you take. You practice
partnership-- being silent and listening and receiving and only then
responding and moving and then being silent again. You notice how the
moments of your day go, how some doors present themselves and open and
others slam shut. How the phone rings when you are emotionally available
or the mail that has been delayed arrives when you resolve a conflict.
You know when you’ve closed your heart by the stony cold emptiness you
feel. Your intuition becomes more valuable than your thoughts.
For me this step of partnership--acknowledging God’s presence in my
life daily-- is facilitated by journal writing and meditating. In both
these ways I create a space and I receive. With a partnership there
is always dialogue. Most of us are better at speaking than listening,
so we practice listening and receiving. We finely tune our receivers.
It’s a matter of attention. Attending to the subtleties and nuances
both inside us and around us. Noticing patterns in what happens to us.
Finding consistency in the day when you can’t get the lid off the jar
or the window open and the battery in your car has died. Noticing that
what happens to you reflects what is happening inside you, that there
is a one-to-one correlation between the inside and the outside.
At some point in this process of trust and surrender and attunement,
you will hear from your Controller. This figure inside you was created
to limit your vulnerability and insure your safety in the world by using
logic and practicality. She urges you to follow normally accepted ways
of operating. Your Controller is the one who says to you, ‘Use your
head.’ Or, ‘Don’t expect too much.’ Or even, ‘What will the neighbors/relatives/co-workers
say?’ Your Controller tells you to listen to your reason and the outside
world and not to your intuition and your feelings.
Your Controller is concerned with fitting in with others and being accepted
by them so, of course, when you make this leap into the unknown her
anxiety skyrockets. That’s a sign that you have realigned your allegiance.
She will tell you that it’s not reasonable or realistic to live by following
your intuition. Logically speaking in the short term, she may be right.
In the eternal scheme of things, however, it is not realistic to live
any way other than by aligning with God (Your Higher Power, the Universe).
You know who will prevail in the end so the winning side is clear. If
you want to fool around in the first part of your life and try your
hand at creating an ego and an empire, that’s fine. But once you walk
through your 40s and 50s, you may not be content with such mundane concerns.
You have learned how to master daily life and have received the rewards
and . . . so what? It’s fine but it isn’t enough. This leap into the
unknown engages your passion and your trust. This is the only way of
living your life that allows you to feel completely alive. It is only
with the acknowledgment of the Divine in our consciousness which shows
in our everyday activities that we experience the wholeness which we
know in the marrow of our bones is our birthright. It is the only satisfying
and, yes, reasonable way to live.
So, without understanding what we are committing to, we commit to the
process of trust and surrender. The process becomes all important, not
the outcome or the appearance. We are not doing this to earn something
or to get somewhere. We align with the deepest part of ourselves for
wholeness and unity. We know we are not living our lives completely
and fully by just staying in our heads and being successful and nice
and respectable. It is only by allowing the God essence in ourselves
to guide us that we are truly living in integrity.
Being a partner with God is simple. It demands only that we listen,
receive, and say, ‘Yes.’ Nothing complicated there. It is only our fear
that blocks us. It is not feeling our fear that is the problem,
but it is not feeling fear (which truly is present) and pretending
it’s good judgment we’re using. Our Controllers are so adept at rationalizing
and seeming Adult that sometimes it is hard to see the fear behind the
Controller’s words. It is always feeling some feeling directly and responsibly
and completely that the Controller wants to avoid. She uses good reasons
to not be present to herself and, thus, to God.
If you need to avoid anything inside yourself, you are avoiding God.
God is present in the ugliness inside you and in your hate and greed
and immaturity and hurt and selfishness and shame. The Controller is
in your self righteousness and apparent togetherness and your political
power. Your Controller, who pushes you to participate in the social
order, is not God. Your Controller may lead you to organize the church
bazaar which is praiseworthy, but your Controller is not doing God’s
work.
It is fine and often laudable to do good works. It is valuable to go
to church. But neither of these necessarily comes from the depths of
who you are. Churches encourage character development. Nothing wrong
with that and it contributes to the community and culture proceeding
smoothly. Religion structures our freedom and points us in a direction
which may be good for us but it offers us an external referent. It gives
us the rules and assumes the authority. Again, there is nothing wrong
with that at a certain point in our lives. Before we learn to know our
own inner authority, the conscience the church provides keeps us in
line.
Being active in the church may come from our Controllers who prefer
focusing on behavior rather than the open-endedness of consciousness
and oneness with God and momentary attunement. It is easy to ‘do.’ It
is defined and time limited. But to ‘be,’ well, that’s another story.
Being/consciousness doesn’t end. It doesn’t cease when we sleep or when
we’re silent or even when we die. It is ongoing, constantly evolving.
And it is our job to continue this refinement of our own consciousness
that permits the experience of greater and greater oneness with God.
For, really, that is all there is. God is. We are expressions of God.
We use the first part of our lives to enhance our separateness. We develop
strong egos and good reputations. In our 40s, 50s, and beyond, we release
our striving and realize that the struggle itself is the problem.
So, we choose to just be.
We be and we breathe and we wait.
Ruth Cherry, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice in
San Luis Obispo, CA. Her specialty is midlife when psychological and
spiritual dynamics merge. The power of the unconscious at midlife to
heal and to transform is tapped in meditation. Besides writing about
meditation, Ruth leads guided meditation groups weekly both for the
public and for inmates in a state penitentiary. Her web site is
midlifepsychology.com
by Ruth Cherry | Email me if you questions or comments
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