A foot in two worlds January 30, 2009
Posted by bodhidude in : Spirituality, Transformation , trackback
How do you move forward when you have one foot in an old paradigm and one foot in a new paradigm? That has become my koan lately and that’s the way its felt. I still have one foot in the old paradigm. The old paradigm being the world where ego and the rational mind leads the way, where I need to struggle and work hard to make ends meet, where I react to change and transition with fear and where I limit what comes to me to known channels or pathways. I also have one foot in the new paradigm. The new paradigm being the world where the heart leads the way and the rational mind is only a tool, where I no longer need to struggle because I live in abundance, where I allow life to flow naturally and don’t need to hold on, where I am open to the infinite pathways of creation so I am able to manifest what I need effortlessly and where I become an instrument through which the divine consciousness of the universe flows in service of the whole.
Quite different ways of looking at life and the world. This place of feeling caught between two worlds is quite painful. It feels like I engage in a creative process to dream up my life and then thoughts and fears come up that short circuit that creative dream. I can’t quite go back to the old way and think my way through, work at a job to make money, or hold on to people and situations. Believe me I’ve tried and these ways no longer work. Trying to figure things out results in confusion, trying to work at a job for the money brings problems and disempowerment, and trying to hold on to relationships causes them to fall away quicker. I can’t seem to fully step into the new way fully either although I can see more and more clearly what that might be like. I feel like I’m trying to shed a lifelong addiction or break the most stubborn habit, this way of existing in lack and separation where I’m always the victim of someone or something. I can’t buy into that anymore because I’ve seen through it but I also cannot seem to stop the habitual patterns that go along with it. I know from a spiritual point of view that this is a natural part of the path, when you see your unconscious patterns but they still have enough momentum that you can’t yet fully free yourself from them.
The practice of meditation and more importantly the practice of mindfulness in every activity does seem to be creating more and more awareness. I’m finding with that awareness I am seeing the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that keep me stuck in the old patterns of lack and fear. It is becoming a moment to moment practice of noticing a limiting thought or feeling in the moment, feeling it, letting it go and refocusing my attention in a creative direction. For example I see the end of my job coming and I feel fear and imagine struggling to pay the bills. When I realize this I can acknowledge that fear and then quickly let go of it and refocus my attention on what I want to create in place of the job, seeing myself having a full abundant life with all my needs met. These things come up constantly and it requires a good deal of awareness to illuminate them so they can’t continue to support the old way of being. I’m seeing that each time I feel, release and counteract such negative thoughts its like pulling a thread in the old way of being weakening it just a bit more. I can feel it collapsing around me and that brings up more fear, fear of the unknown or maybe fear of life in its full intense wholeness, fear to be released.
I think I’m ready to pull my foot out of the old paradigm and fully step into the new one.
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