LET IT BEGIN WITH ME

7.5.18

Recently I had to get my blood drawn at a neighborhood lab office.  I arrived shortly after 8AM, signed the clipboard and seated myself in the waiting room among perhaps a dozen other people.  I opened the book I’d brought and began to read. 

Within moments I found myself distracted by jabs of uncomfortable feelings, and raised my eyes to survey the room.  I noticed my companions shifting impatiently in their chairs, the room tense with an undercurrent of barely repressed anger.  I heard the receptionist telling a client one of the staff had called in sick and that the computer kept freezing up. These remarks sent an eddy of deeper disgruntlement through the waiting room. 

Person after person continued to arrive until the chairs were full and people were standing.  The anger and frustration became more apparent, and I found them welling up in myself.  I felt angry at the universe for my situation; for having to come here on a day when everything was in chaos.  A mother and teenage son arrived for their appointment and were escorted back to the nurses immediately. The waiting room crackled with murmurs of annoyance.  I recalled that I could have made an appointment to bypass waiting, but the first appointment time had been 9:00, and I’d hoped to be gone by then. 

The anger grew more and more palpable. I hated being in that waiting room. I hated the feelings rising up in me. I contemplated getting up and leaving, knowing I’d have to come back another day and endure it all again.

And then… I realized… I had a choice. I could continue in this misery or I could accept the situation and reach deeper into myself to find peace. 

The suffering was so uncomfortable, I let it go.  I remembered that we come into this life to help one another through the lessons of life on earth, and I was currently contributing to the problem.

I let go of my choice to take the situation personally and be offended by it.  It took a minute to let go - my ego was very invested in being offended.  And then, it became apparent that this was a chance to offer something different.  If I could be so affected by the anger all around me, then others could be affected by acceptance and patience in me.  I sat back and let the acceptance wash over me, felt the patience and calm deep in my center, and let my tensed body language relax. 

In the 20 minutes or so that I continued to wait, as peace mixed with the anger in the room, the atmosphere began to change.  When I was finally called and offered up my arm to a harried nurse in blue scrubs, she said, “Thank you for not being angry.”  I realized that she’d been on the receiving end of the waiting-room energy.  And I was grateful that for at least one person, my peace had made a difference.

EXPANDED PERSPECTIVE 2

7.24.12

Tools are being provided to us at this time in history to unlock our consciousness from the limits that have imprisoned it. 

Astronauts who have traveled to the moon share their experience of being outside the density of consciousness present on earth. They describe a deep illuminating awareness of their relationship to the galaxy and the entire cosmic organism. They experience a deep conviction of purpose and benevolence in the character of the universe.

Here on earth, we find it’s becoming more and more unbearable being imprisoned by the limits of a materialistic, humanly dictated worldview.  Something has to give.

By design, that unbearableness is the necessary motivation to evolve, to escape the prison of fear-bound orientation. Because it’s unbearable, we choose to evolve.  We are driven to look elsewhere  -- to the tools that are opening new portals of awareness.  We can sense our larger place and relationship within the cosmos, and our destiny, which is to break free.

So the very things that make our world so uncomfortable right now are the things that galvanize us to move forward, to move upward, and to embrace a more illumined and compassionate view of life.  Let us take up those tools and craft a new experience of humanity.