Sunday Story…I Can See Clearly Now

I can see clearly now….actually I can’t. Truth be told, I can’t see a thing. And the more I look the less I see. It is like when you are underwater and you are trying to see something in the distance or just a flash of a thing. I remember scuba diving in Monterey Bay in Northern California. I was doing my certification dive. The visibility was not very good that day, maybe 6 to 10 feet. Which is plenty when you are just scuttling around on the bottom looking at things on the rocks and such. All of a sudden, something white whizzed right past me. I couldn’t see it clearly. I had no idea what it was but it scared the bejesus out of me. It was all I could do not jump up and run on the top of the water back to shore. I thought for sure a great white shark was out there waiting for me, about to chomp me into two pieces. I gutted the rest of the dive out, my heart racing and my spider senses on full alert. I am sure the oxygen tank was spent far faster than it should have been. When I got back on shore I looked around and, after talking with several other people, I realized that my evil nemesis was a white harbor seal. A creature that meant me no harm or ill will.

My mind created a great white shark, fully equipped with razor sharp teeth and evil intentions. I was in his world, his domain and at the mercy of what? My own mind, my own illusions led me into a fear based state. There was no shark. But I did not know that. I saw something and created something entirely different.

We do this all the time. We see one thing and create another. And this phenomena is not limited to just our sight. Try these on for size:
You walk up to 2 or 3 of your friends who are talking and you catch your name being spoken. They stop talking when you get close enough to participate in the conversation. You are sure they were talking about you in a negative way. In fact, they were planning a party for you.
The waitress at the café where you are having breakfast constantly forgets to refill your coffee, messes up your order, and is generally negligent in her service. You assume she doesn’t like you. In fact, her child was up all night with a high fever and she doesn’t have insurance or money to get him the care he needs.
Your boss drops a load of work on your desk on Friday and tells you it needs to be done by Monday. You are sure he is trying to mess up your weekend plans. In fact his boss told him to fire your entire division if the work didn’t get done.

You are constantly inventing meaning in your life. It is what we do. We create meaning. We create religion to give our lives purpose and meaning. We support athletic teams to give our town/cities meaning. We worry about the meaning of words and what did they really mean when they said… We look at art and wonder what the artist meant when he created the pieces. We read poetry and try to decipher what the poet is trying to make us feel and think. Books have been written about the meanings of other books. We like the world to mean something. We like people to be clear and concise when they talk to us and”mean what they say and say what they mean.”

When I create meaning, I want to create from a position of joy, gratitude and happiness. I assume of everyone the absolute best intentions. If I think people are talking about me I want to assume they are saying wonderful things about me because I am wonderful. When somebody is neglectful around me I assume they are having a hard time I try to give them some compassion and empathy. When something happens to mess up my plans I assume that it is happening because the perfect other thing needs to take place.

The perfect people are doing the perfect thing in the perfect place at the perfect time. What if that was case? What if everything that happened in the world happened because it was the perfection of the moment? How would your life look if you could accept this as truth? Everything that happens is happening because it is the exact right thing to happen at the exact right moment to the exact right people at the exact right place. AND if that is the case…how does your attitude change about what is happening? Won’t you start looking for the lesson in what has happened? Won’t you smile and nod, knowing everything is just as it should be?

And now you can make it mean something good and true and important, rather than something crude, and mean, and menial. Because everything that happens happens so you can move yourself, your soul forward, closer to fulfilling your purpose here on earth, here in this incarnation.

So, yes, I suppose I really can see clearly now…if I just let my thoughts move from a place of beauty, joy, and blessing. Go ahead, give it a try…after all you can always go back to the other way!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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