Taking Action

I would like to expand on yesterday's posting; dealing  with the unfunny stuff that happens in life. I used the recent Arizona shootings as an example because it is something that tends to engender a great deal of fear in people even though they are not involved or affected in any way other than hearing about it. The tendency toward trying to ensure this kind of thing can never happen again (especially to ones self) is pretty strong and is what political movements are made of.

But what about our personal lives? What if the situation is indeed one that affects us directly? Do we still just step back and bring peace to the feelings of helplessness, etc and do nothing? Not likely, though there are times where that may be exactly what ends up being called for. And there are other times where we become clear about what action to take (ie leave the situation, be sure someone who is harming self or others is removed from a situation, get help, etc) and we do it because it is what we are called to do rather than being a fearful reaction.

What I have noticed in working with people and their habits and patterns is the tendency to leap from the pain that arises from a situation into making decisions about what they will do about this if it ever happens again. In other words attempting to control the future rather than truly being present to what is right now. They end up making up their own 'laws', rules to live by which inevitably ends up failing the next time a similar situation arises then they get to feeling guilty and beating themselves up for not living up to their own standards. It's a vicious circle because it's moving away from rather toward what is really going on right now. That's all we actually have to work with, what's going on right now, not what we think about it or what we believe it means but what is which for the most part people never see because of the layers and layers of memories and beliefs that have enshrouded the mind, making the obvious inaccessible. That's the process I invite people to, unraveling the layers of lies that blind us.