Two States of Being – and a Stand

There are
basically two fundamental states. The
one for which most of us strive is motivated by connection or alignment within
ourselves, call it a sense of peacefulness or satisfaction, well being,
curious, open, real, love or any of the feelings that we would normally call
‘good.’ This connection extends out to
others in our lives, as well as to the contexts within which we live and work
and play. It is like having a succession of green lights in our lives. And even the red lights redirect us to another succession of green lights. What we say,
what we do, and how we feel are all in sync. We keep our word. The people in
our lives know they can count on us for that. And when we get disconnected from them, we
address it quickly, with the intent to be back in alignment. With our children,
we see the Big Picture, and focus on the attributes they will need as adults –
truth-telling, compassion and tolerance for others, personal authority, delayed
gratification, awareness of Reality – especially the ability to discern what’s real and what isn’t. At work or play, we are team
players, respected by our colleagues. We also are able to work towards a common result – a sales goal, a
specific ‘deliverable’ that has a time table, an effort to cut expenses company
wide, buy-in to a new mandate in the company. That’s one way of living.

The other
is a state that most of us battle, and it is driven by some form of fear –
anxiety, hurt, loss, betrayal, anger.  We
feel lonely, a sense of being different, on the fringe or out in the cold –
separated from our inner peace, from our creativity and warmth. We also see ourselves as disconnected from
others (especially if they are happy or content), "apart from"
versus "a part of." We are either
seeing others as better than we are in some way, or looking down our noses at them
– either way, someone is up and someone is down, and we have lost the
partnership. We blame, excuse, taunt,
bully, connive, withdraw, charm, pull rank, suck up, manipulate however we have to in order to get what we think we have to have or to avoid getting what we don’t want. With our children, it is easy
to yell, ignore, demand, over-power, tune out. At work, we may say, “Sure, I’m on board”, but we really are not, and we secretly hope it all fails, so we can feel superior to those
fools who think they can make a difference. Or we can be openly or subtly critical, nit-picky, contentious, gossip
maliciously, playing all kinds of power games (or powerless games). In this state, we are disconnected – out of alignment with
ourselves, out of partnership with others, out of hope, out of ‘juice,’
cross-wise with “how it is,” and at the same time, impotent – because in the
duel between Reality and us, Reality always wins. Reality just does not accommodate our demands in order to keep us from bitching, complaining, whining or moaning. IT keeps being IT, and we get addicted to bitching, complaining, whining and moaning. Our demand that Anything be
different from the Way It IS always loses the contest with Reality – hence our impotence. This is another way of living.

It can happen in a nano-second. One minute I’m cruising along in my car, humming to the radio, the next minute I’m sanctimoniously self righteous about the jerk face that is weaving in and out of cars on the freeway (jerk face is the clue). That’s over a
little thing. Then there are times when we are faced with a Big Thing we couldn’t ever have imagined. Seeing that second plane dive into the middle of the second tower was a heart stopper. I withdrew into stunned horror, helpless to stop the images from appearing on the TV screen. Those images affected millions of people all over the world. So whether
it is a big deal or a little deal, it can  happen quickly, out of nowhere,
unpredictably. If we do not even notice
that we have disconnected from ourselves, others, the bigger context, then we
stay there, semi-comfortable in this fairly familiar state, until either something
pops us out, or we notice that we are disconnected, again (even if we are in bed
with our significant other, and sometimes especially when we are in bed with our significant other).

Once you see the disparity between these two states, there is a choice for you to make – a conscious choice. Either one is a valid choice, both have consequences, both have upsides and downsides.

I know my Stand!  What’s Your Stand?

PS Making a stand does not mean never missing the mark, it means a commitment to keep reclaiming my stand when I miss the mark. As we say at Way of a Warrior, the Spiritual Warrior’s Creed is "Six Times Down, Seven Times Up" – children do this naturally when learning to walk – they keep going for it.