“Something is going to come out of this. Something New. This can end you up in a whole new place. A much more open place.”

Pema Chödrön

This quote popped up on the screen while browsing on my mobile a few days ago. I love the quote !

There were many places my mind went to upon reading this quote. One of it is the most common one we all go to. It was about looking at all life experiences from a very optimistic perspective, that reads something along the lines of – It’s all for the good !

The hope that everything is for the good, makes the hard or challenging situation more bearable because there is hope of light at the end of the tunnel. That means we have already labelled what we are experiencing in the present as not acceptable, something that needs to be endured and eventually overcome as there is a gift at the end of that “suffering”.

The other part that stood out for me was – “something new is going to come out of it”.One can go to different perspectives or make different interpretations reading it.

One of it can be a sense of panic about the CHANGE that the “new” is going to bring that we are not ready for yet. In fact we might be petrified of something new and different. Change is scary for many of us.

And the other interpretation might be that, it is definitely going to be something new, so we start dreaming and building castles of what we imagine it would be. We become attached to our assumptions.

Either way, what I am noticing is that our mind is so attached to “control”. We find it hard give up that control. We want to be at the driver’s seat. We want to have control over change, so that we can relax into it because, then we know what’s coming and we know what to expect. We are looking for certainty and predictability.

That’s one of the reasons why we find comfort when we hold the belief that – everything is for the good and that there is a eternal bliss waiting for us at the END of that experience.

When we get to that END, we may or may not find that peace and bliss that we were looking for. When we don’t, we get dejected and disappointed about life. When we do find it, we set up shop and get comfortable hoping and expecting that life is going to remain that way forever. We want things to remain constant. We don’t want Change. Again, we want the control !

I know I have played in this domain a lot. I want control over my life. I want to know where I am heading.
I don’t like uncertainty and change. There are times in my life, when I have overcome something that’s was really hard, and I have just put my feet up to relax, when I thought I had figured it all out, the ground beneath me suddenly crumbled and disappeared. I felt lost all over again. And I would go, Oh no ! Not again ! It’s like playing a video game, when progressing up level by level, I get to Level 24, and then suddenly finding myself in Level 1 back again !

This the trap I fall into. I am making an assumption that there are many others like me.

Most of us are resistant to change at various degrees. We like the permanency of things. But the irony is that, the only thing that’s permanent in life is Impermanence. Nothing is constant.

When we close ourselves from the possibility of change, we miss out experiencing anything new. I say “miss out” because change happens anyway but we go unconscious and not notice it because we are still clinging on to the past.

Being attached to the hope for better is crippling. Holding a view of the present or the now being a suffering is very discouraging and demotivating too.

I want to look at it differently. It is what it is ! No matter what I do, life is coming coming my way at full force. How I choose to look at any circumstance influences and colors my life.

There were lot of my friends and family who comforted us after my brother Lasheen’s death last year, which some viewed as an unfortunate incident, unfair and cruel act of fate. I have been devastated and I have missed him terribly but never once I have thought of it as unfortunate and not meant to be.

It’s is a part of this game of life. And I don’t mean just death, all of it ! Rule no 1 – Be open to impermanence . The negative labeling makes it hard to move forward. The overly positive labeling might numb us from the emotions of the present. IT IS WHAT IT IS !

So, coming back to the quote. What does NEW mean? As I said earlier our mind tends to make stories of the present or the future from our stories of the past.

I look up the the meaning of the word NEW: produced, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time; not existing before.

That means, in order for us to experience the actual NEW, we’ve got to let go of that branch, we have to give up control, give up what we know and be willing to surrender, ready to be swept away by the process of life. Only then can we experience NEW to the fullest and truest extent. The rest is all recycled and rearranged old !

Does that mean we don’t get to dream? Of course we get to dream ! And we get to make it as colorful and vivid as we want it to be. We then send the dream out as a prayer, let go and be unattached, leave ourselves open to what life has to be bring. Surrender to our life and journey.

The juice is in the journey. The gifts are in the present moment. This is my invitation to myself each of you. – Closed your eyes, and free fall into LIFE !

Experience the New !

With love, respect and in gratitude,

Sheena Yusuf
May 7, 2015