The old forms and structures are breaking
down at an unprecedented rate, and it is
becoming increasingly difficult and at the
same time absolutely necessary to find a way
to keep your centre and strengthen your inner
life in the midst of all this outer chaos.
Job certainty is a thing of the past. The
financial markets are in turmoil. Personal
and family relationships are undergoing major
upheaval and transformation.
Not only individuals, but also institutions
are being forced to transform. In the U.K.,
many homeopathy schools have either closed or
seen their student numbers decline rapidly.
The assumption that we can simply replicate
that which has worked well in the past and
confidently expect it to do so again in the
future is no longer valid. Either open up and
transform or close down seems to be the choice.
The current challenges are exacerbated by the
human tendency to meet rapid change with
fear. When we're afraid we tend to contract
and cling on to the old, familiar ways, which
is about the least helpful thing we can do.
How, then, can we best respond to the storms
and turbulence around us?
There are two main requirements that I know
of. The first is to find a way to ground
yourself on the inside, so that whatever is
happening around you doesn't send you into a
tailspin from which you can't recover. For
most of us, this involves a practice of some
kind which disengages you from the everyday
concerns of life and reconnects you with a
deeper meaning and a higher purpose.
Eastern practices such as yoga, meditation
and tai chi have become hugely popular in the
west because, we can safely assume, we need
them now. But there are, as Rumi says, a
hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Making jewelry, keeping a journal or digging
the garden could be more effective for you
than sitting in a lotus posture. It's a
question of following your instincts and
interests, and paying attention to what
actually works for you, which often isn't
what the mind will tell you should be
working for you.
The second requirement is to release old
fears so that you can trust the process and
align yourself with it, rather than digging
your heels in and stubbornly refusing to
yield to what is happening. As Byron Katie
lovingly reminds us, when we argue with
reality, we suffer. One way of arguing with
reality is wanting things to stay the same
when they clearly need to change. Another is
to hold on to something that seems to want to
be let go of. Yet another is to insist that
your life moves in a particular direction,
which doesn't seem to be the way it wants to
go. Each of these popular strategies
will create inner turmoil of one kind or another.
The big question here of course is how we are
supposed to trust something that seems so
uncertain? The ego-mind demands to know ahead
of time what shape and form the future will
take, and will always default towards the
normal, the usual, the familiar and the
predictable. We have to remember that the ego
is not the bigger part of who we are, and the
soul has it's own agenda which it will
relentlessly pursue. The soul is interested
in growth rather than sameness, it wants us
to wake up to the fullness of who we really
are, and it requires us to follow the heart
rather than the head. It's not always easy,
but it seems to be no longer optional.
