Last night it took every bit of my well practiced resistance to following my heart’s desires to remain in my own bed once I finally got into it.
You see, I made the mistake of one final glance out my bedroom window to the east to see the side yard looking like a shimmering page out of a winter fairytale or a snow globe, just shaken. The street light was casting long shadows and capturing the snow’s glimmer. There was very little traffic passing and everything was reduced to a glorious hush. The night scene looked moody like me and I wanted to throw myself into it for a full body immersion experience. I reminded myself of the practical side of resisting said impulse to wildness. That I had a minor knee injury from wrenching my knee during an indoor misstep and that freezing cold, icy conditions combined with late night fatigue and my already half- frozen state from ice packs every hour would mean that remaining in bed was wisest. Something in me gets so tired of listening to my more reasonable self’s guidance—old fuddy duddy that it is. Likely this resistance was the reason I couldn’t just drift off to sleep with images of snow angels made by bird wings in my mind’s eye. Same too with the restlessness I felt all night. Were these all the result of inner or outer conflict of my world? Who knows? But almost like a rebellious teen—next time I am choosing boots and my warm coat over my warm bed when I feel that familiar calling for a night walk.
This morning the bright refresh which yesterday’s light snowfall brought was welcome to me despite it being late February in a winter of so much snow. I welcomed it for the clean sweep it made of the landscape which after recent partial melts and rainfalls and windstorms was so scattered with debris and detritus that it became rather depressing to look upon.
Once again the physical world outside my window had been made delightfully beautiful.
What then, of the next inevitable melt which will bring us right back to it looking grungy?
Because the bright freshness of newly fallen snow makes me feel better and on the flip side, the grunginess makes me feel badly, I try to remind myself that the grungy melt is part of the processes of breakdown and renewal which are occurring all the time.
And not just in the natural world; we humans are held by these dual processes of growth and diminishing and same too with our civilization.
And though we want to look away from anything which seems less than vital, beautiful or attractively shiny and new, the truest path to transformation comes from bravely looking into that which we want to avoid; the old and worn, the broken down and the more messy parts of life and acknowledging their existence as part of the whole, ever-changing, shebang.
Another word for this might be acceptance--radical notion that it is. For what we accept we can transform.
Similarly, a refresh happened to me this past week on my wordle (I know) game score.
I had been on a bad streak of requiring more turns to come around to the day’s word puzzle solution but then I accidentally erased my score history and soon thereafter found that with no daily reminders of the frequency of fives versus threes I had scored, I was freer to come up with better solutions.
I was no longer hampered by negative feelings that limited or narrowed my perspective.
Trivial indeed but when I read an excerpt of an article on systems change early this morning it reminded me that in order to approach something which needs freshness brought to it, we must be looking with bright eyes.
In meditation this is called 'beginners mind'.
In Christianity it is referred to as 'being like children'.
We can’t approach the same problems with the same solutions and expect outcomes will be different. It simply isn’t a creative approach. There isn’t enough room for new connections to be made.
the truest path to transformation comes from bravely looking into that which we want to avoid
But why, when we have trained generations of children to grow into adults with world views and knowledge bases the very same as those which have caused us to arrive where we are at, would we expect new ideas for better solutions to emerge?
If it is the case that the very universe we live in and out of is a self organizing, generative place then choosing to live and learn in a manner which supports creativity and fresh thinking is of utter importance as the basis of any solution finding we are ever to be involved in.
Since we have brains that are wired to negatively project forward (negativity bias) then the idea I share often (in this household still dealing with the aftermath of serious trauma) is very important. That in order to overcome the brain's natural negativity bias (heightened here by trauma) we must actively attempt to hold space for the possibility of positive outcomes.
I remind people to hold space for this so often it has its own groove in my brain yet the concept is a fresh one that does require that we acknowledge current circumstances as the only real starting point for making change.
I like to think that this mindset welcomes us to think of the universe as a place filled with myriad possible outcomes to any situation and one in which, Emily Dickinson-like, we are reminded of the power of dwelling in possibility--for the possibility that even in the midst of great difficulty, positive outcomes can still emerge.
We do not need to be held trapped by our brain's negativity bias nor by blasted positive thinking. There is a more middle of the way approach which involves training ourselves to see clearly and make choices based on clear thinking.
I like this idea a lot. That we are not living out a pre-destined or even a "cursed by its past" reality, rather that we are creating a new and constantly changing reality by our choices and by the random and sometimes orchestrated interactions of those choices.
I also like to think that we can change our habitual ways of responding to the world and most importantly to our thoughts. That thanks to neuroplasticity, change is always possible should we choose it. Though, admittedly, sometimes the only thing we can change is our response to circumstances.
But sometimes this is everything. Changing how we think about and respond to our circumstances.
Everything.
Whether this be perpetuating the mindset that “war is inevitable” based on the notion that historically humans have chosen the outcome of war as a violent means of making change and that humans being humans means it will ever thus be so.
This simply is neither true nor helpful.
Just because we have a long history of something happening does not mean that we are unable to choose differently. In fact, I would argue that the very human nature which has brought us to where we are (indulgences in violence and greed) does not pre-suppose that this must go on forever.
Habits can be broken. Negative thought patterns can be changed.
Dictators can be peacefully overthrown and peaceful protest is more successful than violence.
Perhaps, the very thing which makes us the endlessly creative species which we are-- is our ability to choose how we respond to the circumstances which we find ourselves arriving in.
Our ability to create new stories that build on the best of the ones in humanity’s past.
Growing up, my mother always wisely reminded us that if there was room in the heart there was room at the table.
In these very troubled time in which we are living please remember that there is always room, if we hold space, for many possible, even sometimes positive, outcomes.
A parting image gleaned from a storm or two ago:
If you hadn’t paused long enough to watch the Robin red-breast eating tiny bits of apple on the doorstep, you might not have known that the markings on the snow bank were made by a Goldfinch who misjudged its flight trajectory to seed and caught its tiny feathered rump on the edge of where the snow fell from the metal roof into a high bank.
Thanks for reading!
ps
Some very wise words from Ukrainian Olga Fayziyeva :
May peace and love and beauty be yours for the sharing!
Jill
As usual Jill, you have the wisdom of the ages!! Keep it up! love you sooo much!! xxoo ma😉