"Begin Each Day Like It Was Your First"The beginning of a New Year always reminds me of the start of a new school year. Remember buying a brand new writing tablet and box of crayons? Everything was fresh and new. Your desk at school was shiny and clean. The workbooks were crisp and unmarked. The floors gleamed with new wax and even the teacher looked rested for a change!
Every New Year presents itself with infinite possibilities. Actually, every day does also, but we tend to forget. The start of a New Year reminds us that we can begin again. The problem we all face is that we get bogged down with our own history. Our own biography can trap us into thinking and living in repetitive ways.
What if you were to wake up tomorrow morning and you had no personal story to tell? There were no bad memories, no self-limiting thoughts, no sorrow, no incessant worries and concerns, but you were able to awaken with a sense of endless possibility? Of course, you can see right off that you would also have no good memories, or a sense of all your accomplishments or the security of relationships that you love and cherish.
How much does our personal story control our lives? Does it help us down the road or does it hold us back? Are we trapped because of our biography or are we liberated? For the most part we get stuck in our own story and have a difficult time moving past some of its more painful segments. It too easily defines who we are.
The key to using our biography as a stepping stone into our future rather than a ball and chain that holds us back comes from the principle of acceptance. What we don’t accept holds us back. We must accept everything that happens in our lives as needful and view our past as divinely directed. Take out even one small piece and your life would crumble. You would not be you any longer.
This doesn’t mean that everything that happened to us was enjoyable and that there aren’t folks who have some answering to do for their actions, this just means that for our part we accept every event as working towards our betterment and we leave the justice and the judging to God.
This is a powerful tool that enables us to free ourselves from the negativity and even the successes of the past. Both the positive and the negative have the ability to either stroke or wound the ego. Either way, the ego remains in control of our lives.
What we are really hoping for on the spiritual path is to have the ego become a willing servant to Spirit. By dwelling on our past, by identifying too closely with our own history and biography, we feed its need to define who we are.
Ideally, our identification comes more and more from Spirit. We become soul-full and Spirit directed. By accepting our past we are free to pay little or no attention to it. It does not use up any of our vital energy. We are free to face each morning, each New Year as a fresh start.
Imagine that when you went to sleep last night, the story reader said, “The End”. You awaken this morning and are asked, “What new story would you like to write today?” Wow, just think of the possibilities. What kind of story are you going to write this year?
Every New Year presents itself with infinite possibilities. Actually, every day does also, but we tend to forget. The start of a New Year reminds us that we can begin again. The problem we all face is that we get bogged down with our own history. Our own biography can trap us into thinking and living in repetitive ways.
What if you were to wake up tomorrow morning and you had no personal story to tell? There were no bad memories, no self-limiting thoughts, no sorrow, no incessant worries and concerns, but you were able to awaken with a sense of endless possibility? Of course, you can see right off that you would also have no good memories, or a sense of all your accomplishments or the security of relationships that you love and cherish.
How much does our personal story control our lives? Does it help us down the road or does it hold us back? Are we trapped because of our biography or are we liberated? For the most part we get stuck in our own story and have a difficult time moving past some of its more painful segments. It too easily defines who we are.
The key to using our biography as a stepping stone into our future rather than a ball and chain that holds us back comes from the principle of acceptance. What we don’t accept holds us back. We must accept everything that happens in our lives as needful and view our past as divinely directed. Take out even one small piece and your life would crumble. You would not be you any longer.
This doesn’t mean that everything that happened to us was enjoyable and that there aren’t folks who have some answering to do for their actions, this just means that for our part we accept every event as working towards our betterment and we leave the justice and the judging to God.
This is a powerful tool that enables us to free ourselves from the negativity and even the successes of the past. Both the positive and the negative have the ability to either stroke or wound the ego. Either way, the ego remains in control of our lives.
What we are really hoping for on the spiritual path is to have the ego become a willing servant to Spirit. By dwelling on our past, by identifying too closely with our own history and biography, we feed its need to define who we are.
Ideally, our identification comes more and more from Spirit. We become soul-full and Spirit directed. By accepting our past we are free to pay little or no attention to it. It does not use up any of our vital energy. We are free to face each morning, each New Year as a fresh start.
Imagine that when you went to sleep last night, the story reader said, “The End”. You awaken this morning and are asked, “What new story would you like to write today?” Wow, just think of the possibilities. What kind of story are you going to write this year?
Comments
Bless you,
AzA
So great to have you here! The holidays felt different for me, also. I like your phrase, "Write my story as I'm walking it." Seems the perfect summary. Blessings to you.
AzA