The Bubble Pops!

Normally change in life is perceived as unexpected, random and unpredictable. Forever evolving our understanding of the universe through the sciences to help us predict nature’s causes and effects, to better equip ourselves and anticipate the many possible outcomes of life. We have sciences dedicated to the natural world to predict natural disasters, engineering to better equip ourselves to these challenges, micro-sciences to understand the world within, psycho-social sciences to predict how we as a species may react and behave, and sciences of space to predict the space outside our planetary bubble and how it may move, break, or shape us. We try so hard to understand our world so we may not be left blind sighted by our ever changing environment. To know is power, to know is an advantage of how one may take their next step and mitigate any possible damage change can cause us. This is not always the case. Sometimes knowing the end, and the beginning of change can leave us within an imprisonment of time. Knowing your fate, existing within the countdown created by your mind, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. Here you live within the construct of your mind, playing out all possible scenarios, all the feelings you expect to feel, fearful of a moment that has not yet arrived. In these moments the belief that ‘ignorance is bliss’ may be considered as truth, to be blind sighted and unaware of what is yet to come, and to live in your last moments before change in bliss is the easier path to take, only to then do what humans do best and react to change as it sweeps over you.

It takes courage and strength to look change directly in its eyes, to know what is yet to come, feel it in all its uncomfortability and walk towards it with ease and grace. To acknowledge the feelings you may feel, and the thoughts you may think, however not let them control you or dictate your reality. For change is a natural part of life, it allows successive growth, for the old must die in order to make room for the new. That is the natural order of life. You cannot remain the same person and grow into someone new, it is the same as having your cake and eating it too. One cannot exist with the other. It is the polarity of past and present-future.

Unfortunately once we become aware of the truth, and see the path clearly before us we cannot turn back. We cannot unsee what has already been seen, and yet attempts and wishes to forget will create the catalyst for the decomposition of your mind. To forget a moment and all the moments related to that moment will serve as a domino effect erasing all the memories you have collected within your mind. When you forget you forget the lesson tied to that moment, it is disappeared and erased. In the evolutionary game of life it is like erasing the data of a level you did not enjoy, only to then have to repeat it to move forward. Every time you ignore, try to resist and forget, the more the game of life will throw that situation your way. When you decide to humbly accept a situation for what it is and embrace the change, you free yourself from the burden of the situation. You relinquish the situation from your reality for you have already overcome the trials and tribulations, forever knowing how to overcome it causing you to no longer attract it, for “life will give you whatever experiences is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness” (Eckhart Tolle, A new earth: create a better life).

Out of respect for myself and for others I co-create with, I set the intention to humbly accept all of life. I accept all of life’s changes and experiences it may bring me. I humbly acknowledge and accept all of the emotions that may arise from these lessons, I choose to sit with them and not let them wash over me or consume me. I am not made up of my emotions, they are feelings that come with being alive, and they are feelings that remind me that I am alive. My emotions are senses that I tend to, like my senses of hunger and thirst. They may guide my decisions however I am not them, the same way I am not hunger, and I am not the feeling of touch, they are merely a part of my human experience.

At the end of another lifecycle, I find myself grieving and mourning the final days in this life. Saying my final goodbyes to the version of me who must depart from my life. Soon this version of my self will become the past, only a memory to look back on as a piece of the puzzle making up future versions of me. A clue into how I will think, feel and react to the world ahead of me. Goodbye to this experience, this perception of life, my routines, my connections, my beliefs, my bubble. My bubble will soon pop, followed by the feeling of release, opening up the space within to the rest of the world.

I am holding onto the last moments of my bubble before it pops, hoping to freeze my bubble mid space, holding onto the fleeting moment that is the bubble. Desperately wanting the moment to last even though I know that a bubble frozen is still prone to the pop. Holding onto the magic that once was, attempting to grasp it and make it a part of me, only to feel a part of me reject myself and feel a part of me lost. I am not a collection of my experiences, thoughts and feelings, this assumption reduces me to the collective experience of my past. I am so much more than my past, I am my present , the bridge between my past and my future.

My future eludes me, never to exist in my future, trapped in the present, looking back at the past, wondering the contents and possibilities of my future, using the knowledge of my past to move my present into an ideal future. My mind is my imprisonment and my escape, for my mind has the capability to keep me in a mental loop, reliving the same reality, and it has the capability to set me free taking me to new heights, and places.

It is my mission to escape from my imprisonment, escape my illusion. I am not my mind, my mind does not encapsulate me. I am so much more than my mind, I am the space that senses the thoughts in my mind. My mind does not control my reality, I control my mind, which creates my reality. I am in control of my reality, I am the space for my eyes to see, my heart to feel, my mind to think, I am the space that allows my senses to witness the bubble, I am the space that co-creates the bubble. Nothing in this universe remains the same, everything is prone to change and transformation, matter that does not bend, breaks with its rigidity. Stagnation is the ultimate sin of life. To not welcome change in your life is to welcome chaos around and within you. When you do not change with the world around you, you risk the possibility of your own extinction, to change with the world around and within is the definition of resilience. Resilience is the key to our survival, it is the key to our evolution, our growth. The purpose of life is to experience growth.

Growth is not an experience that is defined as easy, which is why we termed the phrase ‘growing pains’. Although why must growth be perceived as painful? Because we are told to accept ourselves for who we are, which is true to an extent however should not be an excuse to hide behind in our commitment to evolution. Or because our ego is structured on the axis of good vs bad, black vs white, a rigid structure that does not allow for just is or the greys. Those who do not sit with you on the same side of the fence is automatically on the other side of the fence, to have to move from your side of the fence would create feelings of shame towards wrongness or bad. To admit you are wrong in a society that does not tolerate being wrong makes it a painful to grow. Although if we as a society never tried to grow out of fear of being wrong we would still be monkeys in those trees somewhere in Africa.

So then how does one overcome such growing pains? Through compassion and love for oneself. To know ones worth outside of their successes and failures, to know that a person is not the sum of their success and failures. You cannot define the wholeness of a person based on what they think, how they feel, or what they do, they are so much more than these things. You are so much more than these things. Words cannot begin to describe the depth of you and I, for you and I are endless beings with endless potential. We are not static, we are dynamic, forever changing and in motion, that words cannot begin to encapsulate our meaning. We must change the meaning we attach to failure, failure is not inherently bad it is the process of trial and error at the hopes for success. It is through failure where we are given the opportunity to learn and grow. When we are successful we rarely continue our path to discovery, it is only when our success becomes redundant, or a new problem arises where we continue our path to discovery. As beings comfortability often results in routine and sameness. Perhaps we need growing pains to facilitate our motivation for growth. The edge that drives us to survival, to evolve and shape ourselves into the best possible versions of ourselves.

I believe our environment and our surroundings is a direct reflection of who we are as a society. If a human is made up of billions of cells, and humanity is made up of over a billion humans, one could make comparative assumptions of the shape of the world and the health of humanity. Human kind being the cells within the brain, all other animals are the cells in the gut, and the flora, fungi and bacteria making up all other systems of the body. The brain of this world is currently at war with itself, it is responsible for polluting its body with harsh chemicals, it is throwing off its gut biome by selectively saving some and killing others. If a human were to cut off their arm, starve themselves and restrict their diet, and became plagued with conflicting personalities or views we, as a society would treat and medicate that person under the grounds of insanity. It is the harsh reality that humanity is unaware of its insanity, plagued by the disease of their own ego.

The ego is what in many cultures deem as the greatest battle for higher consciousness. The ego is an extension of I, I am, me, mine, and myself. The ego creates its own mould to fit in, absorbing things, thoughts, feelings, and achievements as part of the identity. The ego is a mental shortcut, a storage of all the things that we have long associated with I. I am a girl, I am an Australian mixed raced girl. I am an Australian mixed raced girl who comes from a mid socio-economic background, who went to public school, and grew up in the inner west suburbs of Sydney. We do this because it is easy, it is easier to group ourselves and others into categories so that our mind may take shortcuts and make inferences about people who belong to these groups. In psychology we call these heuristics, on the streets we call it stereotyping, explained it is our minds way of categorising a general essence of someone in order to make quick and automated responses without spending too much energy. Simpler, it is our minds way to react without awareness and without thinking. For these mental shortcuts allow us to fake know who we are as individuals, and it allows us to escape the responsibility of being present with ourselves and others.

To feel connected and completely aware of them in this space and time. You are listening to every word, every blink, every inhale, every exhale, and every heartbeat. True connection goes beyond communication, you can speak and you can listen without truly being present. Your mind could be elsewhere, your eyes gazed over, and words may feel like they pour through you, that is not true presence. Your lights are on and yet nobody is home, you have been taken over by the ego, you have fallen into a bittersweet slumber. Wake up, return to your shop, and engage. Do not spend your time in life asleep. Take charge and seize this opportunity of life, it is yours for the taking.