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Living With Instability
Last updated on: April 3, 2014 at 2:45 pm by Terry Drew Karanen
Living With Instability 2014-04-03T14:45:03-06:00 Terry Drew Karanen
Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.
It has been said that the only constant is change. That’s a paradox, but quite true. We humans are linear time beings. We tend to fret about what happened in the past and worry about what is to occur in the future. But in truth we have only the present since the past is gone and the future yet to come.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we often feel so agitated or unsettled: We can be so busy pining over the past and wringing our hands about the future that we have no time to enjoy the present. We might crave knowledge of the future so we’ll know exactly what to expect. That would give us a sense of security – no unknown factors! Yea!
The only problem is life just isn’t that way and much of what we have been taught about security is not really all that reliable in the long run. No matter how precisely we plan something it seldom goes exactly the way we thought it would. Sometimes it turns out better than we could imagine; other times it is a mild or major disappointment. Ultimately it usually ends up being just fine. Call as many psychics as you like, burn candles, cast stones and read tea leaves, but to be 100 percent sure something is going to happen means we have to wait to live through it.
The amount of instability we can sometimes feel relates directly to how empowered we feel in any given situation. A woman may decide to conceive a child, but other than scheduling a C-section she has little if any control over when the baby will come. Like the pregnant mother, we may have a time frame (not more than nine months for the mother, thank you very much!), but the exact amount of time for our goals and desires to manifest is often out of our reach. It doesn’t mean we can’t give our goals a date as to when we expect fulfillment of our desires, but that date isn’t written in stone either.
There’s two major ways we can deal with the types of instability we all encounter from time-to-time. One way is to get our knickers in twist about the whole affair, work ourselves into a lather and make most everyone around us wish we were someplace else. Or, we can relax into the peace of mind in knowing that we have done everything possible to affect the changes we desire and recognize that part of the process of creation is letting go of that which no longer serves us. The chick doesn’t grieve the loss of the egg shell, nor the butterfly the confines of its cocoon.
We can learn from the spring growth we are seeing around us this season. Watch as bulbs grow into green stalks that give way to wondrous pallets of color. Think of your own desires as these beautiful flowers and relax into the process of seeing your dreams and goals blossom into grand reality.
In Spirit, Truth and Playfulness,
Terry
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