In an ideal world, when you reach a level of enlightenment and practice mindful behaviour, the notion of reverting to past rotten behaviour seems almost implausible.
In an ideal world.
In the real world, I am fallible. My humanness trumps my spirit. And while I am conscious enough to know this and do what I need to do to alter my state, I sometimes allow myself to dwell in the feeling for longer than I’d like.
Today was one such day. I got a trigger. Something that made my hair stand on end. I reacted so violently that I shocked myself. I got entirely lost in the moment of such utter despair and rage. Those emotions almost always are a mask to hide pain. So despite my previous effort in walking through it, of releasing it and forgiving myself and others, some residual pain clearly still lingered. I am disappointed that I chose to allow the old story to creep into my recently cleaned out system. And boy did it feel good to be a victim. I got alot of oohing and aahing from well intentioned friends which perpetuated my pity party and it lasted for hours. It was an exhaustive process trying to wrestle with my mind and heart.
To my benefit, I can call a spade a spade. Even if it’s applicable to my own stupidity. I’ve always been emotive so I allowed the feelings to come through like waves and instead of kicking, screaming and drowning myself, I just floated on waiting for it to subside.
I have learnt that even the most spiritually awake person will experience moments that test them to their core. When triggers happen, as they do, consider them to be tests of whether you’ve truly let go of the old story that’s become a narrative you know by heart. If you pass and stay focussed on the now, kudos to you. If, like me, you fail…well just have the awareness to call a timeout, feel the feeling, and move the fuck on.
The true beauty of presence is that while I may fall, I never stay down. And I’m actually ok with that. I don’t have tolerance for a spirituality that doesn’t encompass my humanness.
For me, while the ‘human’ aspect and the ‘being’ aspect have merged, operating from a ‘being’ level offers me an opportunity to be aware of where the old patterns emerge from and what to do to correct them. So even if the hissy fit is dramatic and causes a commotion, I have the insight and awareness to pull myself together one “I don’t give a fuck” at a time.
And that folks is the road to transformation.