Dissonance
Life is life's best teacher it turns out and lessons that you've already learned circle back to be learned again in new circumstances or more challenging ones. I excel at second hand learning, but life lived vicariously only gets you so far, whether in love, heartache, or growth.
At a distance, it makes sense that big change can be tumultuous, and tumult is, in fact, expected. But the lived experience can be astoundingly unsettling, causing you prior action, even if it arose from a deep knowing. Even more disturbing is when your output to center yourself is unparalleled, but still insufficient. What then? How do you move forward? Should you seek to go back to what was? How do you know when everything seems so turned upside down? How do you know when you're in unchartered territory - territory that is all your own because you are invested in living your own journey, not a formula, and that's how you found yourself here?
If you're like me, you long for peace, contentment, joy and happiness. So when those are in short supply and your wellness practices, your spiritual disciplines are your regular companion, what do you do? When your therapist says you're doing great, but you just feel so unsteady? When you cycle through so many thoughts and emotions so fast?
Last night something helpful came to me while talking to a family friend about circumstances where we are yearning for discernment and resolution to conflict. I was processing and hoping to assist in her situation and stumbled into pure self-help. It's recent so I don't yet know how it will play out, but it feels quite hopeful, likely because it feels orienting.
There is bound to be dissonance when we seek to create new, healthier, truer patterns that go against the culture of a relationship, organization, community, or belief that is unhealthy and needs to change. The upheaval is not a sign of error, but resistance from the inertia of the status quo. Through the process of persevering with our practices through the resistance of old patterns, we allow for the possibility of real transcendence in our relationships, our organizations, our communities, and our beliefs. That feels good. That feels right. Time will tell. I'll keep you posted.
May you always see the blessing.
-Elle