Monthly Archives: May 2020

Lights, camera, action! Life is pretty much like being an actor in a movie or a play. As Shakespeare reminds us: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. However, unlike a movie or a play, where the actors have a script and are briefed about the scene and how they should act, life does not work that way. In the reality show that we are part of, we have no clue what the next scene will be. We can plan as much as we like, and tell ourselves that we are in control, but actually we have no idea what wild card will show up. That is simply the way it is. Life unfolds moment by moment, and we cannot alter the script. We just have to deal with what shows up.

A few months ago, a pandemic showed up in the script of our reality show, and millions of co-actors are currently on stage. Each one is acting out the scene in their own unique way. Some of us are resisting being part of this scene. We cannot understand why we need to go through this. We would like to think we are special. Bad things are not supposed to happen to us. Bad things are supposed to happen to bad people, not to us. We are decent people who live by the book, and we tell ourselves we are divinely insured against such situations. Also, we were quite happy in the bubble we had created for ourselves: Our job, house, family, cars and all our stuff. That is where we feel secure and safe, but now all of this is falling apart and we take it very personally. We feel sorry for ourselves. We feel exposed and humiliated, angry, confused, and disillusioned. Our bubble has burst, and we take it very personally. But we need to realise that it is nothing personal. It is not about good or bad. It is just life happening and it may be useful to remember that life is not happening to us, but  for us. That is how special we are.

We would not have been cast as part of this scene, if we did not stand to gain something from it. Not in a material sense, but spiritually. We would not have been around now, if we did not have what it takes. All we need to do is dig deep and give it our best shot. Face it, ride the wave. That is how we have made it thus far in this reality show. We are indeed special, but not in the sense that we are too good to experience difficult situations. We are special because, inside all of us, are all the skills and resources we can tap into that will get us through any difficult and challenging situation that arises.

But there is a caveat. We should not rely on our eyes and our ears in times of difficulty, particularly these days. Thanks to the media, and especially the social media, we are exposed to millions of views, opinions and suggestions, and we are desperately seeking a trustworthy and legitimate voice. The more we see and the more we hear, the more confused we are. Actually, this is just as well, because that is not where our direction should come from. Ask any good actor how they manage to deliver such a brilliant performance, and they will tell you that they have learned to cut out all the noise. They focus. They become still. They go within. They stay centered. They trust their intuition. That’s when the magic happens. It is an inside job.

This pandemic provides us with an opportunity to deliver our best performance yet, but the choice is ours. We can play the role of the victim, feel sorry for ourselves and try to withdraw into our safe bubble, or we can remember that we have what it takes and face life. All we need to do is to go within: Cut out all the fear-mongering images and voices, and listen to the wisdom of the heart for we will find all the solutions and answers we seek there.

One day we will look back at this time and how we handled it. May it then prove to have been one of our best performances ever.

Life is fascinating. Sometimes, something happens, and at first, it appears to be a bad thing, but then we later realize it was actually a good thing after all.

Once there was a family who had only one son. They were very poor. Their son was extremely precious to them, and the only thing that mattered to his family was that he would bring them some sort of financial support and prestige. One day, he was thrown from his horse and crippled. It seemed to them like the end of their lives. Two weeks later, the army arrived in the village and took away all the healthy, strong men to fight in the war, but this young man was allowed to stay behind and take care of his family.

Such is life. Things happen, like the current pandemic. Many of us struggle to see what is good about it. Our lives and our livelihood are disrupted. For many of us, it may feel as though our lives are falling apart. Many of us can identify with that. A phone rings in the wee hours of the morning, and there is a solemn voice on the other end, and your heart skips a beat. The doorbell rings, and a policeman or the minister with a sombre look on his face asks whether we have a moment. A doctor explains the devastating results of a scan. That moment when you learn that your partner is having an affair. That moment when you are told your services are no longer required. That moment when the bank calls up your loans. Those are the moments when our world falls apart. It feels as though we are standing on the edge of the unknown, having nothing to hold onto. Our minds race, as we try to find an explanation or a solution, while the fear is overtaking us.

Franklin D Roosevelt once said that the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. However, we need not fear fear – we just need to deal with it. Fear is not necessarily a bad thing. If we can manage to mindfully deal with fear, it can be useful, so it is okay to have fear. Fear can serve us. It is part of being human and being alive. When it feels as if our lives are falling apart and we are paralyzed by fear, it is helpful to remind ourselves:

Fear is a reaction. It is a reaction to a perceived threat. Remember that whatever we fear has not happened yet. Sure, I may have lost my job, but all those terrifying scenarios playing out in my mind of what the consequences of this will be are just that – fear-mongering scenarios. Bear in mind that fear can also be seen as an acronym for False-Evidence-Appearing-Real. The fact that I have lost my job does not mean I am going to end up living under a bridge. That is just a scenario concocted by fear. There is no evidence or proof that this will happen. Then why react to it as though it already has? Rather see it for what it is and spend no time there. It just creates more fear. Instead, stay calm, remain in the present, and tap into the inner resources that will carry you through a time like this. You have what it takes.

Fear wants to move us closer to the truth. If only we had the courage to remain with our fear for a while, and not try to escape the situation; this may reveal some truth to us. Instead of escaping from the situation by drowning our fears with some type of substance or with frantic busyness, perhaps we could try to name our fears and figure out what the real truth is. Perhaps our biggest fear is not that the relationship may end, but that we will be alone. Perhaps our biggest fear is not that we may lose our job, but that we feel incompetent to do anything else. Perhaps our biggest fear is not so much that we may run out of money, but that we fear the humiliation this may bring. Find the real fear. Find the real truth. Allow fear to help you uncover what you really fear and then deal with that.

So, is this pandemic a good thing or a bad thing? Surely, if my life is practically falling apart, it is a bad thing, right? Well, maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps we should wait a while before we answer that question because what if your life is not falling apart, but falling into place?

Life will never be the same again. When the lockdown started, we thought it was just a hick-up and that it would soon be business as usual. As the weeks turn into months, it is dawning on us that this is not going to be the case. We are, in fact, experiencing something this planet has never seen before. This is the time of the ‘Great Disruption’. Our lives are being turned upside-down and inside-out. The word ‘disruption’ comes from the Latin word disrumpere, which means to break apart, split, shatter, and break into pieces, and this may describe exactly how many of us feel at the moment.

This ‘Disruptor’ is a game-changer in all areas of our lives, and it is pushing us into the ‘big void’ – that scary place of living between already and not-yet. The old is already gone but the new is not yet here, and we have no idea how it will play out. Nothing is certain and not-knowing becomes our daily reality. This is normal in the land of the void. It is meant to be that way. We can either feel lost in this land of no certainties, or we can see it as a golden opportunity to give birth to something new.

You see, a void is a fantastic place, because that is where we have the most potential to create something radically new and wonderful. In the void, the best in us can come forward. Necessity is, after all, the mother of invention. We are by nature resourceful and creative beings, but we become complacent so easily. We often settle for second best, and then tell ourselves that it is not all that bad, or that we don’t have a choice. We tend to stick to our comfort zones, even when these come with some discomfort. We learn to become comfortable with our discomfort. We are often deadly unhappy, but tell ourselves that we should bear with it for now. We do it to survive. No, says the ‘Disruptor’: the aim of life should never be to just survive – instead, we should thrive. So let us take this time to think again. Perhaps we just became so good at lying to ourselves that we never dared to choose a different life for ourselves.

Let us use this void, this opportunity, to review our lives and start again. Make new choices. Start over. Give birth to something new. For many of us, our lives have become so disrupted that we have no other choice but to reinvent our lives. For others, it may not be that dramatic. Whatever is happening in our lives at the moment, we now have the opportunity for a new beginning. This crisis can prove to be our greatest gift, forcing us to take stock of our lives and start again. The only question is what the driving force is behind the choices we will be making going forward. There are essentially two options: we can either tap into fear or we can tap into our creative potential and create a life of meaning and fulfillment that makes us come alive.

We need to deal with our fear. Fear is not an incubator of new possibilities, but a defender of the status quo. It is not the go-to place for innovation. It preserves and limits. No inspirational masterpiece has ever been created from a place of fear. There is a real danger that we can miss this golden opportunity to reinvent our lives because we are debilitated by fear. This disruption of our lives should not turn into destruction, but rather into the construction of a new life.

One day, we will tell our grandchildren that we lived during the time of the Great Disruption of 2020. We will tell them about the lockdown, and how the world as we knew it was never the same after that. We will also tell them about our losses and the time of uncertainty, when we had to rethink and redesign our lives. We will tell them how we all had the opportunity to leave everything behind that prevented us from thriving. We will tell them that it was a time of new beginnings. We will tell them that some people grabbed the opportunity to reinvent their lives, whilst others were angst-ridden and fearful, and just wanted their old lives back. And they will then ask us: and what did you choose to do?

Everything starts with a thought. From the greatest invention to the most horrific act, it all starts with a thought. The human mind is a never-ending thought-producing and thought-processing device. The National Science Foundation published an article showing that the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. Here is a sobering thought, though: of those thousands of thoughts, 80% are negative, and 95% are exactly the same repetitive thoughts as we had had the day before.

This thinking device of ours is the first thing that is switched on when we wake up. Much like our computers, it only rests a bit when we go to sleep or when we meditate. Also, there is no such thing as a neutral thought. Every thought triggers an emotion. Like an electrical spark, it ignites a certain emotion. And that emotion always leads to some physical reaction in our bodies. If the emotion is one of fear, we would tend to stop breathing normally, clench our fists and jaws, develop a knot in the stomach, and start having heart palpitations. Conversely, if it is a positive and good thought, we feel relaxed and breathe normally.

When we talk about thoughts, it is useful to remember that the mind, the body, and the spirit are inextricably interconnected. When one is negatively affected, the other two will suffer too. If the mind is not healthy, the other two will be pulled out of balance. It is no wonder that, throughout all the ages, the sages and the scriptures have been cautioning us to ‘mind our minds’ – in other words, to be very conscious of what is happening in our thought world, and also to become aware of the source of our thoughts. A motto well known in the computer world is worth remembering here: ‘garbage in garbage out’.  We need to become smarter by avoiding or at least minimizing negative input. Keep in mind, news bulletins and the media are not in the business of making us feel good. I have yet to come across anyone who has felt uplifted or inspired after watching the evening news or reading the paper.

Let us think about our minds as a beautiful and precious garden that requires our conscious attention because we know that the seeds we allow to be sown there will bring forth exactly the harvest according to the nature of these seeds. Every piece of information coming in is like a seed looking for fertile soil in which to grow. The more tolerant the soil is of negativity, the greater the likelihood for more negative seeds to take root and flourish. Fear is a good example of this. Currently, we are being constantly bombarded with fear-driven information and alarming statistics. If we buy into this, it becomes fertile soil for more negative seeds to germinate and, before we know it, our gardens will be overgrown with weeds of fear and worry. This then becomes our garden. From the moment we wake up in the morning, we are back in our garden of fear, worry and anxiety, and our health and overall well-being are compromised.

If ever there was a time to mind our minds, it is now. We need to become mindful like never before. We need to become conscious observers and guardians of our minds. We humans have this unique ability to be conscious of the fact that we are conscious. We have a ‘higher’ intelligence in us that makes us aware of our own thoughts. How amazing is that? We can think about what we are thinking about! Since we can observe our garden, we can change our thinking.

When times are tough and the future is uncertain, the seeds of worry, fear and hopelessness tend to flourish and take over the garden. So this is a good time to do some gardening, by walking through the garden of our mind and identifying the sources of our negative thinking (the weeds) that dominate our mind. Once we have identified the source, we can avoid it. Let’s not use our minds as a dumping ground for someone to offload their fear-driven agendas. Let us stand sovereign over our own minds, free to understand and perceive things as we see fit; let us draw our own conclusions and shape our own truths. Let us be free to live boldly rather than being diminished by fear. We are called upon to tend rigorously to our gardens. We reap what we sow. Let’s nurture the life-giving and soul-inspiring thoughts, and weed out the rest.