There’s your life, then there’s the story of your life.
Watercolor by NW
“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story instead of the actor in it.” (Baba Ram Dass)
Okay, what does that mean, being witness to the story instead of the actor in it? It means changing our perspective. Altering our perception. It means becoming the Watcher of yourself instead of only the player. Awareness of yourself on the stage of life, acting out the play, participating in the game, while watching the whole thing play out from a seat in the audience. So for instance if something upsetting happens, instead of tearing out your hair, you might say, oh, isn’t this interesting? It’s the difference between feeling helpless over events that occur, simply at effect of them, and instead knowing you are at cause of them. That for some reason you created the situation to further your growth. It’s the difference between being conscious and being unconscious.
This show is about being a few steps removed from your reality. It’s a little like “being in the world, but not of it,” that famous line of the Christ. Coming from that place of the observer.
I think though, that if you are not connected to the heart energy, feeling your oneness with the “other,” with the “all that is,” it can come across in a negative way as disassociation. We don’t want that. We want to be able to feel everything, but not get caught up uncontrollably in emotions. It’s better if part of ourselves can always be aware on the outside, observing, oh, this is what I’m feeling now. So as not to get swept up and go unconscious.
Yet this feeling of being swept has its uses and its time. There is getting swept up while painting or creating a piece of music. Just letting yourself go. Getting lost for a while in the feelings and emotions. I used to do that a lot when I was painting. Listening to music while I was working helped me get into the right brain where I was able to pull out all the stops and reach into my deep subconscious for feelings and ideas that were normally hidden from me. It was like going into a state of deep meditation, beyond the mind. Some of us have also experimented with psychedelic drugs at one time or another just to get into that state. The key word here is experimented. Using the drugs as a tool at a certain stage of the game in order to go beyond the usual borders of mind. Because what we really want to do is to be able to get there ourselves, without foreign substances, even if our experience is only a fraction of what it was on drugs. It’s the difference between being drunk on life and drunk on alcohol.
“The conscious mind is not the decider of reality—it is the experiencer of reality.” (David Icke)
There are all sorts of tricks and exercises to get ourselves into that mode of perception. One is to look at your life as a research project. “I came here to study xyz, and now this is me, studying xyz.” You can only play this particular game if you have already perceived yourself as conscious on other planes, so already this exercise assumes a certain level of awareness. And even when we’re not there, not at the place where we would to be, we can always act as if. What if I was here on a research project, given my particular set of circumstances just in order to see what I would do with them?
It’s the kind of thinking that takes away all thoughts of this is good, or this is not so good, or this is terrible. It just is what it is. And we take it from there, leaving behind judgments and the separation that judgment causes.
It’s the difference between thinking things just happen to us, that we have no power, no control to make anything different. It’s the difference between feeling helpless, and knowing that we have manifested our reality. That we are the creators of our reality.
So you might be thinking, I didn’t choose this! Why would I have chosen this awful set of circumstances? That’s what I used to think about my life. I always thought of myself as a good person. Someone that good things should happen to. I certainly didn’t wish anyone else any harm, so why should I have been so harmed? Did God hate me? I didn’t usually think that. But I did get into the bad habit of thinking there was something terribly wrong and bad about me that I should experience so much emotional pain. About fifty percent of the time I had such a feeling of helplessness over my circumstances. The other fifty percent of the time I was alright and able to keep moving forward.
For me, painting became the tool that allowed me to get beyond my little self, the self that was buffeted about in the waves, thrown hither and yon with no capability of steering the ship. I found that when I could paint a still life or a landscape, I could feel in control of my circumstances. Before we can let go of control, we first have to experience a sense of control. You can’t let go of what you don’t already have.
Painting was the first step of the journey. It gave me the awareness of the conscious mind not being the decider of reality, but the experiencer of it, as in David Icke’s quote. I was able to observe reality and decode it for my own purposes. But in order to get closer to the truth of my own reality, I had to learn how to write. And then I had to learn how to make a story out of my life.
What I have termed Story-Me is the short form of “make-it-into-a-story.” It means taking an episode from your life, something memorable because of the emotions attached to it, and creating a story around it, a narrative that doesn’t part with the facts of the situation, but one in which you observe as a witness instead of as the main character, or the one being done to.
When you Story-Me, you take your experience to a different level. It could be an experience with painful memories, that we heal by changing our perception of what happened. How different things appear once we change the lens in the viewfinder!
“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story instead of the actor in it.” (Baba Ram Dass)
For one thing, life suddenly becomes more like play. Hmmm, you might be thinking, what will he/she do next? How will he/she resolve this situation? Life begins to be more interesting.
When you are able to create your life as a story, you are beginning to see your life as an art-form.
Bashar: from the you tube video – On Abundance and Trusting What Is:
“The first art form to master is simply being here, now, with what is happening. Trusting that what is happening is happening for a reason. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be happening. So if you are willing to accept that whatever part of the process is happening, is happening for the purpose of putting you more in touch with yourself, so that you can expand, and get that reflection back of your expansion, then you’ll be excited about anything the process has to show you. It will actually be experienced as a piece of performance art. And by getting into it and diving into it and being the performance artist and the art piece itself, then you will allow it to move very quickly through you, to process it very rapidly, because you’re willing to accept everything that’s happening to you as necessary, as part of the piece, as part of the art. As something to look at, as something to investigate, as something that will increase your understanding of who and what you are as a co-creator. If you look at it that way and stay in that energy, believe me, very quickly, you will explode in many different directions, and your reality will explode towards you, with many different things that will support you. ”
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of Story-Me, the way it alters our perception, is the way we are able to change our view of the past. The past is not unalterable, written in stone. The past is a moveable beast, shifting with the currents of our present. The facts may stay the same, but the story is all in the telling.
The more you can story your past experiences, the more you will be able to create the story of your future. It will be a story of the soul, and soul lessons. Something that takes our self-understanding to a whole new level.
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Thanks for your comment Talasan.
You’re so right about looking within.
Do you think we’re really taught to only look at the bad though? I was just watching The Wizard of Oz again the other night, remembering how much it uplifted me as a child. Still does!
Absolutely, your conscious makes up your story. You control your life, but you have to look away from the illusions of “reality” and into yourself to figure this out.
We’re taught to look at the bad, not the good. I guess that’s what separates the aware and the unaware.
June 27, 2010 at 10:18 am