I want to talk about the human experience. You know, this sensory-filled experience with all kinds of feels. In spiritual traditions around the world, teachers are held in high regard for the work they’ve done to transcend the human experience and the ego.
But they are still human.
And we are kidding ourselves if we think we can escape this human experience by transcending it. The real work here - as humans - is to be human (it’s not all that surprising is it?).
That means embracing all the parts of us including our shadows, pain and our gifts. All of these traits are what makes you, well..... you.
Embracing our humanity is a fast-track way towards deep learning and deep Love (don't even get me started on the word "sin" and how it has us pushing pieces of ourselves away vs. embracing them! More on that in a future email...).
To be clear, I’m not suggesting you should be grateful for every moment. No... that would simplify the depth of your experience and quite possibly encourage you to bypass your suffering (heard of spiritual bypassing?). The human experience includes suffering - it’s part of life. But what’s worth really looking at, is how you have responded to your life and to your suffering... because these responses create your story. Your big story… you know… your life story.
One of the things we do as humans is storify - which is my made-up word (yup) to explain how we use our stories to create our identity. Stories are really important to us (we are literally fed stories instead of milk in the weaning process) and the stories we tell ourselves create a big slice of our reality.
Here's where we have some wiggle room in this storifying habit:
It’s not about what happened in your life, but instead, how do you integrate/translate it?
What stories do you tell most often (inside your head or outside - both ways have an effect) and how do these stories define you?
Our stories are a way to tell our brains (and in turn our bodies) what our reality is. Do you know what the coolest thing about these crazy brains of ours is?
They’re totally changeable (!!)... So if we change our stories, we change our brain and our reality.(Whoa right?!)
Does this sound like a simple way to create change?
It can be.
It just doesn't happen overnight. To change deeply set stories we need deep reflection, time and most of all, external support, so we can identify when a story is showing up in sneaky ways (because when it's our story, we don't always see it).
Stay tuned for the next post with more on our brain's inner workings and how to create the change that you desire. Hint - it's called neural plasticity.
In the meantime, if you need support doing your version of human, I'm here for it. Connect and let me know what you struggle with in your stories.