Stepping stone to the next decade-2020!

Hello all,

Namaste! I want to let my blog readers know about my new website-swaroopa.net. Very simple id, not the complicated blog id address. Wishing all my blog readers a very Happy New year and a fantastic decade ahead! May all of us find the inspiration in our Soul to capture the very best potential for ourselves! Now to the post.

A very Happy New Year!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

Every year we religiously welcome our New year by attending fireworks, seeing balls drop and having great time with family and friends. We make new year resolutions and try to keep them. The specialty about this year is it is ushering in the new decade. But many times by the middle of the year, we are back to our old ways and forget every thing about our new year resolutions and decisions.

Comfort zone: Why does it become so tough to stick to a resolution and make the change? If we have decided, shouldn't we be able to do it? This is the super power of the subconscious mind. It relishes in the comfort we are feeling. A question had come on Quora for which I had written an answer with an example. I would like to use the same example here.

Why is it so difficult to make a change, that too deep change in our life? Each of us, let us think about our home. Why do we feel so comfortable? That is the energy the home encloses, the coziness of the home and the hearth. We can be ourselves, as we want within our home. We don't have to maintain a professional front. The comfort of the personal space.

Now, think of this home as having a cozy bed, tea and biscuits, a foot warmer shoe and fantastic people to keep us company. This is inner ambience. If outside the home,if we are not sure of this coziness, would we venture out? No. This is the same case about a new routine we want to form and an old, we are comfortable with. The second we try to incorporate a new change, the subconscious mind that was enjoying the status quo is going to resist.

Here we try to incorporate using our logical mind. So, as per our logic we try to push through with the change. The subconscious pushes back with ten times the strength. As we keep this push and pull play, the tug of war becomes too much, and we just leave the resolution to the wayside and go back to our old routine. The power of the subconscious mind.

If it is alongside us, it is the greatest friend we can have and if it is working against us, it is the deepest enemy within us. This is the might of the massive subconscious mind. We as humans don't even know our mind. So, how can we know something that is deep hidden within our psyche?

The coziness of our comfort zone!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

With each new change, we have to step out of our comfort zone. When we were in the baby stage, to become a toddler we had to start crawling, got up holding to something and started to walk. Yes, we  tumbled down many times. But we still kept at it. If the babies hadn't been courageous to take those first steps, all of us would have been still on our backs, lying on the beds as adults. The same way after the toddler stage, we have to let it go and capture the next challenge- school. To go to school, we sure have to leave the comfort of the home behind. That is why many kids cry going to school. It is love of the comfort zone. The same way college, then job, career and like this we have to step into each new stage leaving the old stage behind.

Fear: But something we acquired along the way that we didn't have during our early years was the vice of fear. The fear of stepping out of our comfort zone. The challenge of stepping out of a cozy, comfortable home to the monsoon, hurricane or a tempest. Reality of the outside may be, there are beautiful valleys with cows grazing, gushing water falls or fresh wind blowing gently. Of course this is metaphorical.

The reality outside the comfort zone may be nothing to fear. It may be just the next step we have to take with a leap of faith. But as long as we are sitting within our home, comfort zone, how can we ever know what is outside? This is how fear many times deeply ties each one of us down. Compared to all the other vices, our own internal fear many times destroys the chances we ever have at something new- whether it is education, career, relationships or life path.

The true path each of us are supposed to walk, many times is not easy. Each time we would be asked to step out of our comfort zone. To tackle and keep our fear controlled. The path challenges you, "Okay, you are planning to take a new step. Are you courageous enough? Can you push yourself out of the comfort zone?" This is the biggest challenge everybody faces with their own life. Of course, above this comes many outside circumstances, which we may have no control over.

There are people who lose everything in a flood or a fire. Now, their new challenge becomes to build everything from scratch. Here, instead of them taking a step to a new zone, life itself just shoves them out of the comfort zone. This is where we as a being has to show our bravery. The next step that shows up created by our own desire or due to some mishaps. It can be viewed in two ways. As an opportunity to step into the next stage of growth or crib about the 'olden/golden' days we lost.

It is just the way our mind perceives. In life, circumstances show up. That is how it is. Many times we may not have control over it. But the 'control' we have is over ourselves. How are we going to respond? We can take it as a lesson towards growth and expand our life or being fearful get stuck in the comfort zone and contract our life. The choice is in our hands.

The one thing I have realized nowadays is, whichever path we are on, if it is supported by the Universal energy, it always asks us to expand. But any day it is time to change our path and move towards a new direction, the support from the source starts to contract. That path is not more the best for us. We start to feel blocked, tired or with less energy. The energy we have comes from the Soul, our deepest core, the spiritual realm. 

The path we are meant to walk!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

The divine sitting within us if decides, that is enough experiences for me in this current path, it pulls the plug on the support. Now, if we are trying to pursue the same path, we are blocked with experiences that won't allow or cuts short our path. But even here to take the new path we are guided towards, we have to overcome our own innate fear. As we have discussed many times before the way we are conditioned also play against us taking bold actions.

New year: In a sense a new year really doesn't matter. It is just another day or time in a long eternal string of time. But what is different is, the idea or thought of fresh energy of a new year has dawned in the minds of a lot of people of the world. The collective consciousness, energy of each mind thinking about a new year. The energy and fresh perspective on a new year. That is indeed a lot of energy. The energy of a huge mass of consciousness.

This group energy changes the dynamics. This is true about anything taken in a massive scale, whether joyful things like a celebration, festival or New year or fear generating things like massacres, shoot-outs or terrorist actions. In both cases the energy is humongous in proportions consisting of many minds. The true power in an energetic sense. Now, it becomes different.

The New year becomes very much a time of new start, fresh energy and amazing possibilities. So, here there is the support of the collective consciousness. Collective consciousness by virtue of being part of divine energy, the support of the source is granted. So, when the energy is very supportive it becomes easier to make a deep change than another time when it is just one single human being striving.

But here also, the energy is just surrounding us. But to bring the change into our own physical existence we have to take actions with our mind, limbs and the sense organs. It is like the coffee powder, sugar, water and milk are provided, sitting in our kitchen. But if we want to make the coffee, we have to get up from our comfy sofa, go to the kitchen, boil or microwave the water, add milk, sugar and coffee. Even this is not enough. We have to pour into a cup, hold it in our hands, bring to our mouth and drink it.

If we are sitting and just observing the coffee, water, milk and sugar, how would we get the coffee. The coffee does not get made. To make the energy work for our life, we should have the mind, will and intentions to get up from our comfort zone and take the step into the unknown. A leap of faith! A courageous bold move, whatever our life is insisting us to do, wherever our life is pushing us to go.

A stepping stone to a new decade: Many times we don't understand the reality of the life. Whatever the last decade or previous decades brought is now just in our memory. It has been two days since the new year started. Even those new year celebrations have become part of our memory. We also have no idea what the next second or the next hour is going to bring. That is the future, yet to come. We cannot go the past and change our actions. We also cannot go into the future and make our actions. So, the only moment we truly have is the 'Now'.

The stepping stones that lead to our unique destiny!
Image credits - Pixabay.com

A string of 'nows' come through our life. Even if it a moment, minute, month, year or a decade, it matters, what we do in the 'now'. How are we capturing our moments? That decides whether our minute, month, year or decade is adding value to our life. Moments and moments, come and go. But value added actions, keeps on building up our life, one brick at a time. Each brick becomes a tiny part of the whole.

Each brick leads to the next one, the next and the next. Here another thing we need to note. While we are creating these bricks, let each brick bring us joy. These moments can be captured in two ways as well, just for us alone, selfishly or with a whole lot of other people. When we look back at the accomplishments later, shouldn't we have a few souls who enjoy the accomplishments and achievements along with us? That way when we later look back at the value we made for ourselves, our family, our friends, community and the greater world itself, we feel a deep sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.

So, then it becomes imperative, while we motivate and encourage ourselves, we also spread that 'magical pixie dust' all around so that, everyone around us is capturing their own very best selves. This life itself is very tough with its own struggles and hassles. In between if we can create a small heaven for ourselves and those surrounding us, by virtue of everyone doing their part, the whole globe would become the heaven we all are searching for.

The heaven we are searching, first starts within us, by creating value for ourselves. Then that small piece of heaven we bring out into our life and share with others. As long as we don't find the peace and joy within us, we can't find it anywhere in this whole wide world. That is the truth! So, while capturing each moment of our own joy, we need to make sure those around us are capturing their own joy in their own way. 

Each one is unique. So, each one finds joy in very different things. Joseph Campbell, the great American mythologist wrote, "Follow your bliss"! That bliss each one gets from their own inner motivation. Bliss- Ananda in Vedic philosophy. The pure joy of the heart. In our pursuit of pure material things many times we ignore or throw away things that give us that Ananda. After a few decades we see that our own life has become a life less shell.

So, it becomes very important to pursue things that give us joy of the heart. That should be the spark that leads us to place every tiny brick, every moment, adding value to the overall physical experience on this material plane. That decides whether we had a well lived life or just mere existence. So, in this stepping stone to the new decade, let all of us find the courage to take bold steps that bring deep value to our own life and our surrounding Souls, where each moment lead to a well worth decade that bring in at the very end a well lived life! 

Finishing with a suggestion,

Quote of Joseph Campbell!
Image credits - Brainyquote.com

Once more wishing every one a very Happy New year! I wish you a good weekend and I'll see you next Friday! 😉

Next week: Walls transformed to doors!
Credits: Pixabay.com and Brainyquote.com