Growth
I saw a brilliant quote on Instagram that went along the lines of:
“The most important spiritual growth doesn’t happen when you’re meditating or on a yoga mat. It happens in the midst of conflict - when you’re frustrated, angry or scared and you’re doing the same old thing, and then you suddenly realise that you have a choice to do it differently.”
Growth comes when we are willing to see, and then adjust, our behaviours, responses, belief systems and programming. It happens in that split second when we notice we’re about to retaliate out of anger, when we’re about to shrink away in fear or when we’re about to bury ourselves under the negative thoughts we have about who we are. In that very moment of noticing, we then have a choice to make. We can continue with those old ways of being, whether because, although not serving us, they’re familiar and comfortable (sadly we will often choose familiar pain than the growing pains that can come with transformation!), or we can choose differently. We can choose compassion and level-headedness over anger, we can choose courage over fear and we can change the narrative about who we know ourselves to be.
The thing is, all of this relies on one thing: awareness. In order to change something, we first need to be aware that it is there. You can’t fix what you can’t see! The ability to have awareness over our thoughts, feelings and actions comes from having a practice that allows us to regularly quieten down and reconnect with the witness we all have within. When we are seated from this witness/awareness space, we can begin to notice. We begin to shed light on what may need to be shifted. From there, we can begin to act. But before any of that is possible, we must be grounded, regularly, in a place of being, having taken a step back from the surface level thinking activity, and into the ever-silent, yet all knowing aspect of ourselves. Each time we meditate, we do this. We step back into the witness space and we create a gap between our true, underlying Self, and the self that is generated by past experiences - all the thoughts, ideas, opinions and beliefs we have, that usually aren’t all that evolutionary or supportive of our best selves. From there, we can act in accordance with our higher good. In Vedic philosophy we have a phrase that sums the whole thing up well:
Established in Being, perform action.