Living Long, Living Passionately. Karen Casey
16
Teachers of Perspective
Perhaps you haven't thought much about the role perspective has played in your life prior to reading these essays. But it's been a big one, I assure you, and over the years you have honed either a positive perspective or a negative one to near perfection. Whichever one we most often grab in the heat of the moment painstakingly paints the perspective we have about life. The good news is that we can more consciously choose to paint, thus project, a positive perspective, assuring that the “picture” that is us will be far different from what it was. Nothing stands in our way but our failure to make a different choice. In your life, who influences your perspective?
Let's pause a moment and think about the many people who show up on our path regularly. They are not showing up willy-nilly. Some are frequent visitors; quite possibly we envy a few of them because of their demeanor. Maybe they are easygoing, most commonly happy and willing to be helpful to others, all traits we admire. Many are family members, some of whom we look forward to seeing. Some not so much. The nosy neighbor drops in too. Don't ever discount her or dismiss him as unimportant to the development of your perspective, even though you may dread seeing them approach your door. You might be looking at one of your most important teachers whose every action or word is nurturing your willingness to be more accepting, a decision that shifts your perspective from negative to positive. This may be the very reason they are in your life.
On the other hand, maybe you are serving as their teacher, the one who can help them shift their negative perspective into one that is more genial. Demonstrating a new way of seeing may change everything that follows from this day forward in his or her life. No encounter is superfluous. That fact is worth rejoicing over. From the moment I embraced that idea, I was free of the dread I felt about every person who troubled me in the past, particularly those who had manhandled my perspective.
Because it's a worthy pursuit to make a list of our many teachers to date, list the primary ones in your journal, and acknowledge the specific gift that resulted from their presence on your path. And remember, not all gifts looked good when first received.
For example: Echo was one of my teachers. She was the first to introduce me to the concept of sacred contracts, an idea that was fortified by reading books by Caroline Myss. Initially I was frightened by the idea, but over time, this idea has completely freed me from the prison of guilt I felt over some of my past behavior. I know now that everything I did and everyone I met were agreed upon before I woke up in this world.
Now it's your turn to consider your teachers. The importance of this can't be overemphasized. Pick your primary teachers, regardless of how you evaluated them initially. What demonstrates they were teachers?
Now let's turn the tables and consider all those for whom you served as teacher. Don't underestimate your value to them. Your paths intersected quite by design. You had talent or knowledge or compassion that was very much needed by them at a particular time. They would not have appeared otherwise. If you are failing to think of anyone right away, take a timeout to meditate on your life and the many people you met.
Folks have not quit seeking you out, even though youth has passed you by. Who are they and what have you shared lately? The student/teacher exchange lasts a lifetime. A full lifetime.
Without a doubt, your life has been well lived. Some actions might have been improved upon. Some “students” handled with greater mastery and compassion. And your lessons were offered more than adequately. Often we still have one lingering thought about our past that haunts us. Feel free to share it here, for no eyes but your own. The very sharing of it is the best way to bid it goodbye.
17
Seeking Solitude
Seeking solitude as preparation for “changing our minds” opens the door to our future. Meditation is too little valued. “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large,” says Confucius. Without much effort, every one of us can have a positive impact on the world at large. It's as simple as choosing our thoughts with greater care. Every thought that we hover over becomes a bit more indelible, and when the thought that has taken center stage in our minds is an expression of love, we are affecting the universe in a good and peaceful way.
But not one of us is forever free from the occasional dark thought or dismissive demeanor; and when the inevitable happens (and it always does), our job is to quickly acknowledge what we are harboring in our minds and seek, at once, to shift our perception, to change our mind, in order to be better stewards of the universal mind. What a lofty job description.
I cherish this awareness in this last quarter of my life. Why? Because it means my life, my very existence, will never become superfluous to the constant hum of the world around me. Not one of us is without purpose, even when our contributions seem minimal to us. An expression of love, an act of kindness, a prayer for a friend or even a stranger, are the activities that change the world, making it more inhabitable moment by moment. And there isn't one among us who is incapable of offering one tiny gesture.
Before going one thought more, let's pause and consider what has transpired in our minds already since arising this morning. Let's consider each thought we have harbored so we can make whatever adjustment is necessary to ensure that we are impacting our world in a loving, healthy way.
Let's revisit our day so far.
What thought are you now uncomfortable with?
What thought do you wish you had coddled instead?
How different might your day be looking right now if you had been more protective of your thinking process?
How fortunate that what we thought only a moment ago holds no sway over us at this moment, unless we allow it to. This surely doesn't seem like a very profound realization, but it's one I didn't cotton to, and for sure never embraced, for the first four decades of my life. I so willingly gave my mind away, to whomever was nearby, sharing whatever opinion, pleasant or unpleasant, was being expressed. I was a chameleon. And I didn't even know it. Having a mind, a life of my own, was a foreign concept. I was sure that if my thoughts ran counter to yours, I'd soon be discarded for a more agreeable woman, a fear greater than the fear of death. Greater than the fear of death. What a powerful, lingering admission. And I didn't even recognize how little I thought of myself.
But now I do. Now you do too, or you wouldn't be interested in or comforted by this book. What thought are you trading in at this very moment? Perhaps a thought that served you very well last year but fits no longer. Let me share one of mine so that you get my meaning. In past years, I was prone to politely, but swiftly, letting others know when I didn't share their political or religious views. I wasn't bent on arguing, but I felt that if I said nothing when a companion shared his or her view, they might think I agreed with them. And if I didn't, I wanted them to know. I have gladly given up that idea. I may share where I am at, but more likely I'll let the moment pass. And it has empowered me, a realization I had not counted on. (There will be more on this topic in later essays.) Now it's your turn.
What thought or action can you let go of? And what can you replace it with?
Our personal power is hefty. Honoring it is both good for us and good for those who look to us as teachers.
Let's get back to meditation for a minute. That's where this essay began. In our quiet moments, we can fashion the person we want to be. With eyes closed, we can envision her holding forth