We humans love sticking to our ideals. We like to think of ourselves always certain, decisive, forward-thinking and level headed individuals who win at life in general. When we don’t live up to our self-imposed ideals, however, we begin to house within us experiences that made us feel inadequate and use them to evaluate new situations, as a way to ensure we don’t feel inadequate again. The brain does an amazing job at evoking fear in an effort to keep us safe. The problem is, if we don’t allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable, spiritual growth won’t occur.

Any experience we had was only a point in time when several, multi-faceted dimensions of realities collided in order to make that one moment possible. For example, if I went to a friend’s house and had an embarrassing experience – one where I couldn’t find the right words to answer a bully, for example – my brain would catalog that experience as one that made me uncomfortable, and one that I would try to avoid in the future. I may even judge myself and think things like “I never know what to say during such times! How are others so witty and sharp-tongued! I’ll never be like them!” But when I do that, I limit my horizons, box myself by prematurely defining myself, and stump my own spiritual and emotional growth.

According to The Art of Possibility inside us live many versions of ourselves, one of whom is the calculating self, which is concerned with survival, being right, measuring interactions and ensuring victory. The other is the central self, which recognizes that life is ever-changing:

“[For the central self] life moves with fluidity like a constantly varying river, and so do we. Confident that it can deal with whatever comes its way, it sees itself as permeable rather than vulnerable, and stays open to influence, to the new and the unknown. Under no illusion that it can control the movement of the river, it joins rather than resists its bountiful flow.” (The Art of Possibility, p. 96)

What a beautiful, graceful, and freeing way to live and experience life’s ups and downs!

Old dogs can learn new tricks – they just need to keep their mind permeable and expansive by freeing themselves of their calculating self. Whenever a bad memory has stayed with us, it is because it represented who we were and how we reacted at that point in time in our spiritual journey. Does that define who we are? No, because we are meant to experience an infinite number of events in our lives – each of which will change us. Should we identify with one stagnant version of ourselves forever? No, because we are constantly changing, learning, and growing.

We need to recognize that feelings we felt and decisions we made (right or wrong) only reflect who we were at the time. Humbly accepting that we made the decisions we did / felt the feelings we felt because of the information available to us in real-time, we can cultivate flexibility in our approach which will encourage us to lead lives of grace, forgiveness, compassion, and optimism.