If the Buddha Got Stuck_ A Handbook for Change on a Spiritual Path - Charlotte Sophia Kasl [71]
Some relationships may begin to ebb if you start to take better care of yourself. Just as all life is in motion, it’s natural to have a shift in friendships, while maintaining the treasured ones that endure.
You can also learn to manage your energy in difficult relationships you want to maintain because of history or family ties. For example, if visiting a cantankerous parent in a nursing home leaves you feeling undone, create strategies to protect your energy: go less often, go more often for less time, take a friend with you, arrive at three and say you have an appointment at four, bring a story to read or some music to play, or ask her to tell stories about her childhood.
It can also help to talk with other people in similar situations to relieve your guilt. Most of all, stop saying things such as, “I should like visiting her, she’s my mother.” Guilt is very dense energy. The truth is you don’t like visiting her, and that’s reality. It doesn’t make you a bad person; it’s just “what is.” To soften your heart you can send prayers, cards, light energy, and good wishes but remember to send them to yourself as well.
We manage our energy so we can enjoy life and feel the aliveness that we are. We de-junk our lives, be it things, relationships, rituals, or habits, so we can be free.
That which restricts our living, loving, thinking, and feeling is junk, be it a thing, habit, person, place or position. Anything that builds, edifies, enriches our spirit—that makes us truly happy regardless of how worthless it may be in cash terms—isn’t junk.
—DON ASLETT,CLUTTER’S LAST STAND
44. Focus on Everything You Have to Gain by Taking Action
Some people get jump-started into taking action because they hit bottom, to use an addiction expression, and feel terrified. They may be whacked with many painful consequences of their behavior, have several brushes with death, or experience life as so pervasively awful, empty, and exhausting that they finally get motivated to do something hard to make it better. Hopefully many of us will make change before getting to this point.
One way to energize yourself to start something new is to focus on all you have to gain by making changes in your life. It’s like looking forward to the exhilaration you’ll feel at the end of a run, having a reliable car because you saved enough money to buy it, feeling closer to your loved ones because you took time to talk over difficulties, getting a better job after you finish school, feeling the delight of a cleaned-up home. It’s about casting your vision into the big picture of your life instead of hanging on to the small comforts of lying on the couch, watching TV, drinking, or not exerting yourself to look for a better job or get more education. You might ask yourself, “How will I feel if my life is the same in one year? in five? in ten?”
I live in a town full of transplants, many of whom passed through, fell in love with the place, and uprooted themselves to be in this beautiful valley intersected by two rivers and surrounded by mountains full of hiking trails. The prevailing feeling is that people are happy to be here—they feel excited, grateful, and lucky. It creates a sparkling atmosphere that fosters creativity and community involvement.
What are the dreams drifting around in the recesses of your mind? What is your image of the life you’d like? Bring these thoughts to the forefront and imagine how you would feel if you took a step in that direction . . . and then another one.
Do any of the following thoughts resonate with you as you