We need to come to understand that life is also happening to you. You are ‘being-done’ as the Sufi’s used to say. A human life is not a one-sided deal, where we alone get to make all the choices and decisions that will lead us to where we are going. Science and religion are starting to agree that we are all moving towards a place of inner awakening, expanded awareness and consciousness. Whether we like it or not. When you Discover the Universal Recovery Clock, you start to realize that it seems to insist on moving us from birth, through life’s challenges, which will include some inevitable suffering, towards a better understanding of ourselves, Creator and Creation and reality itself.
THE RECOVERY CLOCK
Imagine that your life is like a giant chronometer. Visualize a regular clock face that we can use to map out our lives. The parts we are in control of the parts that are as they are, like puberty, growing up and brain development. It has been ticking from the moment you started forming a body. Right from when you were less than the eye could see, as a single zygote protoplasmic cell. Carl Jung was one of the first people to explain what he saw as the first and second halves of life. Bear in mind these halves are not chronological.
They suggest in the first half of life we build up an ego and defences and then, in the apparent obscurity and absurdity of life, we then learn to let that go, as the quote opening this chapter suggests. But many are addicted to the first half of life, and even to the not letting go of what they have created of it. This is real and raw addiction. We are addicted to our thinking not our drinking. Everything from the twelves steps of alcoholics anonymous to almost every religion, philosophy and system that has been created that are invariably about letting go and change. This may suggest that this pattern of the two halves has always been around, and has been something that every human being is destined to traverse and journey through.
Life is much like a clock. First of all it only goes one way, moving from one, down to six and then back up to twelve o’clock. There is nothing you can do as a human to stop completely. Just like you it can’t stop while it’s alive. Our minds, bodies and emotions are buzzing twenty four hours a day. There is always movement towards something. Life is always unfolding. Even at death your body will continue to decompose and return to the earth, without your help. There is a definite pattern to life. We all start out in one way and then end up one way. All of us, no exception. Life unfolds in a countless series of forms, both good and bad. Both tragic and epic. Both beautiful and ugly.
PREGNANT WITH POSSIBILITY
Have you ever noticed the look on a pregnant mothers face as she has given birth. Notice how their expressions are all so similar at the moment of birth, as they are passed their child and fall into a restful state of motherly bliss. These expressions uniformly hold a most wonderful look of peace, and you can see it again and again through many births. As the child takes their first breath of life, the big journey of life, bliss and suffering begins. A journey that we can metaphorically liken to a clock.
Generally speaking, at around three years old, psychology tells us that we make one of the biggest decisions of our lives. We decide whether the world is a malevolent and violent place, or a good place to live. This decision is part of what shapes our reality as we grow up towards having to make similar decisions at pinnacle times of our lives again. Even this decision of recovery you are embarking on, can be a pivotal and life changing tipping point that changes everything.
How to Recover Spiritually from Life.
As early as three am on the clock we start to move away from ourselves. As we grow we become obsessed with competition. We become nasty trying to get ahead. We are desperate to be loved, noticed and recognized as beautiful talented, smart and loving. But the rejections, non-nurturing etc. gets in our way.
“Whosoever you are, you will come to a crisis in your life, and after the crisis, if you are open to it, you will enter a space of spiritual refreshment, peace and compassion that you could not have imagined before. If you are closed to it, you will stay in crisis. In the crisis of addiction. In the crisis of depression. In a constant state of flux and tension.” – Richard Rhor
At the bottom of our metaphorical life clock rages a dark ocean, that we will refer to as the dark night of the soul. Way down at 06 o’clock, we are the furthest away from our starting point that we will ever be again. Our true nature, innate values and true selves are a distant foggy memory. Some people spend more time than others moving away from their true selves. This metaphorical low point is where many people become ill, die or become addicted or depressed. Just remember that this game of life doesn’t stop here. There is a corner to turn, but the problem is most of us don’t know it. Remembering we can’t go back, we become afraid. Many long to go back and become paralyzed and feel it is unfair that we can’t go back to the innocence of that happy child.
It’s a swim we must all eventually traverse. This is the recovery we must all face in life. Not one, but all. First, many of us try and shy away for it. We can be successful at avoiding looking at the dark night of the soul for a long time. We can zone out on drugs and distraction. We can try and be someone else, or we can pretend, as most of us do, that it only exists in nightmares.
For more information on Discover the Universal Recovery Clock contact us, subscribe on YouTube and get involved with your growth, healing and conscious awakening. No one needs to stay emotionally or psychologically stuck any longer. Help is here. You CAN heal your life.
Reblogged this on Drug Rehab Center.