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| kathrynarnold.wordpress.com |
Okay, so I was going to carry on and talk about yoga and other exercise stuff but I changed my mind. Yeah, I do that a fair bit nowadays and, really, don’t you think it can be a good thing? I was chatting to my friend Gill about it this morning. She hauled me out for a coffee (decaf in my case, of course) and we talked about infinity and reality and perception and religion and education and politics and economics and friendship and confidence and self-esteem and lamb and autism and jealousy and environmentalism and intolerance and globalisation and food miles and Christmas and inlaws and food and the hundredth monkey and drink and goblins and leylines and funerals and faith and strawberries and exercise and vicars and sound and biscuits and light and earrings and and…. Yeah, one coffee turned into three and my bum went numb. J
And…where was I? Oh yes. Somewhere in the middle of all that we talked about how some people can be so rigid, so dogmatic.
‘They don’t listen,’ said Gill. ‘They just talk over one another, pushing forward their point of view without stopping to hear the other side.’‘Oh hell, yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s why I can’t listen to politicians. It’s just such a waste of time. It’s never real debate; it’s just synchronised shouting.’
‘It’s not just them,’ said Gill. ‘It’s all those people who are just, you know...‘This is how it is’ and ‘This is just how I am’. And that is it, end of story.’
'And those people who want to change people,' I said, feeling a bit shifty. 'Cos that's rubbish, isn't it? You can't change anyone else; you can only change yourself and how you react to other people, right?'
'Yeah. Want another coffee?'
'I shouldn't, I've got to get some work done.'
'Fair enough.'
'Oh, go on then...'
'Changed your mind?'
'Yeah.'
Part of me thinks how nice it must be to be absolutely certain, quite convinced; to see the world and onself in such black and white sharp contrast. Not about another coffee or not, of course, but about every last little thing. But then again…it doesn’t allow for any shift, any change, any movement, does it? And unreally everything is changing all the time. You are not the same person you were twenty years ago, or a year ago, or even a second ago. Every moment offers a new choice.
And that, surely, is a good thing? When things are set in stone, they run the risk of ossifying, of stagnating, of congealing (oh my, how many inappropriate participles can I run up there and all because petrifying has lost its original meaning?). But once you accept that nothing is really set in stone (that the stone itself is moving, changing all the time even), that change is always possible, nay inevitable…that you and life and nature, yes, by the very nature of the thing, won’t stay the same, then that gives a sense of release.
A year ago, I honestly didn’t believe I could change. Not in my heart of hearts. I wouldn’t admit it out loud but a small voice inside said, ‘Nah, that’s it. Brave up, Jane.’ But change I did and I’m still changing, each and every minute of each and every day and so it will continue. Or so I guess. I nearly wrote 'assume' there but I changed it because, really, I never assume anything nowadays.
And so today, regarding this blog post…the one that was going to be about yoga.. I changed my mind. ‘Into what?’ my quasi guru might say. J Or, rather...
“Time passes
Bringing His daughter
Change
Letting Law of Cause and Effect
Apply
God in action
Love”
Marek Stefanowicz, Symphonic Bridges
With that in mind, I figured I was falling into the same old trap of trying to keep everything neat and tidy; to set it all out in sensible, sane, rational steps. I wasn't embracing change. I wasn't being true to the whole magic of what happened because the honest truth is that it was all totally mad and irrational. I didn’t just think, ‘Oh, okay, I’ll get my diet sorted out and then I’ll get my exercise thingy going and then, once that's sorted, I'll go be spiritual for a bit.’ There wasn't a plan, not even the vaguest suggestion of one. It all just sort of happened in one big jumble, weirdly and wildly and very unsensibly. Which is why I would say again, please don’t do as I did and for feck’s sake don’t do as I say… This isn’t a manual for how to change your life. It’s just me putting down what happened to mine.
So…in all honesty, what did I do first? I said it in the first post actually and I realise now that I’ve been holding it in for way too long…
Yeah…I breathed.
BREEEATTHE.....
So, I'm gonna go and do a bit of that now. You could too, if you like. And, depending on how the changes go, we may continue doing it tomorrow. Or not. It all depends...
