The Bigger PictureHow does one make those really important changes? The ones we can never predict or plan because they go deeper than where our conscious thinking can guide us? The ones that cause us to expand our own consciousness?
For these changes to occur, we need to come to the edge of our own comprehension; cross our own lines.
Sometimes it is only then that we gain a clarity: realising what we really want, and understanding there is no longer anything to lose but to go get it.
For me, the catalyst often happens when I fall into conflict with someone I love.
The intensity of frustration and rigidity I feel within myself (the real reason why I ended up in the row; why most of us end up in rows) point out to me things I hadn't seen before: ways I am currently limited and perhaps carry unreasonable (even if unconscious) expectations.
Having this experience makes it possible for me then to have a new thought.
The truth is, what could otherwise have been defined as the great "disasters" of my life, in hindsight, have turned out to be the experiences from which I have learned and grown the most.
These were the experiences that broke down my limits, opened up new perspectives and allowed me to get smarter - in ways that mattered the most.
In order to do this, one needs in life a continuous commitment to not getting stuck in anger or limits. That is, a yearning to keep thinking, and so learning and growing, from every situation.
In the absence of this yearning, we all have the potential to become more rigid and jaded from each encounter.
This is why some people, over time, become more narrowed and restricted in their point of view.
This is the price for staying immobile and stuck. This is the outcome when we decide (be it consciously or otherwise) not to take in the important - if not difficult to acknowledge - lessons from a situation.
It is easy to notice what makes us feel better. It is more difficult to notice the value in what was also painful.
Many of us, under the guise of "learning", react to a situation and create limits for ourselves rather than growing and expanding in wisdom.
For example, how many people, after an experience of heartbreak, become more defensive towards love?
And yet, isn't it logical that when you open up your heart and then unexpectedly something happens to cause that connection to end, your heart hurts?
Would we really try to avoid pain so much that we would close ourselves off from opportunities for living?
Another example came to me from my five-year-old son who, since I've known him, has always been a very thoughtful and giving person.
If this child is eating something and someone in the room isn't, he will go out of his way to share.
The difficulty arose when, for some reason, he wasn't able to get his work done in school while his peers did. As a result, he'd end up with extra work to do at home.
Through observation and asking questions, we discovered that if he noticed one of his friends needing help, he would go help them even if he hadn't yet finished his work.
In this way, all his friends would finish first and go off to play, while he had extra work to do later.
What he couldn't understand is why the others wouldn't stay with him and help him.
The idea that they would rather go play and leave him by himself broke his heart.
At this point, I was very aware that as parents we could have chosen to teach our child not to help others but look after himself first - a direction that is common in our society and might "protect" him, but also asked him to be something much less than who he was, negated values we believed were useful in this world and rigidly limited his options.
Instead, we chose to teach him to go ahead and help anyone he wanted, and also notice if they then took a turn helping him.
If they didn't, he didn't have to help them a second time. If they did, he got to focus on these friends.
It takes great faith to let ourselves have high expectations of the world and learn from each painful encounter. It requires a determination to believe in ourselves and bring ourselves to levels of clearer thinking.
As long as we stay protective, there can be no movement. While cocooning and shielding ourselves might make us feel safer, it will always only be the risk of movement that will allow us to have the next experience - that is, have a life.
Sometimes the "make or break" moment for making that decision doesn't come until we feel we have nothing left to lose.
In this way, sometimes we need to cross our own bottom lines - so we can discover they are there - before we can choose to make the really great changes.
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