CLEANING THE FILTER
Why do we do the things we do, the way we do them?—this question is one I remember pondering, since a very young age.
I think many have had the same or similar questions go through their head: Why am I the way I am? What makes me be this way? Why do I react like this? Where does this pattern come from? Etc.
Life is infinitely interesting, if you ask me. And one of the most interesting and fascinating things for me to study is, well… me.
It’s not out of a navel-gazing, self-centered and self-important desire to put myself as the center of the universe (although sometimes we can feel like that too, right?), but I’m here all the time. In my world, I’m here all the time. And I am the filter which I see the whole world through. So “what is this filter?” becomes a natural question to ask.
Asking that question, is for many when they start their “spiritual journey”. Figuring out “who we are” and why things are the way they are is a natural urge, but some are more strongly drawn to go deep into the discovery than others.
When we go deeper into these question, answers can be revealed to us. Some answers come to us fast and immediate, while others can be difficult to find the root of. That’s where the healing journey often begin.
Whenever we encounter a block, or lose the trail, we are invited to go even deeper, or try a different strategy/method/approach.
The work of consciously move thought ourself, encounter the blocks, release the blocks, or accept them for now, if we cannot find a way through, is what healing ourselves look like.
Sometimes the process is very logical and cognitive. Sometimes it is emotional, and bodily. Sometimes it is immediate and illogical, like a quantum leap—an immediate healing.
We often meet our limitations when we engage with and interact with other people, (and that is why relationships are the highest yoga, as I talked about in a pervious blog post), and with the world, because we are poked and provoked more easily, so our filter is activated.
We can also activate the filter through practices, and through our relationship to our practice. This is how we can work out things in what can feel like a little bit more of a safe container, within our self.
And the journey continues and continues…
What we get in return from this journey of discovery, is (hopefully) more joy and ease in life. A more immediate experience of life, where we don’t have to feel constricted by our filters so much.
This is how life is really meant to be. And as we start to break down the illusions of our filters, we can feel a different sense of wholeness. Like we are able to connect a little bit deeper with something very pure and true.
It’s not like we go through life and we feel “untrue” or “impure”, or not whole beings—and thank God for that!
Often times we will go through life, and not necessarily feel like anything major is wrong. We’re just sort of fine, and we are considering ourselves normal.
Everyone has problems right? Everyone get sad/angry/depressed sometimes, right? So no big deal at all.
Often time we won’t realize the weight of a pattern until we have dropped it. And that’s honestly pretty great, because if we all felt the weight from which we are operating under, we might have a hard time even getting out of bed (hmmm…. Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed, I wonder why that could be?)
Do you ever feel a resistance to just doing what needs to be done? It can be in the smallest things, like getting up and getting yourself a glass of water when you’re thirsty, or doing the job assignment that is right in front of you. And in the biggest of things, like accepting an amazing invitation to a job you wanted but now you feel hesitant. Or meeting the love of your life, the perfect person, and now you are sabotaging it. Why does this happen to us?
Because we are all operating under the weight of some pretty heavy and huge filters—or carrying around “backpacks” which can work as a fitting illustration for this narrative. And because we have been carrying them around for so long, we don’t even realize that they are there anymore.
We don’t really understand the huge weight which we are living under, until we start to look at how limited and restricted we are in our way of operating.
Oftentimes we don’t realize the weight of a limitation until we drop it. Have you every had a “breakthrough”? A moment in your life where things started to change? You felt more energized, you could operate more freely in the world, and you got things done. That’s one of those moments where you dropped a huge backpack or broke through a limitation. The weight is gone and now you are more free.
Similarly we can build up limitations in our life, when we start to ignore things. Fx. if we have a need for touch and intimacy, but our current situation doesn’t offer us the possibility to have that need met. So we start to shut down that part and we desensitize to it. In the beginning we feel a loss, but as time goes by we forget about the need. We desensitize to it, and we neglect finding a solution to it. Now we completely forgot about the need, and we have build a pattern of not only not feeling touch and intimacy but also of neglecting our own need.
This can lead to emotions being expressed in unexpected situations, because what we were really upset about has been suppressed, yet the pattern of anger or bitterness fx. which are emotional and therefore not as easily ignored as a though, still sits there. And we might start to feel frozen around sexual energy, yet we don’t understand why. This is how a subconscious pattern is formed. We start to act inappropriately, because what we are really reacting towards, we have long forgotten about.
Patterns are formed and broken continuously through out our entire life, from the time we arrive in our mother’s womb until the day we leave.
The spiritual journey is about forming better patterns and moving towards a place of more freedom and ease, so that we can live life feeling less restricted and inhibited, and we can feel content and contained. Our responses are appropriate and we have good navigational skills for living life on this planet.
And the journey is you’re to take and choose. The pace is yours to set and decide.
—To go deeper into this weeks blogpost theme, ask yourself these questions. You can meditate on them, or journal them out in a note book or phone notes.
What heavy load are you carrying? (Of course you can only list those that you are conscious about)
Do you have a strategy for how to move through the blocks?
When was the last time you felt a huge “backpack” drop, and you could move more freely?
Contemplate and ponder which sides of yourself you are currently shutting down? Can you do something to stir yourself in a more beneficial direction?
What does freedom look like for you?
Who expresses freedom in a way you wish you could express it? (We are often jealous of people because the represent a part of our burden that we have not been able to let go of yet)
What do they tell you about your own limitations or the limitations you put on yourself?
