Technical Difficulties
Something happens, and it doesn’t feel good. A laptop crashes, an opportunity does not work out, someone dear lets you down. How can we minimize the disruptions of life’s less than pleasant events so that we can continue to positively attract what we need?
In Part 3 of my series on The Avocado Syndrome (see also Screaming Down the Mountain), I explore the fine art of releasing. When we hold onto events – both pleasant and unpleasant – we are taking up space that could be used for creating something new. We remain locked in the past, instead of living in the now. Our energy is focused on holding on, instead of being open to receive.
Over the past few days, I have gone through a major process of releasing the past. My four month old laptop died on Friday, in a horrific symphony of cycling clicks and whining beeps, combined with a recurring and never ending reboot message on a black DOS screen.
The spinner in the hard drive is defective, I have been told, making all data unrecoverable. Not to worry, I say to myself, turning to my trusty and reliable external backup drive, only to find that it has also chosen this time to emphatically declare that it was tired of this phase of our journey together. It released a critical part of its hardware into its interior, making it impossible to access or recover any data.
Can there be a more literal opportunity for me to release the past, I question myself? I face the loss of all of my creative writing, photos, music, business plans, and all the work I have done on my new book.
After some time spent in a fetal position weeping (my personal release process), I took to my mat to practice Headstand (my personal power pose). I made the conscious choice to be grateful for the Vipassana retreat I have just left. My time there gave me the tools to view the ever changing experience of life from a place of equanimity. My dearly departed laptop gives me the opportunity to take my meditation practice off the cushion and into the real world.
When something like this happens, it is our choice whether to suffer greatly over the turn of events and take the “woe-is-me” slide … or, to see it as a sign to create something new with the space that has opened up.
One phase is ending, a new one beginning. I have a blank page. I get to choose what to put on it.
Please join me next week for the final installment of this series, which explores the principal of specificity in manifesting what you want.