LIVING WITH JOY - Chapter 16
XVI. Embracing the New
Being open to accept new things, ideas, and people into your life creates an ever expanding capacity for joy. There is a mass thoughtform that the future might be worse than the present. This creates the need to hang on to what you have, freeze things as they are, and keep them from changing. It leads to much pain.
Embracing the new means being open to having more in your life. Many of you think that what you have created up until now is the best you can do. You make something and think that the first try is your best. But on the second and third tries you may do even better. As you create things in your life, you become better and more skilled. That is the process of life. A child who first begins walking is wobbly and unsteady. As the child practices she becomes strong and steady in her stride. It is the same with everything you do, for life is like a spiral in which you circle around again and again, often to the same issues, but each time from a higher perspective.
Opening to new things means trusting and having faith in yourself and others. It means believing that the future holds joy and promise. It means believing in your growth and direction. The heart is the center of faith, trust and belief. Opening to the new means opening your heart. Be willing to step outside of your normal limits and viewpoints and see the world in different ways. Trust that the world is safe and know that you are the director and the producer of what occurs in your life.
Opening to the new takes a willingness to view the old not with hate or anger or disgust, but with compassion. Many of you leave a relationship in anger, or you buy a new car when you are mad at your old one. That is one way to leave the old and embrace the new. As you follow the path of joy you can learn to open to new things while you are in a state of acceptance and peace with the old.
When things are not going well in your life, sometimes you gather the motivation and energy to change them by becoming angry or choosing pain. It need not be difficult to leave the old and embrace the new. If you start thinking of what you want, how you would like your life to be, you begin easily and automatically to draw the new to yourself. If you want something and it can only come when another person changes or acts differently, then you do not have power or control over that. The only power or control you have is over your own emotions and reactions.
If you want something new,
be open to having it come
from anywhere, any place, any person.
Be open to surprises and new things. Keep your heart open. Some of you experience a feeling of vulnerability or fear when you think of bringing new people or new things into your lives. What you call tension or anxiety before an event can be viewed instead as focusing your energy to prepare you for something new. It is a change in your vibration to prepare you for something that is finer and higher in your life. You may feel that you must first conquer fear and anxiety before you step out and accomplish something. But everyone has that inner feeling of tension to some degree before attempting new things; it is a period of gathering energy to make the shift into a higher vibration.
Every single thing that happens to you happens to assist you in bringing yourself to a higher level of evolution. Even those things you call negative or bad are there to show you new ways of responding so that you may be more powerful in the future. If it looks like the same problem or a situation is occurring over and over, be aware that every single time it is happening in a new way. Embrace what is new about that pattern or situation and look at how you have succeeded in bringing it to a higher level. Perhaps you are more aware of it than before, or able to understand it better. You may be less emotionally involved and more able to observe the pattern. Every day brings with it new circumstances, challenges and things that allow you the opportunity to grow.
An attitude of openness and receptivity will draw to you many good things. Let go of the fear that the future may mean having less than you have now or may take something away from you. Open up to the idea that you will be wiser, stronger and more powerful tomorrow and that whatever you create will be even better than what you already have. Be open to new concepts and words. They are often the way the universe brings you the signs and guideposts of your next step.
Opening to the new can be experienced in many ways. Many of you have a need for aliveness, excitement and adventure. Often you blame your partner because life seems dull and routine or you blame your job for its monotony. You can create that sense of aliveness in everything you do, and you can do it in simple ways. Change your morning routine, get up earlier, go to bed later, change what you do when you get home from work. Even minor changes can stimulate a sense of aliveness.
Every time you
embrace something new,
you bring into yourself
a sense of aliveness.
Your heart expands, and you literally begin revitalizing yourself and rejuvenating your body. Life always seeks growth, expansion and evolution. In experiencing the new you can see more of who you are. You do not need to make the old ways wrong; rather create newness in the old. Only when you do not see the new in the old does growth cease and relationships become dull. You may have seen people who have been together for many years and who act vibrant and young and in love. If you examine the relationship, you will discover that they are doing new things, creating new projects and bringing a sense of aliveness into their personal lives. They are probably conquering new territory, opening to adventure and feeling alive individually, in whatever way is appropriate to them. People who have been together for a long period of time often take each other for granted, going to bed at the same time every night, getting up and going to the same job, doing the same things on the weekend. All of that leads to a sense of contraction around the heart and a sense of boredom and deadness inside.
Opening to the new is a way of youthening your body, of expanding your childlike sense of wonder and awe. As they grow older many people constrict their boundaries; they begin to seek what is comfortable, familiar, and safe. Their world becomes narrow and limited. Life becomes a matter of focusing on the petty rather than focusing on the great. You have seen those people whose concerns are so minor you do not take them seriously. They have ceased to expand into the greater picture of their lives.
There is a new you every day.
Every morning when you wake up you are literally being born anew and afresh. Every day there are new things on your mind, people to meet, things to do. As you wake up and start your day, you need not think of the past and remember mistakes; instead focus upon the future and what you will create.
Try new routines each day; see if you can make even the small things more conscious. When you do new things you are conscious and aware of the present moment. You are paying attention, fully alert. Doing new things is invigorating to the physical body.
You must be able to put many things on automatic to live. Your breathing and many of your bodily functions are automatically controlled. As a child your nervous system develops in such a way that it learns to select information, for if too much information is coming in> there is a lack of focus. So, in the development of your being, there is a learned balance between focusing upon those things that need to be paid attention to, and learning not to be sidetracked by meaningless, trivial and constant data. As a child you developed selective awareness, tuning out many things in your universe so that you could tune in to others.
You have been given the ability to put many things on automatic, making them routine or habitual so you can focus on those things which are truly important. How ever, because of this ability, many of you react automatically to those things which should be examined. Many of the things you take for granted create discomfort and a lack of well-being.
When you attempt new things, you begin to reexamine all of the habitual and routine things you took for granted. Many people choose jobs that involve danger or tension so they can experience the awareness and attention required to stay alive. They must live in the present moment. Race car drivers, mountain climbers, people who put themselves in positions in which their attention must be focused and fully alert know this experience of adventure and aliveness. It comes when you are not on automatic, but fully conscious and aware of every action. As you embrace the new you begin to bring into consciousness those things that may have been routine. You begin to experience present-time awareness and to live in the moment.
Power comes from
living in the present moment,
where you can take
action and create the future.
So as you embrace the new, remember, things are always going to get better; nothing is taken away unless something better is coming. Every down cycle is followed by a great leap forward. It is easy to embrace the new. Play like a child. You have seen how young children embrace everything as a new experience. It can be easy to open up and embrace the new if you picture it as easy. Keep a picture in your mind that the future is positive and that it will be better than anything you have ever known. As you grow and evolve, what you create will be even more joyous than what you have now.
EMBRACING THE NEW
PLAYSHEET
Think of at least three new things, skills, experiences, you brought into your life last year. As you list them, think of how you felt as you learned them or brought them into your life.
Record here what feelings you had after you opened to these new things:
Now, list at least three new experiences, skills to learn, that you would like to bring into your life next year: