Lessons repeat until learnt.
Learning is an accessory to change & moving on. It involves failure - repeatedly - and the ability to try until the skill is mastered, the information retained, the dynamics comprehended.
It requires taking a risk - of getting hurt, wronged, exposed. What makes the risk worthwhile depends solely on the willingness to not give up, to try again until finally, the challenge is overcome. Through the doubt, the dark, the not knowing, what guides us is our inner light, our heart, commitment to what we know to be true to us.
Meanwhile, nothing is learnt as well as through first hand experience, and as much as we are well advised to benefit from the experience of others, we don't really know until we've tasted it for ourselves.
In search for balance, we come together with a kind we choose. Their model and their words, our intuition, inspiration and gut feelings, guide our steps through to testing our mettle.
Eventually we have a plan, a strategy to navigate the world, which we can practice and share until we know it means something.
We can’t find our footing until we’ve tip-toed and tested our grip.
It takes caution evidently, but it also takes trying, and until we’ve lost our balance a couple of times, we don’t even know how to be cautious in the first place.
Failing is a much better teacher than success - or a faster one - but if we are to take in the lesson, we need to be able to recover from the fall.
The road to mastery is neither steep nor fast. Seeking small progress and limiting risks of great harm is the most effective way through.
In trying to reach higher goals fast and alone, we expose ourselves.
When instead, we lean on the experience of others, believe the warnings and adopt prudence and patience in our progression, we hold our best chance to come through.
In order to understand the true meaning of our experience, we need to endure pain, face demons, let the feelings be felt and the thoughts be thought.
That unfolding, the path to full clarity, requires travelling through the dark, accepting the shadow, knowing what hides there. It is not about fighting, resisting, analysing, or acting in any way, but rather choose to experience reality and stay with it.
Circumstances rarely afford us the sophisticated unfolding, the plethora of resources, the clear communication and the timely idea.
Waiting for the ideal moment to take action only means when the moment comes, we won’t be ready; we won’t have the experience, the resources, the skills, the patience, and the inner calm to tackle the task.
When we do what we can, no more no less, with what we have, we keep our progress steady and keep ourselves ready.
We don't know what we don't know, and the more we know, the more we know that we know very little.
This void cannot be filled. At best, as much flows 'in' as we can retain and integrate - which is much more desirable than overwhelming flow that will just wash us out.
In choosing to participate in the acquisition of experience, we keep our thirst quenched, we appreciate how far we've come, and we keep ourselves growing.
Learning for the sake of learning can isolate us.
Little by little, the 'knowing more' becomes a liability, a hindrance to our ability to navigate the world. It ties us down to a place where all makes sense and nothing matters, where everything can be argued or disputed, where wisdom is worthless, just a burden that makes choice impossible, pulls us in all directions at once.
We know too much to meddle, yet never enough, the keys to disentangle ourself are unaccessible.
Repeating Chasms
The Abysmal (Water)
Exposure