here is no way around it: if you want clarity in your life, you first have to see where, up until now, clarity has been lacking. There’s no leapfrogging to lucidity without understanding where you’re leaping from. It’s a challenge to become clear, to wake up, become conscious and stop bumping into life. When we wake up, we see what is really important and valuable to us. We can see the path that has been waiting for us all along. We can begin to live the life we were meant to live. It’s nice to wake up sooner rather than
But imagine the thick fog does not clear. It continues to obscure your vision. You don’t know you’re on the wrong side of the road, and even though you occasionally have to swerve to avoid oncoming traffic, you keep driving along, still in a fog, still on the wrong side of the road. But because of your frequent near misses, you begin an internal dialogue: “Why does this keep happening to me? What’s my problem? Do I secretly enjoy minor traffic accidents? Why do I attract all these cars? Why do I keep sabotaging my drives? I must be thinking the wrong thoughts; if I thought more positively, maybe this would stop happening to me.” Preoccupied with these thoughts, you find yourself even more prone to the run-
truck speeding toward you, you simply move over to the right lane. No one has to tell you to move over, and you don’t need any advice about how to do it. You don’t need to mull it over; your actions are natural, instinctive and effective. This is because you have a wellspring of wisdom within you just waiting to be tapped. “That may be well and good,” you say. “But do I really need the 10-ton truck in my path? I got out of the way, but it was a close call, and I was pretty shaken up.” Good point. What we want is gentle course corrections, adjustments made with ease instead of dramatic swerves. We want to see the truck when it’s five miles away, realize our lane error and move over without all the heart-pounding.
The nature of the fog The inner conversations that discourage you from going for your dreams may seem fresh and convincing when they’re going around and around in your head. That’s the nature of the fog: punch at it, and it absorbs your fist. Wave your arms to brush it away and it laughs at you. Shine the headlight of analysis on it and you just get more glare. Allen, who dreamed of a career selling gemstones, had a fog that went like this: “I want to travel to faraway bazaars looking for amber or hike to remote mountain villages where they sell the best jade. But first I’ve got to figure out how to get rid of my fear of failure. I have these success issues that have been with me for years. I’m working on dealing with them
later so that you don’t have to repeat the same lessons over and over (and over) again. As you’ve probably noticed, when you are in the “not that again” pattern, the lessons only get bigger and harder. Life is trying to get our attention, to wake us up. If we’re in a deep sleep, this can be a real jolt. Imagine you’re driving on a country road. A grey fog swirls around you. Turning on your headlights only seems to make it worse. Suddenly the fog clears and you see that you’re driving on the wrong side of the road and that a 10-ton truck a quarter of a mile away is coming straight at you. Do you pause to ponder how you got on the wrong side of the road? Do you think back to your parents’ driving behaviour and try to figure out how it might have affected your own? Do you work on accessing your “inner driver”? No! You pull over. You get out of the truck’s path. Your actions are clear, focused and simple. That’s because you woke up.
ins you are so busy trying to understand. Many of us have become spiritual roadkill on our hero’s path because we’re asking the wrong questions. Some, like the ones above, might actually cause the fog to thicken. At the very least, asking those particular questions doesn’t lead us to change lanes so we can keep out of harm’s way. I’ll give you some specific ways to lift the fog from your path, including better questions to ask. Applying these techniques is exciting because when you lift the fog, when you see clearly where you are, you will intuitively know what to do next. Let me say this again. It sounds so simple, so obvious, that we might miss it. We tend to think important truths have to be complex and hard to grasp. When you see clearly what is before you, you will know in your heart what to do. Your actions will be simple and precise, with no wasted effort. When the fog lifts and you see the
That is our aim here: not just to lift the fog, but also to do it in a peaceful, graceful way. Small adjustments and no big messes to clean up – imagine the energy saved! How creative could we be with such clarity instead of wearing ourselves out coping with one near miss after another? Your fog may be a vague sense of frustration, resignation or cynicism when it comes to your important dreams. You are frustrated because you think you don’t have the time, money, imagination or physical vitality to tackle them. You are resigned to putting them off until life settles down and you’re under less stress. Or you have cynically given up on even dreaming the dreams that thrill your heart. You are convinced that is for other people, not for you. You are in touch with thoughts like these, congratulations! They are part of the fog and before you can clear that fog away, you have to realize you’re driving in it.
now. But I’m not ready to make a move yet. When these feelings improve, I can talk to someone about what it takes to get into the gemstone business, but I need to handle all this first.” To see your own fog, try this: Get four pieces of paper. With the first paper in front of you, think of a goal or dream that you’ve put aside until... Now take a deep breath and list all the reasons why you’ve put it off. Do this quickly and try to empty out your mind. Even if what you write doesn’t make sense, keep writing down all the doubts, worries and “issues.” What are the excuses you’ve given yourself or others? Get them all down. Then think of another goal or dream you haven’t pursued. On the second piece of paper, write the reasons for this dream deferment. Be as specific as you can. Finally, think of a third, unrelated goal, preferably one from another area of your life. And you know the drill: get all your reasons down on a third piece of paper. Now read over what you’ve
If we continue down this path, we’re liable to end up where we’re headed. – Traditional Buddhist saying
T
