ICMOR

The Idea of Lessons

It is a popular "new age" idea that we are here to learn lessons. This can be a handy way to move out of judgment about those experiences that are challenging for us, because it makes it easier to accept those sorts of situations. Less resistance means more flow.

Unfortunately if one stays in that point of view she/he could be creating a bunch more trouble than they need to. Why? Because if we assume this is a learning arena or that we are here to learn lessons, we automatically assume the idea of challenges, which can and usually does create challenges right and left. Then we wonder how things could be so hard.

We could instead assume that we are explorers, adventurers, exploring ourselves and this place. This basic assumption automatically creates more "breathing room" than the idea of lessons-to-be-learned -- there does not necessarily need to be challenge. That is profound all by itself. Yet it does something else, it also takes us out of the linear thinking of needing to be doing something in order to get somewhere else, or to be something else. We are already what we need to be. This puts us 'back' into the moment, the present.

I had a very foundational knowing that I came here to enjoy. This does not exactly fit in well with everything else we're taught, and it can be difficult sometimes to see how I've supposed to have been enjoying things when I was in mess-- yet the mess is created by assumptions that don't need to be true for us, and we can let them go.

2006 Beth Shearon