Living in a Pretty Painting

 

What is a pretty painting but paint on a canvas? Brush strokes of colour that gives it more perceived value than what is here as simply a canvas and some paint. It is a pretty picture that we would like to see and like to experience, whereas the canvas underneath is just that – a canvas. It is blank, plain, we might call it boring, and maybe find it lacking.

On our life’s canvas, we also like to paint pictures, in words, in beliefs, ideas and perceptions. We do this mostly because the canvas of our lives and ourselves is either not so nice, or we perceive it as ‘not enough’, plain, lacking, boring. We want more, we want something different than what it actually is in fact, and we want something better than what we have.

And so, we plaster colours over our canvas, and we eventually believe the painting is what is really Here as us and as our lives. We fail to see through our own creation to the reality of ourselves, so when something challenges our painting, we become hostile and defensive: “I must DEFEND myself as my painting, my beliefs about who and how I am, and how my life is!”. We begin to live our lives protecting the paintings we have created in our minds. We avoid the situations or people that show us our raw canvas, and are drawn towards those that highlight the paintings we want to see.

We judge ourselves extensively, we criticize ourselves, compare ourselves to others, and then seek out people that stand as those points for us: that of self-acceptance, those we can manipulate, the people that make us ‘feel better’ so we can keep pretending everything is alright, that we still live in a ‘pretty picture’. Or we think we are great, something special, superior to what we are, and will avoid and fight people that point out our shortcomings or challenge our perceived authority.

Time and time again, reality will show us what is really Here as our canvas. We will even go into anxiety, fearing the next exposure, walking through Life on eggshells so as not to disrupt our painting. We scurry around like frantic artists, touching up the chips and cracks, those fissures in the paint where reality breaks through.  

What if we took this concept of painting our canvas, which is essentially self-creation, and actually looked at what is Here instead of covering up what is Here? If you are insecure, for example, instead of covering up the uncomfortable experience through seeking out security and validation, or hiding and avoidance and preferring instead a ‘pretty picture’, why not really look into that insecurity? Investigate it, look at the ‘raw canvas’ of what is really here as you, find out where did it come from, where did it start, and how can I build myself into confidence instead?

Now you are working with reality. Now your brush strokes become strokes of self-expression, they become real, and your painting is no longer a fraud or a front, but a living expression walking the earth. Walking the earth in such a way where you are truly working with your REAL Self as what is here. Your fixes and touch-ups are actual behavioural corrections that benefit you, where the outflow of your changes creates both yourself and your world as something better than it was – something that has meaning, purpose, honour, respect and regard for yourself in full awareness, and so towards others as you.

Now you can start to look beyond your ‘painting’ because it has become real, and requires less maintenance and touch ups. Now you live in Real Time, and your small world of fear and anxiety of exposure becomes more vast. All the energy it took to keep up the ‘pretty picture’ is now free to focus on more important issues: Now we can start looking at the painting we have super-imposed over all of reality, and start bursting the bigger bubbles and facing that instead. Now we can start working with the earth.

“and through that fissure where you left us, reality broke through, green of real green, real sunshine, real forests” – Rainer Maria Rilke 'Death Experienced'

Let us not wait for reality to burst our bubbles for us through consequence, but instead act in prevention. We can have a look now at Who We Really Are, or we can accept and allow Who We Really Are to become diminished and face that later, in sadness, sorrow and regret, only when we are forced to look, because the 'pretty picture' can only hold so long. Reality stands; pictures fade. Stand with and as Reality, don't fade away to nothing over time.

"Your Flowers Will Come" - The story of a flower

The process that was highlighted was that of the stem of this flower - how it is more gnarly, bent, with stumps and bumps - not a smooth and flawless stem like some flowers have.

As it grows, the flower knows it is a flower, and that eventually it will blossom into the more colorful and expressive part of itself, but this knowing can be used as a double-edged sword:

On the one hand, there is the trust and comfort of knowing that one day it will be a flower, it's full potential of what it is able to be and express, because it can see and feel itself within itself.

But instead of being patient and gentle with itself in this act of self-creation - each time there would be a movement - it would go into an expectation of flowering before it was time - wanting to already 'be there' and 'be that' - but because of this focus on an expectation and then reality not matching that, there would instead be a self-judgment of not standing, not 'being there yet' - and it would become an attack on itself.

So instead of the movement being fully supportive and 'smooth', it would turn into somewhat of a trauma, a disappointment, a let-down, as if it had been let down by life, by itself and what 'should be' here.

In not realizing the necessity of the movements, with their pain and where they are sometimes seemingly incomprehensible, a stump would form where it would have been a leaf if it were to have been accepted and walked as a support, growth, strengthening and empowerment - where it would have become a support as a leaf as a solar panel to feed the eventual flower, which was not yet Here and so could not be seen, but only trusted.

There is an addictive nature to the negative, the pain, the disappointment and the self-punishment. So sometimes a 'smooth' process is walked and a leaf properly formed that would act as that support for the eventual flower, but sometimes the flower would fall back into the pattern, and create another stump, like a scar or damage.

When it blossomed and looked back at the process it walked and saw what it had been doing, what the support actually was in the movements, how it 'could have' been different, it was able to forgive itself completely, let go of the 'negative' values it had placed on the movements that became stumps, bumps and knots, and accepted itself exactly how it was.

The gnarly stem, it's life path, despite the trauma and the scars, did not stop or prevent the blossoming of the flower when it came time to blossom because of the forgiveness it was able to gift itself.

So, in the end the flower stands, in full knowing that it could have been different, but also in complete acceptance of the process it walked - because it is done, it cannot be changed. The one thing it was able to stand by was knowing Who/What It Was.

For us, as humans - some of us have a more traumatic life path, either imposed upon us, self-created, or a bit of both. So long as we do not forget our potential, our stand and our knowing of Who We Are in this Life, our flowers will come. So long as we are able to derive the support from the pain, the trauma and the movements in our lives, instead of being overcome and lost in them, our flowers will come.

Our Life Paths may leave us with scars, our traumas and the environments we are born into with the people, the genetics, the available resources, may limit the potential of what 'could have been', but there is always our potential of Who We Are within this environment we are born into.

One thing we can change through this reflection of the flower is to take that stand sooner rather than having to repeat the pain and 'life lessons' over and over. Instead of putting time, expectation and energy into the traumas, to rather learn from them and divert the growth into our potential, or as support for our eventual blossoming - actually changing Who We Are within and how we process life events, will determine our potential and what we are able to become.

Find your potential, see your potential, and never forget your potential. Stick to that path in trust and know: Your flowers will come.

You Cannot Both Experience Life and Live Life

When we go into experiences as feelings and emotions within ourselves, we subconsciously seek to validate the experience through interpreting situations and events in our environment. It is by no chance or luck that our interpretations will exactly confirm our experience. 

Let us look at an example:

If we are feeling confident in a moment, we will act in certain ways, gaining certain feedback from our environment, or simply interpreting situations and events in our environment that will confirm that yes, I am confident, I am for example: loud, boisterous, direct, hold a certainty in what I say, people like me, agree with me and I have influence over others-  or however one has defined confidence and being confident throughout one’s life. 

I’m speaking here of confidence as an experience and not a living expression of confidence. A living expression of confidence as Self would be where one stands regardless of one’s internal experience, whereas an experience of confidence is one where one feels confident in a moment, and for that moment one changes and acts out confidently, but when the experience changes, to one of insecurity, uncertainty or doubt for example, one will also change and now live out this new experience.

This may all seem well and fine, even normal in fact; but have a look at what it is we are accepting and allowing through this seemingly simple or normal participation in experiences and experiencing:

We are actually accepting and allowing an experience to direct us, to be the director of our thoughts, words and deeds. An experience of ‘confidence’ may fly under the radar as it is a positive experience that one may enjoy, but the point remains that we have given away our self-responsibility as our ability to direct ourselves in thought, words and deed, we have given it away to an experience. 

This implies that this is our protocol when it comes to experiences, which then implies that this is how we will behave within both positive and negative experiences. 

Let us now have a look at the flip side of the coin – the negative. 

An example of a negative experience would be one of insecurity, jealousy, unworthiness, feeling left out, or any other such negative experience. Now we will look to confirm and validate this experience by acting out in certain ways or interpreting situations and events in our environment that will tell us that yes, we are not secure, we are less-than, we are not worthy, we are left out. We will, for example, not speak up, participate less in an interaction, or self-isolate depending on the negative experience, and by our own actions make the experience real in physical reality, thus confirming our experience (and eventually, over time, manifesting the experience as the reality of who we are).

What is happening here is that we are actually manipulating ourselves and manipulating our realities to generate internal experiences through acting and interpreting situations and events to confirm and validate the very experiences we have created within ourselves. The question to ask here is, what would happen, what would reality be if we were to instead direct ourselves to be present in the moment as it is? Another question to ask is, why do I trust this experience over and above trusting myself as the director and the decision-maker of my life?

The interesting aspect of this entire play-out is that we have in fact designed it for and as ourselves – it is pre-programmed, for and by us. We do this over time and throughout our lives, where we decide how we behave when we are confident, jealous, insecure etc… for example: when I am insecure, I become quiet, defensive and push people away, when I am confident, I become loud, boisterous and certain. 

The question to ask here is: what is it that we are creating ourselves as over time? I would answer here that what we are creating is limitation – self-limitation where we limit ourselves to certain pre-determined scripts. These scripts evolve more and more into themselves until they become who we are in fact, as we are the creators of ourselves. Within this, we end up closing the doors on the vast potential and opportunities Life has to offer, and stick to our pre-programmed paths, bouncing back and forth between seeking out positive experiences and avoiding negative experiences. We will chase positive experiences, avoiding situations, events or people that do not confirm our positive experience – situations, events and people that could have been keys for us to develop, grow, overcome and transcend our limitations, but instead we chose to trust and follow the desired experience and remain on a fast track to nowhere. Conversely, we even go so far as to fear the negative experiences we accept and allow ourselves to create, going into an anticipation of them and thus creating and generating degrees of anxiety as we fear repeating the negative script we have written for ourselves. 

Within all of this, what we are in fact doing is experiencing life, and not Living Life. We are choosing by our acceptances and allowances to, instead of living in real time, real reality in the moment, live in a very small experience that takes place in isolation inside that tiny kingdom between our two ears – our mind. 

What we tend to miss within all of this is the fact that the entire play out, both positive and negative, is us seeking out to fulfill our own self-interest as a constant confirmation that we are right and correct – wether it feels good or bad, “at least I am right (righteous)”/”at least I am in control”/”I knew it!” (at least we are god/all powerful somewhere) – but to what end?

We are trying and attempting to experience something more than what is Here. In this, we are making the statement that Life, as it exists, is not enough. I am not enough. There must be something more. I must be something more. This is the effect experience has upon us, where the self-aggrandizing and self-diminishment has us existing as experience only, and not Life, not Living. And not only are we not actually Living, but we are missing reality – the reality that is playing out on this earth. We are too preoccupied in our own minds and experiences that we can overlook abject poverty, environmental atrocities, disregard our neighbours and our fellow man as our tunnel vision blinds us to focus on but ONE thing – our experience. 

It is like living in a movie or a story book where regardless of if self is the hero or the victim – self is the main character (one that lacks substance or any REAL character).

What is the alternative?

An alternative can be that we stand up as Self-Trust in and as Who We Are, letting go of our addiction to experience to instead live moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath as we accumulate moments of self-direction to now create ourselves as the directive-principle of Who We Are. Within this, we are not missing out on Life unfolding before our very eyes – where our participation in reality now becomes constructive, our interactions become open and dynamic, we see what is really in fact Here and what needs to be done. We open ourselves up to face and walk through situations and events as they are – thus allowing and in fact placing the foundations in for self-growth, self-expansion and self-development, challenging our limitations and proving to ourselves what we are capable of. In this, becoming someone that honours, respects and regards Self - where one actually Lives Life in such a way that now Honours Life, because once you see Life and yourself as a participant, the responsibility becomes undeniable, as it is you, and you are it. Life is Us, and We are Life, One and Equal.

Purchasing Self-Expression: The Perfect Perpetual Industry

I had an experience in my life where I moved from a corporate office environment in Canada, to a farm in South Africa, and then to a mountain town in Panama where I work from home. With these changes came some serious wardrobe changes, where my clothes from one environment were pretty much useless in the next one.

The interesting thing I noted was how the clothing and accessory changes changed my experience of myself. Where, in the office I would be quite fancy, with jewelry that matched my outfit, hair done, sometimes even with the nails and definitely makeup. I felt quite glamorous and professional, and a fresh new outfit would have me walking into the office full of confidence.

On the farm and in Panama, my clothing became purely practical. I noticed I felt I was now lacking certain experiences. I felt less confident, slower and less vibrant. I had to learn how to live these expressions now in Who I Was, because I could no longer simply purchase them from a store.  

With the glamour point which links in to the consumerism point, for me what I see is where an entire industry has been built around people seeking to fulfill desires – desires which have arisen from us not accepting and allowing ourselves to live certain expressions, and so separating ourselves from those expressions, leaving us feeling ‘unfulfilled’.

We then seek to fulfill ourselves through the experience a product or lifestyle (or any external experience) will apparently give us, which will obviously never be enough as we are not living it for ourselves. So we keep bouncing back and forth from one polarity to the other – from fulfilled (only temporarily as an experience) to unfulfilled (the reality of Self through separating Self from living self-expression) – thus creating the perfect industry: the more money you have, the more you can spend on attempting fulfillment. The more glamour in this case, the more the person is showing how unfulfilled they actually are, and so have to keep paying to keep the feeding the experience.

The cool part is that you can look at what desire the product represents that we are seeking to fulfill, and then see how that can be lived as a living expression of Self instead, thus creating actual self-fulfillment – where glamour can then become an act self-expression (which means if it were lost or taken away, we would not change).

The not so cool part is that until we fulfill ourselves as living expressions, we will be consumers of experience, consuming Life as the resources of the earth in self-interest as we seek to fulfill our desires that we ourselves created in the first place through separation.