JUST PLAYING MY PART

Bradley Albert Allen Pollard

("That's My Plan" by Steven Walters)

It is said that Shakespeare announced that “we are all actors and the world is our stage.”  How often do we hear words and they ring true but we just let them go by without investigation.  Do you like the saying?  Or does it scare you?  If you like it, do you believe it or just simply take it as an interesting idea?  If it scares you, is it the thought that you are not the one doing it, that brings up the fear?  For if you are the actor, who wrote the script and where are you going and what will you do?  Ever notice that you can make all the plans you want to, but rarely does it happen the way you think it will?  You go to bed the night before and have all these plans about how the day will play out and then upon waking none of them happen.

You are not in control.  Life is being lived through you.  You have been assigned a part and it is being played out beautifully no matter whether you like it or dislike it, the show goes on.  If you don’t believe this, see if you can stop it.  See if you can stop doing what you do.  All things that point to Truth can be investigated.  You don’t have to take someone’s word for it, all you have to do is see for yourself.

We are all used to Serve Life.  Your only role is actually to watch how you are used.  Eventually, as you begin to watch as opposed to “thinking” you are doing it, you will begin to be surprised by life.  It is actually working for you and everyone.  Most people don’t like the “thought” that they are being used, however, it happens in spite of one’s likes or dislikes.  The more comfortable you become with it the more enjoyable life becomes.  Because that old saying “what you resists persists” is not just a saying.  But as you begin to become Aware that you are not doing it…it creates a natural relaxation and then resistance goes down and you get to see what you do.  Most people “think” they know what they will do, they think they know everything that is going to happen and how they will react to it.  But it is not true, you don’t ever know what you will do until the moment arrives for you to do it.  So many times there has been the thought that “I” will do something or will not do something and the something “I” said I wouldn’t do, “I” did and the something “I” said “I” would do…didn’t happen.  Just begin to watch and wait and see what it is that you do or don’t do, don’t tell a story about it (or even if you do…don’t believe it so firmly).

We are all just playing our parts, we can be kind to one another while we do it, kindness comes from seeing that we are all doing the best that we can, how could we do any better than what we are doing, if we could, we would, we can only think we can do better and “better” is the enemy of good, because it is saying that the moment we are in isn’t good enough.  If there is to be a “better” it will come.

So back to being used, all things Serve.  Sometime we serve in ways that look helpful and sometimes we serve in ways that don’t look helpful, but just know that everything helps itSelf, no matter what it looks like.  There are so many examples but here are three that stick out for me.

One, my son Michael (Mikel) and I went to Disney World when he was 9, there was a ride there that was set up like a haunted house and you get in an elevator and it takes you up and then it drops you and things jump out at you on different floors and it was a big ride and probably very scary looking for a 9 year old.  He didn’t want to go on…he was very scared.  As a parent, I was aware that the ride would not hurt him (unless by some freak event), but I also know that he didn’t know that, I didn’t want him to become afraid of everything in life (that is what was coming up at the time…to push him…push him to do and see something that he was scared of, so that he would not be afraid) so I told him he was going on it and of course he said he wasn’t.  I told him I didn’t care if he ended up in therapy hating me for this…he was going on it (yes that does sound mean, but sometimes we need a kick in the ass to get past our fears).  I literally dragged him on the ride, it was not pleasant and it was embarrassing too, however something was pushing me to make sure this happened (there was not thinking about it…there wasn’t a plan that said if you do this … this will work out…it was just a gut Knowing to do it…to follow through).  We get on the ride…he is in tears…I tell him I will be with him and I will not let anything happen to him.  He had to trust that I have his best interest and would not do something to hurt him and so he got on the ride.  And we went down, fast … I was scared and things jumped out at us and we screamed.  But when we got off that ride he turned to me and said “Mom!  Let’s do it again!” :o)  Now it could have ended up a disaster but it didn’t and it led me to Trust deeper in myself that when my gut says to do something to do it…not because I know what the outcome will be…it is a deepening into not knowing and a deepening in Trust that one is led always by the Self.

Two, my son Tyler (Tman) was/is very athletic and I wanted him to play football because I knew he would like it.   He had played pop-warner when he was seven or eight and it was probably too soon and it intimidated him and we quit the team.  So when we moved to Yreka, I wanted him to give it a try again because something inside was saying it would be good for him that he would like it.  He signed up without much of an argument about it, but then there were some stories being told about how football was so rough and boys were getting really hurt (there are those risks) and so Tyler came home one day and said that he decided he didn’t want to play that he wasn’t going to.  I told him no way, we signed up and you give it two weeks and if after two weeks you hate it, then you can quit.  He was not happy about this and gave me quite a bit of guff about it, even had some parents contact me to tell me it wasn’t right that I was forcing him to play.  But for whatever reason (actually because it is not up to me) I stuck to my guns and made him go (just because I say this doesn’t mean it isn’t hard to do…it is hard to stick to something to stand by something, not hard in itself, but painful when you do not know if you are doing the right thing, you just have to stand in your own ground and have your fingers crossed (in a sense, in the beginning) that it will all work out and if it doesn’t it still will).  After two weeks…I didn’t hear a word of him quitting.  He loved football, became the Quarterback and though he took a long pause…finished his senior year on the MMA Leatherneck Football team!

The third, is a bit different, because it is not so solid and easy to explain, but it was almost 12 years ago now and I was driving from up here in Etna to Chandler AZ and as I was driving down the road, it was late at night and I was still a few hours away, a thought appeared that if I had a ring and I could use it to change anything I want from happening, would I use it.  Now you have to understand that this came as a very serious internal question, if it hadn’t it wouldn’t still be with me to this day.  I said no I would not use it, that I was willing for life to be how it is, that I would not want that power.

A few hours later I arrived where I was living at the time and one of my best friends Ethan met me and told me that Mark had died.  He had crashed his motorcycle in front of where we were living and he didn’t survive. Those two things linked for me for a very long time.  His death and my not changing anything and wondering if I actually could have.  Overtime, it has deepened something in me, he has been closer to me at times, than when he was living, this I cannot explain.  However, I still would not take the power, even to bring him back physically, because in his death he has revealed that he is HERE Always.  The ring would have been the boobie prize.

All this to say, things are the way they are, you can either sit back and enjoy the ride or panic and be scared that it isn’t going to go the way you want it to, either way the ride goes on.

A TOUGH EXTERIOR...

(Trust that the  hands that hold you Love you.)

There are many examples one can use to point to a tough exterior.  It comes up to use the example of turtles because they would not make it in this world without one (a tough exterior that is). 

When we are first born we are like a turtle, we are flimsy and we need protection from the elements and this is usually where a parents or caretakers come in and play this role, without them we would probably not survive.

As we grow older and have many life experiences, we can grow shells around us like the Turtle, it just isn’t as obviously seen.  We do this to protect ourselves from being hurt, but unlike the turtle it is not just physical protection we wear our shells for it is psychological protection also (which sometimes is the more challenging of the two to take off…because psychological isn’t actually real and so you have to somehow show someone that what they believed in never was and that can be more challenging that healing a broken bone, because you can see that a broken bone has healed but how do you heal a thought (psychological wound)?

The thing that gets distorted is that one begins to rely on the shell and not one what the shell appeared to protect.  There is a bit of trouble attempting to word this.  If you look at your body…as the Turtle shell… then you can look at the Heart as the body of the turtle.  I don’t know how clear this will sound but the body is the shell that covers one’s Heart/Light.  The Heart requires the protection of the body to “be” in this world just like the turtle’s body requires the shell for it to be in this world.

But the shell is not the turtle and the body is not the Heart…they are extensions of each.  So the body of a turtle is tender and the Heart is tender too, however a turtle is not weak, nor is the Heart and at some point one is wise to begin to look at what the body is protecting. 

This is quite a challenge to describe, however, the Heart cannot be hurt, ultimately because it is not in this world, the world is in It.  But how does one begin to help one see this.  It’s like saying to a turtle…”hey take off your coat and stay awhile.”  (The coat being it’s shell.)  It would probably be a bit freaked and wonder why you would want to take it’s protection away, but you are just seeing that the protection is like a heavy armor that the turtle is carrying around and could use a rest, there is nothing for it to protect itself from around you, maybe out in the world, but around you, it is safe. 

But how do you help the turtle to see this?  To give the turtle a rest.  Possible you could point around to the turtle and show it that there is nothing around it that would hurt it, that all the things that it thinks it has had to protect itself from are not currently here.  Could you have the turtle look around it’s surroundings and see that?  How would you put the turtle at ease when it has been hurt and attacked before?

Time and patience are what help turtles and humans to see that it is okay to take the shell off and to sit back and relax for a bit without all that heavy weight holding it down.  It might kick it’s feet up and you might rub on them and share things that you have been afraid to say because someone laughed at you or made you feel badly about things that your Heart Knows.

Once you have begun to every once in awhile, take your shell/shoes off, when you have found the company of those that have also had shells but have found that they can take them off and just play and be who they are without protection.  Then when you go back into the world, you still have your shell/body/armor to wear but it might not be so thick and it might not be so heavy.

Once this has happened for you, you begin to be it for others.  The other day I was at the college and I don’t usually like to be in a crowd of a lot of people…but that is how it was.  Sometimes I will see myself as a tree and inside the tree is a core of Light that runs up and down through and out of me.  If there is an un-comfortableness growing then, like yesterday, sometimes the focus will go to that Light … it is like a pole that can be held onto when things get uncomfortable. 

As this was happening a person came up to me and said he was having anxiety, which was funny because the same was in me but I shared with him where the attention was and although I am not sure that he understood what I was saying…he eased up and started sharing with my why he was going to school and there was a feeling inside of holding that Space for us both to be in…like I was the one holding onto the Light Pole within and both of us were experiencing it.  These things are not easy to explain, and I cannot speak for the other person that he experienced anything that I am sharing, however, he did seem to relax and begin to openly share about his life…it seems both our guards went down and neither of us seemed to be aware of the crowd that was still there (which was about 80 people).

So this is sort of like the shell coming off…maybe only momentarily, but when it comes off there is a relaxing and a lightening of the load and the anxiety goes down.  Now maybe if I had not been focused on the Light before he came over to me…it might have been a completely different experience but it went the way it did and now I get to share that.  We all have that because we are all in IT.  But we are not all aware of it and sometimes think that it can be found in things outside of us.  But if you find someone, like I have that is a Light House and shines a Light on you until you begin to see that you are also a Light House...

Then you are a very lucky Turtle :o)

LIGHTENING THE LOAD...

(Click on photo for Story about Marines.)

This morning the thought appeared about "Lightening the Load" and then like usual I searched for a picture to go with what was coming up to write about.  What was coming up was to write about how "beliefs" are like baggage, like the above picture, we are carrying so many "beliefs" that we cannot live properly.  We carry so many ideas and beliefs about how or why things are that we cannot see what is in front of us because we are bent over and looking at the ground...not looking up and seeing the wide open sky of possibilities.  

So I went searching for a picture that would describe this and what kept coming up was to search for a "gunny pack."  Because my Teacher had used it as an example once of how we carry our "judgements, ideas, and beliefs" around like in a gunny pack and how when we come into a situation we have this big bag on our back of prior experiences that write upon a present moment that is free of all past experience but that we cannot see that because our bag opens up and dumps on the present moment.  So what does one do, one begins to put the bag down, look and see what is in it and what no longer serves.  You wouldn't keep something that is spoiling or going rotten in your gunny sack, you would take it out and throw it away.  That is what can be done with beliefs that you are carrying that are no longer serving you.  Take them out....look at them, do they help you to be in this world or keep you from experiencing this world fully and do you really need them at all to be?  If you feel you still do...but them back in the bag...if they don't throw them away.

So I came across the picture above after quite a bit of searching because nothing I put in Google was pulling up a description of what I was looking for I put in "gunny pack, WWI gunny pack, WWII Gunny Pack, lessoning the load)...and usually I find a picture quite quickly...however that wasn't the way and I kept searching.  Then I came across the one above after typing in "Vietnam Carrying a Large Load."  It really stood out for me and I actually on first glance thought it was a picture of a man in India carrying a load of things but when i clicked on it...it was a Marine and there was a story about how they are having tremendous back problems because they are having to carry so much on their Gunny Packs.  So maybe this is a beginning of lighten the load for them too.  If you are touched to get involved, maybe we can all lighten loads for one another.  We all are carrying Gunny Packs...everyone in the world, except for those few that have begun to See that they less they "know, believe, judge" the less weighed down they are and the sacks become emptier and emptier until all that is left is the Truth of who they Are.

THE NOW MOMENT

The Now Moment is such a simple truthful phrase and often completely missed out on.  How often are you completely aware of the Moment you are In?  Take a look, what is actually going on around you?  Do you find that the thoughts that appear are telling you all the things you have to get done, that you are not doing?  Can you be some other place than where you are?  Let's look honestly.  Are you focused on what is going on around you, in front of you or is the attention on the thoughts about the past or the future?  You can only have thoughts about the past or the future because thoughts are not in the Present Moment.  Even a thought about the Present Moment, is in the past (can you see that?).  

The Present Moment cannot be thought.  To think it...is to not be Aware of it.  To become Aware of it, begin to pay attention to what you are actually doing, not what you think you should be doing.  If you should be doing it, you would be, so don't worry about what you should be doing and pay attention to what you are.

You are in the perfect Moment, Present Moment you can be in (that is why it is the Present/Gift).  If you weren't supposed to be in the moment that you find yourself in, you would be somewhere else (your life is not of your doing...but you cannot see this until you begin to pay attention).  It is not about stopping thoughts, they will still be there, it's refocusing the attention on what is happening, not what is thought about what is happening and not what is thought about what could or could not happen.  This is not something to "think" about (even though you probably will). This is something to be Aware of.  Be Aware of the Life you are In.