Perception Shift 101

When my daughter was in her post graduate program, she opted to forgo Thanksgiving celebrations with the family so she could work on projects which were due the following week.   I remember spending a couple of hours on the phone with her as she fought loneliness and lamented the amount of work expected of the students.

Our life experience is like that post grad program. Earth is a classroom.  We are here to learn and the more advanced the lesson; the more sacrifice, work, pain and change in perception required of us if we are to succeed.  The workload can be so huge; it almost appears we are being set up for failure.

Humanity is in the midst of a post grad program which will only be truly perceptible years down the road.  Time and perspective allow us to see shifts of the past. Previous shifts such as the Dark Ages and the Renaissance will pale in comparison to what humanity is experiencing now as we live in to the second decade of the 21^st century.

This is a tough, tough journey we are all on!  It seems as if nothing is making sense any more.  Relationships, careers, our bodies, where we live, what we do for fun…none of it is working the way it used to.  Our very relationship with time is changing.  A day feels like a year, but a week feels like a day.

So what do we do?  We could lament the change or we could find a way to shift perception.  Just like a brutal post grad program…we take it a moment at a time.  That is all we can do.  I can’t change the future by worrying about it in this moment, but I can make the best use of this moment to shape future outcomes.

When my mother was ill and succumbed to her illness, I learned a profound lesson.  Mom was my anchor and I dreaded the prospect of this life without her.  I was holding her hand as she drew her last breath.  Early in the mourning process, I realized I was OK in the moment before she passed, in the moment she passed and in the moment after she passed.  We live in the moment and moments pass.  We can handle whatever is happening to us in the moment!

Nothing had changed. I was still in this classroom called life. She had graduated to whatever the next level is and I was still here learning.  This amazing woman had given me the tools to continue my education and would always be with me.  She was part of my foundation; she was part of my very being.

This lesson was brutal for me.  It was also the kind of lesson which enables the change in perception required at the Master’s level.  If it were easy to change perception, we would all get up tomorrow and voila…we would be graduates.  But if this life is a classroom…

what would we gain by skipping to the graduation ceremony without the learning?

Many of the great Masters understood this life is an opportunity for growth (aka-learning), and growing pains are part of the process. The Master Jesus knew this and he relinquished his life to truly grasp the lesson.  Metaphor or not, we are being asked to relinquish the comforts of our lives to take that leap…to learn the lesson.  When Jesus cried out “Father, why have you forsaken me?” he was in the midst of a dark night of the soul where his very connection with his spirit seemed lost.  We will have those moments; and they will be painful.  They are also the exact moments we are called to change, to transform.  We will require those experiences to graduate to the Masters level. Jesus told us that “we could do all he could do and more”.  We are all powerful beyond belief and we can graduate from this…believe!

This Masters program could be entitled “Live in to Change”.  Our connection with spirit, our creativity, the way we nourish our bodies and live our lives are changing.  We aren’t being set up for failure but this advanced program won’t appeal to everyone.  Some will find happiness with the status quo.  For those of you knee deep in the program, there is help!