Starting Over / New Beginnings

There is so much that goes unexplained in human life. And that isn't to say that you and I don't have explanations, but over and over again our explanations prove to be lies. And the way we are able to justify this way of getting around a problem (or a person), and stand momentarily on some ground as if we've conquered the world, is that we believe we have understood the situation and risen above it...

Whenever we find ourselves running after something -- anything -- to complete us, what is the real nature of this force within us that compels us in this way? We are pushed along in these pursuits by a very subtle, but solid sense of feeling as though we are somehow incomplete.

If there's one thing that should be more than evident to everyone on the planet, it's that the level of pain in it is increasing. Human beings are imbalanced, forever teetering. And how do we know that? Because if you just push them a little bit, down they go!

Too frequently we feel as though our lives are under the power of things outside of us and beyond our ability to deal with: prisoners in one way or another of an unfair social system, impossible work conditions, an unforgiving past, or a failed relationship. Even trying to assemble a build-it-yourself bookshelf that doesn't know it "goes together with ease" can lock us away in the "house of pain."

One day an announcement was posted. It said there would be an open series of marathons and foot races comprised of various distances and degrees of difficulty. All who wished to test themselves against course, clock, and each other, were invited to compete for fabulous gifts and prizes, as well as for national recognition for being the best in their class.

Even though we all have our natural preference, no season of the year is greater than any other. Each plays an indispensable role in a cycle of life greater than its individual parts; and each one serves the season that follows on its heels, enabling it to fulfill its purpose in a procession as timeless as the earth itself...

It's crucial for us to understand that the thrust of our habitual thinking lives with its attention fixed, not on beginnings, but on the end of things. Don't we always wonder what our lives will be like tomorrow? Aren't we forever dreaming about how different things will be once we win this or achieve that? Don't we, in our mind's eye, perpetually walk towards a brighter moment to come, thinking about how good we'll feel once we're able to resolve some...

The truth is that letting go is very simple and, above all, natural; as natural for you and I as it is for a tree to shed the heavy, sun-ripened fruit that clings to its branches. Why? Because both man and tree, in fact all living things, are created to drop what is no longer needed. For the tree, the falling fruit carries its matured seed to the ground. No unnatural force is necessary. In a similar fashion -- that is to say, under higher but equally exacting laws...

Looking at life through the eyes of resistance is not unlike looking at our own reflection in a pool of troubled waters; everything gets distorted. In fact, when seeing our lives through the narrow bars of some unwanted state, nothing is the way we see it.

In this answer to an online viewer's question, "letting go" author Guy Finley explains that, rather than being afraid of our perceived limitations, we can actually use them to discover fearless aspects of our consciousness that we didn't know were there before.

For the majority of us, what we call being renewed has nothing to do with what is real renewal. Mostly what we feel as renewal is when some idea or a hope that we have gets fulfilled, filling us in turn with a sense of excitement; and then, in that feeling of being full of ourselves, comes a certain kind of pleasure that we take as being the same as self-renewal in this life.

Each spring great forces are released to work upon and within us. During this time of the year the possibility of making a brand new beginning in life is never greater. Why is this true? Because spring also "dawns" within us, and if we will align ourselves with the power of its presence, then working for us is the unstoppable principle of rebirth itself. But, if we would receive this new life...