On being in co-creation and the million-dollar question

Published 21 days ago • 2 min read

Plunge into Calm

Happy Tuesday! I'm back this week but going rogue on the format again. Hope you enjoy!

Drive or Ride

The other day while driving, my daughter pointed out that if you watch the road lines, it looks like the car is still and the road is moving towards us. Queue 90's sitcom driving scene flashbacks.

I smiled. It was like she read my mind. I think about this all the time—how a small shift in perspective and a beginner's mind can completely change our experience. If you haven't noticed this before, try it next time you are out driving. If you erase your knowledge that the car is moving, whether the road or the car is moving can appear like one of these ambiguous images. Anyone else love these!?

The reality is, it's neither of these. The car isn't moving on a static road, nor is the road moving towards a static car. Everything is in motion.

What if we apply this same perspective shift towards life? My natural inclination is to feel like I am driving through life. I am making decisions, getting stuff done... I am DOING life. If I'm being honest, living primarily from this mindset is exhausting. It makes me feel stressed, anxious and never enough. Recently I've started shifting my perspective. What if instead of driving through life I can just sit in the car, and let life come to me.

Here's a little insight into my brain—as soon as I have a thought like this my inner critic gets fired up starts playing devil's advocate. "This sounds like you're advocating for free-loading, fatalism, and an excuse to be lazy!"

It's quite the fun game of tug-of-war.

I'm not at all advocating for any of these things. We each have a partially written life story—some of us with more blank pages left than others. Tomorrow's page, while blank today, will be completed by the end of the day. We are co-authors of this story. We are in co-creation with the universe. There is a middle way. There is a way to both drive and sit back and ride. It'll come as no surprise to you that I'm about to tie this back to the breath. :)

We can watch and allow our breath to come and go. As long as we are alive in these human bodies, it will never stop on its own. As the saying goes, "life happens" and will keep happening. Life will continue to write our story whether we step in or not. Just as we can observe the breath, we can also take a breath. We can alter our breath pattern to better serve our needs. We can step in and write our story as well.

Now the challenge is: when is the right time to do which? How much do we take and how much do we allow. That, my friends, is the million-dollar question. This is something I am very much trying to figure out myself.