Life Lessons

Life lessons take…a lifetime. It’s tough to make conclusive statements about what my life lessons are because… I’m still in the midst of my life - still growing, changing and learning.

Some growth feels subtle, such as… I don’t really know how I got from that way of thinking to this way of thinking; I just realize I’ve changed.  Sometimes it’s more like a growth spurt, and it hurts – my heart tears and breaks, my mind suffers, my soul aches.  And then, I am changed.

Some change feels welcome; some change does not seem at all what I want.  Sometimes it takes a long while before I embrace change – before I understand it to have caused me to learn something valuable.

Some learning comes easily; some learning seeps in after a bout of amnesia; some learning comes after a whole lot of kicking and screaming and feeling like your whole being has been breaking through rock. There was a saying where I grew up that speaks to the subtle learning that comes from a combination of all of the above.

As a child and teen, I lived in the North Shore area of Boston, where a neighboring town sits on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean (where the sun rises). We’d say this when we ‘got’ something we’d been unable to ‘get’ before.  We’d lightly smack our forehead and say: Dawn breaks on Marblehead. Yes, indeed… learning can be like that.

Soul Family

Life lessons do not ‘just happen’.  We need opportunities that elicit or create the lessons learned.  I believe Soul Family members offer these opportunities for growth. I believe we (Soul Family members) do this for each other because we love each other and so, want to help each other grow.  I say to my Soul Family: I want to better understand myself as forgiving, and a member of my Soul Family volunteers to give me reason to forgive. 

Just because love is the motivating factor (for offering a growth opportunity), does not necessarily mean the opportunity feels lovely, though.  Giving someone reason to forgive starts with doing something that may first feel unforgivable.  Opportunities for growth are gifts – often wrapped as pain-points and challenges.  There’s an acronym that describes this concept – AFGO: ‘Another F-cking Growth Opportunity’.  I think that sums it up.

So, while I can’t conclusively state what my life lessons are, I currently believe that the opportunities to learn them often appear as painfully challenging, and are delivered by the souls who love me the most.

Paradigm Shifts

Learning is most difficult when it includes a paradigm shift.  A paradigm, by definition, is ‘a system of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality’.  Read that again if you need to, to let it sink in.  It’s a helpful base for understanding this next part.

A personal paradigm (as defined by me) is a person’s perspective or understanding of self, the world, and how they fit into it.  If you grow up being told your cultural background is Scottish, you understand yourself and your interactions in the world from the perspective of being Scottish. You might study the language, wear the traditional garb, celebrate Celtic Earth-based rituals.

A personal paradigm shift is a change in that perspective or understanding. In the example of identifying with being Scottish, if you learn that your family and ancestors were not at all Scottish, but rather, they were from the Nordic countries, spoke north Germanic languages, and believed in the ‘master race’ theory – you might feel like your world as you knew it just fell apart. Your self-identity is no longer defined as it had been. 

Paradigm shifts, when abrupt like that, leave people feeling like there’s no ground beneath them – like the physical earth is breaking apart and they’re falling through an unknown space. It can feel extremely confusing and frightening.  It’s dis-regulating, because nothing is ‘regular’ – nothing is as it was.

Personal paradigms are formed by neuro-networking in the brain. 

Trauma experts relay that we inherit traumatic retention – that it is embedded in our DNA. I imagine there are other unrecognized entities, in addition to traumatic retention, that are inherited and embedded in our DNA.  I envision that these understanding, thinking, feeling, and reacting DNA parts are files-of-sort, living together in a storage room. It’s like these personality files are hanging out in a living room (in the brain), relating to each other, bonding, forming connections. The bonded connections they make are actual physical neurons, like a spider web, that light up as one, like a disco ball, when they’re stimulated.

Then there’s a new experience – while in embryonic form, during infancy, in childhood, growing up, as a teen, as an adult, as an elderly person – you feel, sense, hear, see, smell, taste something – and the experience is filed, becoming a memory, in the storage room, along with what’s already there. The neuro-network system (already there) lights up, like a single welcome sign, attracting the new experience/ memory to join. We’re over here. Come on over. Welcome! This happens over and over again, with each new experience, each new memory. The experiences and memories bond, becoming one, entangled, ever-enlarging belief system.

This is how a neuro-network system is formed in the brain. The system is a filter through which all present and future experiences pass through – a bias, of sorts – through which we understand our personal self, the world around us, and how we fit into it. This is a paradigm - my paradigm… your paradigm… our paradigm.

With enough connected input, all people on the planet believed that the world was flat. This was a shared belief – a worldwide paradigm. With enough new data, people all around the planet shifted that belief to: the world is round. That paradigm shift took 300 years, and some people still don’t believe that the Earth is round. Paradigms are incredibly strong; they’re incredibly difficult to change.

Paradigms are not necessarily correct. They’re not necessarily helpful in creating a unified, equitable, compassionate world. Most often, our varying paradigms are absolutely not helpful in creating a unified, equitable, compassionate world. 

Worldwide paradigm shifts are fundamentally and deeply difficult to go through. It is as equally difficult to shift a personal paradigm.  Both are necessary for change to happen.

Change (summing up)

Historically embedded DNA and personal and cultural perspectives along the way (gathered in this life) have helped to form our beliefs of who we are, what the world is like, and how we fit into it – our paradigms. Personal and worldwide paradigms guide how we live our lives. In turn, our paradigms guide our paths forward, and create our world culture.  From this perspective, we may have a vaguely-mapped-out conclusion of where we’ll walk and where we’ll land, of what the world is and will be. 

It is likely, though, that twists in the plot will change each of us, and ultimately, change all of us. We may look back and decide things weren’t as we had thought, and that the future is open for change too.  

Soul Family members help shift personal paradigms. Soul Family members add plot twists – opportunities, often disguised as pain-points and challenges – that entice more parts of the self to show up, and ultimately, change our perspectives.

It is likely that our lifetime adventures will end with a conclusion we did not see coming. It is likely our life lessons will be a surprise!

It is possible to shift the world culture. It is possible to create and live in a unified, equitable, compassionate world.  It is not simple, yet paradigm shifts do happen. How do we get there?  We start with a personal paradigm shift. It is not simple, yet it is necessary.

I believe I can do it.  I believe you can do it.  What do you believe you can do?