The Curse of the Immediate Mind

Sunrise in Idaho
Sunrise in Idaho

This is the season for making a change. Everyone is looking around to see how they could live a better life. In our own minds, we probably have a perfect vision of a perfect body, or a perfect relationship, or a perfect life.

The trouble is always…getting there.

Every once in a while, I get caught mid-step and land at a dead-stop in the middle of a change I want to make. Instead of wrestling with a fear of change, these stalled and broken times are the hardest of my life. My brain knows what I want and is showing me a vision of where I want to be but for whatever reason, I can’t get there. Yet.

Well, there is always a space between wanting and having. Sometimes though, that space can seem like a cold, dark, limitless, void. It is this interim lull that is completely maddening. It tests all kinds of faith. I have been in one of these moments, frozen in time, for at least a year now. An astrologer would call it a Neptune Transit.

Whenever I get frustrated I start to analyze the cosmos, usually using astrology. It’s perfect for backing you up psychologically and giving you some perspective. It allows you to slow down and understand what is happening in our life.

As it happens, it usually isn’t just one change we are trying to make. Our mind deals in generalities and any major change requires a lot of little ones as well. We just don’t see them because our brains are distracting the hell out of us by flashing the big pretty picture of what could be. We’re always ahead of ourselves and if we could wave a wand and have the life we envision immediately we would probably be stunned to find we are not prepared for it at all.

The mind is immediate, but a new reality takes time.

We may have the right idea and a true vision but there are details to attend to first. Time is needed for smaller events to occur that encourage new thinking, events that will help us to grow a new attitude. There are subtle shifts in our perception to make, little actions to take, people to meet and form connections with.

The frustration is found deep within the mystery around what shifts are necessary and how long “it” will take before our new life rings the doorbell. We may get impatient but we can take comfort that all these seemingly stupid and inconsequential happenings are leading us up to making a comfortable transition right into what we want to be. What is trust and faith but the idea that all is taking place as it should? That everything happens for a reason and those reasons will be revealed to us at the proper time? The irony is, only when we finally receive what it is we pictured so clearly and are living our new life, do we realize what we really gained from the wait.

Be patient, have faith, keep going, things will come together, it will happen.