We Are Perpetual Students in the Universal School of Life

Originally posted on Jun 7, 2020 on medium.com/@shamandao

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

As I sit here with my coffee on my left, alongside my cactus named Henrietta and succulent named, ‘E’ for Enigma (because I just can’t figure it out), my heart is almost full. Like 75% full. I feel content and joyful. A solid seventy five percent because I know how fortunate I am to be in the position I am in.

I think about where I am at, in a literal sense. My apartment is situated strategically between three well known supermarkets. Helpful to this foreigner because I don’t have a car. I do love public transportation in Europe, something I was fortunate to never experience growing up in Southern California. I say fortunate because, have you ever experienced traffic and public public transportation in Southern California? It’s a two hour journey for a two mile distance, if that.

The early cool Sunday breeze whisks in to say, hello, as I drink my Lavazza coffee with a splash of almond milk. Purchased at the one of two Italian supermarkets in this country. Which just so happens to be one of my neighboring supermarkets I am nestled in between.

Members of a murder of ravens stop by to also say, ‘hello,’ as I write and begin my day. My favorite German drugstore recently opened down the street from my place, along with an all women’s gym. A stone’s throw from the front door of my apartment building. Serendipitous would be an understatement.

I think about my life and how I got here. It wasn’t by chance or destiny, it was by choice. Every single step of my life was a choice I made consciously, subconsciously or sometimes even unconsciously.

Yet it was me, and no one else’s choice to make me do what I have done to get here today. We can be swayed or nudged in this direction or that, but ultimately, it’s up to each one of us to choose our lives. Everything I am experiencing today is because of the choices I made yesterday.

There is a choice that has to be made to be in a relationship where you are mentally, emotionally and physically abused from the beginning. There is a choice to be made to be in a relationship where your partner is loving and supportive of you. There is a choice to be made to live where you live. You have a choice to think the way you think or not. You have a choice to work where you work or not. If you do not feel joy going to work, ask yourself why. Ask yourself, why?, because you have a choice to leave it to look for another one.

Just make a decision and stick with it.

Simple, right? Life should be simple, less complicated. Yet, the more choices, the more layers of emotions we compound on top of each other, the more chaos we have inside.

We are built in layers, so we must come undone in layers. Ask yourself why. Why are you doing the things you do?

I sat in a beautiful restaurant last night with a friend of mind and blessed our food before we dug in. It was our first post quarantine meal together and our energies were running high. As we giggled our way into our plates, I realized I was the only foreigner within the square block radius in a country I didn’t even know existed until last year.

It’s a street where only locals come out to sit, dine and share stories in their greatest attire. The women are meticulously put together. The highlighter on their cheeks glinting off the strategically placed dim lights. The men hug each other to bow their heads from left to right to show a sign of respect. I always love how the men in Europe have no negative emotions associated with long embraces and kisses on the cheek.

Covid aside, my good friend shared something in confidence with me last night where I was humbled to listen. Women are so good at ruminating as we continue to go over the same scenario, question, person over and over and over again.

“I keep thinking to myself, why me? Why not anyone else?” she asked rhetorically.

I thought about my most recent client who had released a huge burden of pain and anger she carried with her almost her entire life. Depression, anger, guilt, shame, sadness, all wrapped up into a hard stone she dragged with her. In one of our last sessions, all she had to do was push this stone away from her so that my spiritual team could take care of it.

She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to release it, even though it wasn’t her burden to carry. It was her mother’s and her grandmothers. All the intergenerational trauma that has been dumped onto her. As my client was in a light trance, tears streaming and a trail of snot gliding over her cheeks, she cried out in pain.

“It’s not mine to carry,” she said.

“What was that you said?” I asked.

“It’s not mine to carry.”

“SAY IT AGAIN!” I commanded her. A woman who has held all this pain inside of her, not allowing anyone remotely in to help her.

“It’s not mine to carry!” she tried.

“SAY IT AGAIN LIKE YOU MEAN IT! IT’S NOT YOURS TO CARRY IS IT!??!” I responded as my voice inched up two decimals.

We continued until she was able to express everything she wanted to say, but couldn’t say or never knew how to say it.

We continued until she made space within her, releasing all excess energies that had taken up so much space and time in her life. We continued until I watched this once energetically, heavy and dense soul feel lighter and more free than she’s ever felt in her life. We continued until she’s had enough.

“All you have to do is simple. You have to make a choice to decide if you want to hold onto this boulder or let it go,” I told her.

Secondary gain is real.

It has a payoff. All the suffering, all the sacrifices in her life wrapped up in one stone and all she had to do was wish and will it away. She wasn’t ready. And for her, that’s okay, because only when you are ready is when you can make everlasting change.

As humans, we give meaning to everyone and everything. Once meaning is attached, we become attached. The art of flow is to allow experiences and people to come as they are. To experience life without attachments is to experience life in all its glory.

Have you ever detached yourself from work, family or your phone for a couple hours? Maybe even a couple days? It felt good didn’t it? That me time, that you time, is crucial in the foundation of our mental, emotional and physical well being. Detachment in all forms allows us to be in the state of flow.

After the session, my client wondered and asked out loud the inevitable, ‘why me?’

Hardships are presented to us in every form and fashion. Obstacles and challenges are a part of life. When we learn to detach ourselves from them, to allow them to flow through instead of holding onto them, that’s when we can look at situations and experiences in our lives with a helicopter view.

That’s when we can accept that obstacles and challenges are a part of life. Each person’s obstacles and challenges are different from the next. We are not our circumstances. What you have experienced up to this point in your life is just that. An experience. Some are good, some are bad and some are plane horrific.

Yet, there are survivors who come out on top. They see the world not through battered eyes but as though the world is a safe and beautiful place. They choose to see the world through eyes that give them a sense of wonderful and fulfillment, even though they’ve been through hell and back.

Ask yourself, What can I learn from this? If you are the type of person who asks yourself, “Why did this happen to me? Why me?”

We are perpetual students in the Universal school of life. Lessons are given to us every single day and we can excel at any given time. No matter if you feel you are a D student today, you can always begin to learn from the lessons given. You can always, always raise up your grade in this school of life by learning from the lessons instead of failing the same test again and again.

If you haven’t noticed, you are given the same test in a different format again and again. Until you are aware of that and can recognize it for what it is to change your answers, you will be in a perpetual class with the same teacher, with the same grade.

Do your homework, put in the effort and level up yourself. Why you? No, my dear, why not you? You were built to learn the lesson and pass with flying colors. You just have to remember the amazing life scholar you were always before.

In Blessed Oneness.