Stepping beyond Fate and into your Destiny.
“In refusing fate, we also deny destiny.” Michael MeadeWhat does this mean? To answer that question I think you begin my looking to see where in your life you are refusing (resisting) your fate. What part of yourself or your life, are you struggling to fully embrace? Remember the post Accept—then act? Where Eckhart Tolle tells us to “Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it… This will miraculously transform your whole life.” I believe these are related. Where we resist, what our life is bringing us: a downturn in donations, a decrease in sales, a health issue, a marriage gone sour, that is where we wrestle with reality rather than accepting it, AND that is where we may inadvertently be turning away from our destiny (that which our soul most longs for). (Please note, that in a struggle between our own will and reality...she (reality) wins, "but only 100% of the time." Byron Katie.)I propose that when we do this, "resist what is" we deny that deep call at the core of our being, which is our destiny. The health issue, the business issue, the bad marriage might be the very key that unlocks my next move toward my destiny, if I can but first accept it as here. AND then act as if I trust it, as if I had a strange faith in this thing, that I didn’t ask for or think I wanted. Personally, I do this by saying to myself and that reality I do not like, something on the order of :
“'Sh... I don’t understand why you are here and I sure don’t want you.... BUT I am going to trust you and meet you as ally and not enemy.' I am truly curious about this unasked for reality that now presents itself to me. I am going to wonder what hidden treasures it might contain. (By the way, this is easier as I get older because I can look back on so many things I wanted but in actuality I was mistaken.)”
And in doing this, I shift my internal attitude and my energy, so that a more creative and innovative way to be with (this consciously unasked for reality) can open for me.
Look, I know this isn't easy. I am as stubborn and willful as anyone I know. BUT I also know this: life rarely brings me the great beauties I have heretofore enjoyed based on anything I have planned or willed into being. The treasures of my life have come in strange packages indeed. And you might look back on your own life and see if that isn't true for you as well.
Are you wondering "How are fate and destiny intertwined? " This is one of my favorite conversations and they both have seemed related but difficult to pin down. My own views on these two keep evolving. Currently, I think fate is sort of like the status quo or automatic pilot. It is how we live when we are not truly conscious or reflective about our choices and actions. When we never question, if we are in fact doing what we came "factory loaded" for. So, when I say things to myself like, "I have to go to XYZ because her feelings will be hurt or because they expect me to", this is a place where I am not actually consulting my own wise self to find out what is truly called for at this moment. It is a bit like when I react or blindly follow my DNA or my wiring. It is my reactive state. Fate is sort of like "automatic pilot". I think it is akin to the unexamined life.I do believe that certain events (but by no means all) of each life are fated. In my life, I think my marriage was and my divorce. But what exactly is the difference between fate and destiny?I think destiny is more like calling. I remember hearing Jungian author James Hollis talk about how in the middle of his life, he changed course and direction and went to Switzerland to study at the Jung Institute and become a Jungian analyst. He is one of the most popular Jungian authors and all of his books came later in his life. Had he stayed in his former profession and here in the states, his "destiny" might not have appeared and instead he would have simply lived out his fate.I would love to hear your ideas on this too. And I will keep blogging on it as it is one of my deep interests.PS: By the way, I think it is no small thing to step beyond fate and into your destiny! But that is another post.
“The power of love upsets the order of things.”*
“The power of love upsets the order of things.”*For years men and women have written about “fate” and “destiny.” From my perspective, fate represents a kind of unconsciousness or reactivity. A bit like getting up each day and telling an 8 year old to make his bed, yet no bed is made. You repeat the action the next day expecting different results, but alas, you get an unmade bed. Then one day you do something different and get different results. The day that you do something different I think you step off the wheel of fate and onto the path of destiny. There is a momentum of sorts to fate, the power of lethargy or the status quo. It is hard to think of something new and different to do, the seductiveness of unconscious or reactive actions looms large in all of our lives and therefore in all of our organizations, families and governments.Yet, the quote says, “The power of love upsets the order of things.” I interpret the order of things to be “fate.” To be “the way we have always done it.” The order of things is conventional wisdom. Please note it wasn’t always so; what is now “how we have always done it” or conventional wisdom was once the new idea that upset the order of things! So, we might think of fate and destiny as two forces in life: fate being a current we must swim against in order to get to shore and destiny is shore. Except this happens each moment. So destiny is not static or “there.” It is earned again in each moment.The power of love is the other important aspect of the quote. We might substitute, energy, passion, or the random and unexpected for the word love. What upsets fate and shifts us into destiny is more familiar to the Western mind as energy or passion. How many lovers have thought to themselves in the original throes of the bloom of love, “I am a better me with my beloved.” Or maybe, “I am the best me” with that person. For love we risk being out of our comfort zone, because we love and because we feel loved. And all of a sudden, the siren song of safety is not alive and running our lives, but rather the song of adventure and possibility. In my view, that is exactly what we are here for: to come alive. And, the power of love will help us leave the path of fate and jump over to the path of destiny.“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman *Quote from Genesis Rabbah LV8 and embedded in the text at this link:http://www.js.emory.edu/BLUMENTHAL/Akeda,%20Zach.htm.**Acknowledgement to 8.4.12 conversation with Bridget Boland and to James Hollis and his book, What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life, for informing my thinking on fate and destiny.
Down with Self-improvement
“God's admiration for us is infinitely greater than anything we can conjure up for Him.” St. Francis of AssisiFor centuries St. Francis has been one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints. Do his words go straight to your heart? They certainly did mine. Maybe because this change and growth business I am in is a bit tricky. It can leave us over-focusing on flaws or imperfections, which actually from a larger perspective are essential to our true beauty and can well be a distraction from the meaning and purpose or our lives.If your philosophy of life doesn’t include a monotheistic God, you might rewrite the words to say “love”. For example: “Love’s admiration for us is infinitely greater than anything we can conjure up for Love.” But whatever word you use, I think this is a great and abiding truth. There is something much larger than our strategic or left brained understanding and perspective. That something makes things whole. It renders us whole. And whole includes our flaws, so maybe our beauty actually needs our flaws?In the David Whyte poem, Faces at Braga, the poet tells us:If only our own faces would allow the invisible carver's hand to bring the deep grain of love to the surface.If only we knew as the carver knew, how the flaws in the wood led his searching chisel to the very core,we would smile, too and not need faces immobilized by fear and the weight of things undone.When we fight with our failing we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.When we fight with our failing, when we focus on self-improvement — on how to make things or ourselves better — we miss the entrance to the shrine itself the poet says. That means we miss the point of our lives. We are sacred. Our lives our sacred. This world is sacred.What happens if we trust that our flaws are essential to our brilliance and our goodness? I believe what happens is that we come alive, truly and wholeheartedly alive. And, in the face of such aliveness, “...even the gods speak of God.”