What Happens When …?
Weekly Reading Topic for September 14, 2019: What Happens When …?
Well, good morning, love!
I just opened a Reading for you, my newsletter subscribers and here’s what I heard in answer to the following:
What do my readers most need to hear this weekend? What is the most important message to send to my beloved readers?
The answer was: “What Happens When …?”
What follows is your Weekly Reading.
Weekly Reading │ What Happens When …?
Q: What do you mean, “what happens when …?”
A: Life is really one big experiment, even if most of the time we’ve forgotten this is so. We must find ways to test ourselves and our lives, and do so continually, or … life ends up testing us.
It’s a good idea, then, to ask yourself several times a day: what happens when … ?
What happens when I wake up and let myself stare at the ceiling for a while, before I “remember” who I am?
What happens when I say the thing I think I shouldn’t say?
What happens when I move my furniture around a little?
What happens when I take another route to work?
What happens when I smile when I normally would frown?
What happens when I take a deep breath instead of tensing up?
What happens when I sing a little song right before bedtime?
What happens when I let someone else just be who they are, without wishing they were different?
There are a million ways to experiment with your life. And the reason to do this is simple: we’re all in our own mazes, and most of us have set those mazes up for ourselves at some point. But either through habit or attrition, we just keep running the same routes, over and over, reaching for the same reliable chunk of cheddar at the end. We don’t bother going down the side tunnels; we know where those lead.
But if we are the ones who set up our own maze, run our own experiment, then there is every possibility that the maze has changed since the last time we took a run. And sometimes those side tunnels do in fact lead somewhere new. We don’t see the maze from our limited perspective.
So while we run these experiements it’s also important to “watch the maze from above.” Taking the perspective of the observer, of the scientist, we can see what’s working and what isn’t. We can watch ourselves take the new turns, and even see why they don’t lead to the cheddar.
Or that they will, if we just make that last one turn.
We’ll see where we go too far; where we don’t go far enough.
And we’ll be able to run the maze again with more confidence next time.
So this weekend, take a few extra turns. Go down a path you don’t normally pursue. Eat something you think you hate. Listen to a type of music you think you despise. Walk backwards for a few paces. Do a shoulderstand. Take a look at the world you have made for yourself from a slightly different perspective.
And as you do, also “watch” yourself. Notice how you feel, what you say, what you think. Meditate on it, either literally or figuratively.
Just notice, with a sense of curiosity, what happens when.
This experimental attitude is how we jog our neurons, wake up our memory banks, and keep our life from getting stale and stuck and caked in old mustardy bread crumbs. (Whoa… where’d that come from?!?)
This coming fall is likely to be intense in a variety of ways. Coming in limber and flexible, already-familiar with and attuned to subtle changes in our worldview, will help us to navigate the intensity without losing ourselves.
I am always here to serve in any way I can.
Much Love to You,
Molly
PS: Thank you for sharing this with anyone who could use it!
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