Wisdom Lives in Endings: Reframing Failure as Closing Karmic Loops
When I can come to understand why certain experiences affected me how they did, what it all means, then I can rest in the wisdom of completion. See, experiences are all about completing cycles for me. When I can complete a cycle then I free up my conscious and subconscious for the next string of events to take place. Diving below the surface, collecting pearls one breath at a time.
Meeting endings unanticipated is a salty sting to my ego, especially because I get passionately consumed by everything life has to offer. I’ll throw myself into the fire of whatever craft I’m working until the point it serves its usefulness. Usually that usefulness is, have I understood the cycle of experience? Because that piece right there, that coming to understand the ‘why’s’ and the motivations behind my desires, ceases the experience, puts it in a box, wraps it in Christmas wrapping and ties a neat little bow. Presents presented to the Tree of Knowledge grants the blessing of wisdom. And what else is there? All of these experiences, what have they been for other than to receive the pearls of wisdom shared? When I can come to understand myself in relationship to my desires, in relationship to my experiences, then I have met the truest intention of creation.
Coming to understand my human self has been the gateway into understanding who I am universally. Who we all are fundamentally. To understand the intricacies and complexities of the collected human experience has shown me what lives in the spaces between. How stillness and quiet space pervades to allow for the loudness and the insufferable exhaust of hustle to take shape. I desire for Truth, and I find it hidden in human experience. Tasting the sweet nectar of illustrious spirit has dulled my senses of the external world, but still those deeper, primal drives of the evolved human tether me at times to seeking immediate gratification.
Before knowing my spiritual Self I couldn’t satiate my desires fast enough. I desired the fame and popularity, the ambition of running my own company and leaving a legacy. My attitude towards success was exceptionally one-pointed and my goals left me salivating. But life has its way of bringing forth those experiences, those goals and desires that are not meant to be obtained. Sure, in my mind reaching a high level in gymnastics, making 6 figures, owning a house and a dog, having a family and a kid by age X all seemed very realistic and obtainable. And yet every time that finish line drew close, each time I was closing my lips around sweet success, something deeper than my original desire swept in and I gave it all up. This nudge of knowing that the true fulfillment I sought after wasn’t on the other side of the winner’s circle. The pulsating soul of higher intention left an ache in me, my path in constant reroute and etched with disappointment. Although the pains of hyper critical self shaming and frustrating incompetence pounded me daily with insults, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else I was meant to be seeking.
As the years went on, I eventually stumbled on a cycle of introspective self reflection. Not yet awakened and very much guided by my conditioned mind, I saw these short comings as personal failures. I analyzed and wracked my brain for the right perspective, the right solution that would offer me a soothing balm to a bruised ego. But at the time I was only catching glimpses behind the veil of Truth, not enough to grasp why dead-ends had been a constant experiential occurrence in my youth and early adult years. I chalked it up as I don’t deserve to desire anything if I am not able to meet the fruits of my labors. Later on I realized, I just hadn’t found my right path of success.
Diving into the deep end of the ‘why’s of my desires, I found roots tangled in motivations of needing to belong. If I landed a high rank in gymnastics, that would prove that I was better than the other kids and meant I deserved a place in this world. If I found a husband and had a kid then I’d be walking the familiarly acceptable path of other women, and prove that having a family will make me happy. If I make 6 figures in my job then I’d succeed as the acceptable male of society. So my desires were never my own, not really. I believed that by becoming the reflections of the world around me, by succeeding where others had, then I’d feel complete. If I aligned my visions and desires to what is common practice in my culture and to society, then I’d find the fulfillment I’d been desperately seeking.
Falling short every time I had a desire motivated towards what I thought others could give me so that I could be happy was the burning flame that revealed my True nature. Not finding fulfillment in the material world forced me to seek it within myself, because I wanted to understand. I wanted to know why, I demanded answers. And now I know, through intensive psychological sifting, sorting, and discarding, that the only thing I truly desire is to know the Truth of me. To peel back the layers of distortion and reveal the essentialness of being. For me, seeking Truth is the journey, it was never about fulfilling an end goal. Fulfillment is in the cultivation of present moment awareness. It’s in the steady practice of meeting myself here and now.
I am no longer living from the mental framework of my younger self who desired to have others meet her needs. I make decisions based on the desire to merge with my Higher Self. Sure, primal desires rear their head and want to be expressed, but I value the calmness that is bestowed by practicing self-control. When I feel something urge me, thrust me forward I pause and I turn in. I assess and discern the motivation behind the impulse, and understand what spurred the response. Only from the seat of peace, from still inner waters, can the image of Truth be reflected clearly.
