When You Get There, Keep Going

(Ode to Pac, a true revolutionist)

When there is a true shift in consciousness, in our way of thinking and perceiving the world around us, change becomes a natural and necessary by-product of that shift. Our environment will and must change to match it.

Our world is nothing more than a reflection of our current state of mind, a macro cosmic reflection of our own internal chaos or calm. Change begins in the mind or more precisely, beyond it.

Many of us would agree wanting to change is not enough. So what precedes the shift, what causes it?

Back in college, I took a course in which I was educated on the exploitation of the average consumer, women more specifically, in society, media, the medical field, etc. I learned about the impact of petroleum products in our body and our environment. I discovered the insidious amounts of chemicals being added to makeup, hygiene products, infant formula, clothing, vaccinations, food and water to name a few. I became a witness to factory farming and was baffled at how I never knew this was going on. I learned about the status quo and my own involvement and unconscious participation in the upkeep of it. It was the most eye opening class I have ever taken. As expected, I was absolutely furious about the deception. I couldn’t believe that this was happening in the world. I was so passionate about spreading this information, I told anyone and everyone I knew about what I had learned.

But how does one go from fury to fuel for change?

With all that passion, it would make sense to assume my choices and behaviors would have begun to change as well.
But they didn’t.

A sophomore in college, I continued on in most of my old habits, mainly out of convenience. I still ate fast food, cleaned with the same products, used the same perfume. I drank bottled water, used plastic for almost everything and I surely wasn’t ready to give up my cancer causing make up or my favorite lead filled lipstick. Although I was adamant in telling people about all of this information, there was clear disconnect between the concepts I believed in and the way I actually lived my life. Shortly, after the class ended, so did my passion for the subjects it touched upon.

There was no shift.
There was no full awakening, 
not yet but a seed was planted.

Looking back, I have come to understand, through the highly perceptive lens of hindsight, that much of the information I had learned in that class did not fit into my social setting. At the time, there was no living context for it to grow within.

I genuinely did want to revolt, plant my own garden, purchase organic, stop wearing toxic make up, stop eating animals and begin to recycle the disgusting amounts of plastic I had been throwing away on a daily basis. But at that time the environment I was in was not conducive to the change I desired. At no fault of their own, my friends didn’t really know about the chemicals in their environment either, nor did my family. I had no support system or people from whom I could seek out advice and guidance.

I wondered, as the years had gone by and the course’s impact on me begin to fade, why didn’t I follow through?

Why didn’t I do anything, at all?

Back then, I didn’t recognize my own unwillingness to let go of the very things that were keeping me from being the person I wanted to be and living the way I wanted to. Fast forward several years later, I am a college graduate and expecting my first child. Suddenly, the seed that was planted gets watered a bit as I begin to see my body very differently now. The seed that lay dormant for many years is activated by a change in my environment that is more favorable to its growth, pregnancy and the beginning of entering into the journey of motherhood, shifted things. I wanted, like all parents, to give my child the very best start in life. I knew that I had to revisit my old, stubborn habits and set out with a plan to really change them this time around.

But we can’t expect ourselves to make a radical change in an environment that hasn’t changed at all. We can’t assume that this time will be different if, in reality, nothing is different. Concepts require stimulus.

Inspiration is powerful but flighty.

It needs some form of grounding behavior, repetitive, disciplined action and positive, supportive feedback in order for it to effectively integrate into the cells of our being and materialize into the habits that will shape the structure of the lives we have chosen.

The rose that grew in concrete, ascended from a crack. That crack was the shift the rose needed to finally break through. Without it there would be no light, no sustenance, no chance for it to claim its vitality. The rose was a result of a seed that was planted there somehow, someway. Whether it was the determination of the rose to grow that resulted in the crack or the crack that gave way to the fate of the rose’s ascension out of the concrete is irrelevant.

The foundation was meant to crack, the rose was meant to bloom.

When the environment began to shift,
the foundation that prevented the rose from rising ruptured.
A single ray of light burst through and it blossomed.
We are as much the rose, as we are the concrete it grew from.
We are as much of our potential, as we are our limitations.
We have in us as much determination, as we do complacency.
We have the power to cause the crack,
but often it is not until something breaks us that we change.
We can take control of our own ascension,
as much as we can dig ourselves into the ground.

If you have a desire to change, if you already feel unsettled with the way your life is, or the way the world is, if there is a part of you that wants things to be different, if you have begun to feel the itch of disconnect between your beliefs and your actions, then the crack has already begun.

What does it take to create a harmonious environment that supports the change taking place from within?

What will it take for the rose to bloom to its full potential, for it to rise to light?

Only you know.

Embrace the break.
You may find yourself, like the rose,
in a place where you don’t fit it in.

When you get there, keep going.

-P

‘Spark the brain that will change the world.’ Pac