Let’s Peel the Onion: Shall We?
THE LAYERS OF OURSELVES
For those of you that find yourself in the kitchen regularly chopping onions, the process it takes just to begin cutting them can be incredibly frustrating. Can we just cut it already? When I look at that onion and really see all of its protective layers, how difficult it is to peel back the flaky outer shell, how the thin skin just rips instantly, how you inevitably find yourself having to cut into the larger layers just to get into it, and by that time you are literally crying, tears dripping down your face, similar to how we kick and scream when difficult change suddenly hits us. The onion, in all of nature’s symbolic glory, reminds me of exactly how we operate as humans. We make transformative situations often painful and unwelcoming, we push these opportunities away at all costs for fear of what life might be like on the other side. Most of us wrap ourselves firmly in our childlike security blankets, resisting the layers needing to exit, and blocking the very change we desperately need in our lives. When you really think about it, we act like natures onions!
Now you might be thinking, I thought this site was about transformation and change? And, yes you would be correct. So I will use this pungent food to describe just how extraordinarily difficult it is for us to peel back our own layers in order to allow that change to happen. Unfortunately, in my case, I was not so lucky. It was a spontaneous energetic collision that pulled me into years and years, and I am talking YEARS (well decades really) of onion peeling. Who wants to spend years unraveling against our own will? I will safely say, NO ONE! At least, no one I have ever met has wanted to go into a burning hell and stay there by choice.
By nature, we are notoriously stubborn. Looking inside of ourselves to correct our flaws is not necessarily for everyone. There are people who are perfectly fine navigating the surface of life, they ride the waves a bit, but never really dive into the great deep. I often wonder what that life is like, just coasting along, enjoying the fun things this world has to offer. Oh, the grass is always greener, right?
ARE WE MORE THAN WE THINK WE ARE?
From a very young age, I was a questioner, a thinker, someone who didn’t just accept things at face value. Intuition was my driver. There was such a strong sense of guidance within, and I knew it as a child. That part has never left me, although many other things have most certainly changed.
My life changed in one instant. I had no idea what was about to hit me. One moment I thought I was in control of my life, and the next, I was being shoved into the background. This background is something I will go into extraordinary depth, as it is where my transformation occurred. Losing control of your life is not what our minds want. Whether we admit it or not, all of us are control freaks! We all want things our way, let’s face it. I wanted my life a certain way, I want to direct myself toward a certain path, believing that I am in control of where I take myself. Little did I know I would be shown another way.
The ego mind, which each one of us has, is the controller, a full fledged dictator, and the master mind of our lives. I had no idea that I was living and breathing every second of my existence believing I was this mind. In fact, I didn’t see it as separate from me, I was one and the same with the thinker. Unless something happens to show you differently, it is completely normal in this world to think you are your mind. But are we really our minds? The famous philosopher, Descartes, stated, “I think, therefore I am.” Really? Is that true? What about an experience beyond thought? The essence that sits behind it all, watching, observing, without thought, just merely a presence, an all seeing eye that resides not only in us, but everywhere. This is the journey I will take you on, to the depths of the self, to the background I was thrusted into, and to where many of you have been, and for others, where you will eventually go.
LIFE AS THE CLASSROOM
Peeling that onion in the kitchen, although often annoying and tear jerking, it only takes a few minutes and you have yourself a nice little saute on the stove. Maybe twenty minutes later it makes a nice accompaniment to any dish. The peeling away of our own layers is not as easy. It can take years, decades, and it seems lifetimes for us to wake up to our true nature and return to our real home. This classroom of life can be our best teacher, or a prison cell depending on how you want to look at it. When you accept it as a classroom, and that every single encounter you have is teaching and guiding you to wake up, your world begins to lighten, and everything changes. That’s the choice we make each and every moment. The question is, “What choice will you make as you journey through life?”