The cycle of restoration?
The beginning of one story is the end of another that is the nature of the world, to restart and recycle, an old story might make a new one possible, we are moulded by our pasts and have the freedom to change our futures. Every cause has an effect, and a simple action can result in a wave that alters the world, but it is all so damn unpredictable, which is what makes it interesting if not a little too exciting for most of our stomachs whilst we are on the ride that is life. However if everything is so scary, so out of control, uncertain, a game of choosing between bad decision and worst outcomes, how do we all get out of bed every morning, well, an overwhelming reason I have found is the power of restoration experience, that feeling that things always look better and less scary in the morning.
It is a feeling that we have all had after a night of racing thoughts where only doom reigns and the range of actions that we could take have increasingly worse outcomes, and then, we sleep, we wake and the world does not feel anything like as impossible and tragic as we allowed ourselves to think, then we allow a little hope to seep into our thinking. That is the experience of restoration, we might restore ourselves with a good meal, a large coffee, time with friends who make us laugh, they give us a literally lift to a better sense of self, a feeling of well being that contains all the good stuff, love, hope and grace, when we have presence with such a state, it is inconceivable that any other way of being is possible, yet the wheel turns and we come crashing down again.
We cycle through from happiness and sadness, and what is surprising is not the cycling but that we are surprised by this turning of events, the predominance of the moment is a human shortcoming, we are always most influenced by the moment that we are in, it has a clouding out effect on our perceptions of ourselves. When someone is happy they believe they are a happy person, and when they are depressed, they believe they are a depressed person, whereas they are the same person just at different times, we can only see through the lens of the present moment by default and our nature.
It is only through awareness that we can view our past and future with an honest memory, not that our memories go out of it's way to be dishonest, but the primary purpose of our minds is to keep us alive as such it tends to be a bit of a drama queen, it seeks the narrative that makes the present moment as dramatic as possible. As such if you are depressed it makes the story about how you are always depressed and how you are a depressed person, rather than a person who is experiencing a period of depression, it tells you that you are hopeless and this is your life now and you having to deal with it, which you won't. There is a point to this as if you lose a leg you do have to internalise it and adjust, the fault lies in the fact that not all things are permanent and yet the mind treats every change as permanent.
This is not true for all things, just some, but the mind does not discriminate as it is better for survival to treat every change in circumstances as being permanent and allow us to feel bad about it and then normalise it, which is why lotto winners and amputees both experience a short term change in moods and then in the long term they returns to their normal level of happiness. However the mind does not recognise the fact that there are often things we can do to restore ourselves, that is having the hope for change and restoration of what we have lost, despite our experience of restoration, the mind does not have ability to believe in restoration, that is something that only our internal presence can have.
That is the internal witness, only our spiritual heart can process belief in restoration, the place where love and hope comes from, our inner-self that witnesses our internal world, perceptions and sense of self. We are not able to hold the concept of restoration within our thoughts, though it is only through our thoughts that we are able to communicate with that internal presence, when we tell that presence that we are depressed, it believes us and makes the world fit our perceptions. The hope is that by telling ourselves that restoration is possible, our inner-self starts to believe it too, when we start seeing restoration in the world, we start to believe it is true, when we witness the experience of restoration in our life and remember it, revisit it and make it real we start to see that the world is full of restoration, even when it is surround by tragedy.
It is available to be seen all around us, it is in nature, in the birth of every child, animal and plants, we can witness the bloom of spring, fat ducklings and gallop of a horse. We can see it in the feasting of a family at Christmas, the restoration of a toddler after their afternoon nap and even their grandfather doing the same. It is in our own experience, that we feel better for a good meal, a night's sleep and when we recover from a illness, the trick is to remember it, the joy of restoration, when we return to what we took for granted and it feels good.
That is the great virtue of our ability to remember, we get to remember the good stuff if we chose to, it is there not just to warn us but to give us hope, the belief in what has happened, can and will happen again if we allow that hope to turn into a belief as to how the world works. We are in large part made up of what we pay attention to and focus on, if we put our awareness into our good action and nature, that is what will be nurtured within us, kindness and compassion needs to be practised, but so does the opposite, you only become bad in small steps, you work up to it and you can choose to start walking it back at any moment, you can restore goodness within you and when you do, it will all the sweeter for it. You can choose to believe in restoration whenever you wish, a better path is open for whoever is prepared to turn towards it and you will not be alone on this journey because every good person you meet is on the same path and they would love some company.
