Nature wants you to heal and move on

Forgiveness is the fragrance, rare and sweet,

that flowers yield when trampled on by feet,

that reckless tread the tender, teeming earth;

for blossoms crushed and bleeding yet give birth

to pardon's perfume; from the stern decrees

of unforgiveness. Nature ever flees.

-Ella A. Giles (1890)

I am feeling a bit lost and I am not sure why.  I am trying to sort through some things that need to be done and I am struggling with doing so. It could have a lot to do with the fact that I  am writing my sister's story, another novel attempt, and it is quite challenging to go back and remember things one would rather not remember.  It makes me see some rationalization for my own life being the way it is right now. I am looking back behind me and saying..."That must be why I am stuck now; why things are not working out the way I want them to."

Sigh...I am trying to pin my lack of moving forward on the past.  I am reminded of an allegory used by Allan Watts and relayed by Wayne Dyer on more than one occasion.  I will do my best to put it in my own words.

 

The Wake

 

Allan Watts has offered this wonderful way of looking at the past.  He instructs us to imagine we are on a boat going fairly quickly across the water.  We are to imagine that we are standing on the stern (at the back of the boat)looking down at the wake, or the trail of water left behind by the moving boat. That wake symbolizes our past.  Then we are to ask ourselves three important questions.

 

 

Question One: What is the wake?

 

The wake is simply a trail left behind by the boat.  In reference to our past, it is a trail left behind by our lives.  It is nothing more than something left behind.

 

Question Two: What is driving the boat?

 

What is driving the boat is the present moment energy being generated by the engine or the motor of the boat. In terms of our lives, what drives our boats is the present moment energy which is life coursing through our veins right here and right now.  That energy flow can be freed or restricted by  our thoughts, our beliefs, our feelings and our choices. It is also based on something much deeper that can not be seen, measured or described.  Presence drives the boat.

 

Question Three: Is it possible for the wake to drive the boat?

 

Think about it.  Can that trail of steam and water behind the boat  drive the boat?  No...it has no power over the movement of the boat.  It is just something left behind.  How then do we believe that  the trail of our lives, our past, can drive our boats in this present moment?  It can't, can it? 

 

Past is gone

 

Our past is gone...it is back there and is not the power that moves us forward.  Yet so many of us look to the past to explain and rationalize why we are not what we think we should be, why we are stuck and not moving in the right direction.  We blame our parents and what they did to us as children  for our addictions or for our relationship problems.  We blame a past injustice on our inability to make decisions based on trusting others.  We blame a past experience with illness on our inability to get better. When asked why we are or aren't going in the direction the boat is taking us, we point a finger to the wake and say, "That's why!"  How silly is that?

 

Many of us are stuck in our past because it offers a familiar comfort zone, an excuse for being where we are.  Yet in reality we are not stuck, are we?  We are limited only by our refusal to let go of old hurts. 

 

Close up the Wounds

 

I love how Wayne Dyer describes it in the video listed below.  He says that our truest nature responds when we are wounded by saying, "Close up the wound." And without our interference the body will respond.  A natural process of inflammation will lead to healing cells going to the wounded site, stopping the bleeding, cleaning it up and filling it in.  Skin edges will eventually come together and approximate.  The wound will heal because that is what our true nature wants.  It wants us to close up our wounds and move on.  When hurt emotionally or mentally, the same thing applies...our truest nature wants us to experience, feel and heal from those wounds so we can leave them behind like wakes as we move forward.

 

Yet many of us won't let it be, will we?  We will pick at our wounds until they become infected eventually filling us with poison as we  hold them up for others to see, "Look at poor, poor me!"  Of course, that sounds so dramatic and unfair when talking about repressed trauma pain but in a sense that is what we are doing. We may not only refuse to allow our wounds to heal by clinging to the past, but we may constantly be  tearing them open, keeping our present lives infected by them.

 

Drive your boat

 

The past does not move our boats forward but we may cause our boats to stall or go in the wrong direction when we are concentrating more on the wake then the present moment. We need to stop looking back.  We need to forgive and let go like the fragrant flower does so we can get the feel of the boat beneath us, right her and right now. 

 

Enjoy the ride as you casually look up ahead to what awaits.

 

All is well!

 

References

 

Wayne Dyer (n.d.) How to Manifest your Life Purpose by Dr. Wayne Dyer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQZZiC1uelg

 

Allan Watts (n.d.) The Boat and the Wake, Allan Watts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oswx23Tz-_w