Anything can be an important teacher - in this case, Boston ferns!
Key Takeaways:
1) Invisible beliefs run your life until discovered and discarded
2) The problems caused by those beliefs may have re-occurred for years, but can be corrected in minutes.
3) BE thankful for every teacher of peace, no matter the form or how unexpected
Our Invisible Beliefs
I had to laugh out loud on realizing the lesson our topic for the day reveals. As part of my gardening interests, I always keep lots of plants on my screened in porch - including, for our purposes here, 4 large Boston ferns. Throughout our long history together (15 years or more for the largest ones) I’ve had to regularly clean up all the zillions of tiny dried out leaves that inevitably collect. This is hardly a huge chore but a consistent one. All of a sudden yesterday, as I was cleaning up the leaves - again, I thought,”Why don’t I just throw these ferns away and that solves my problem??” So I discarded them, and within forty-five minutes, had run off to Home Depot, bought 4 more non-shedding beautiful plants, and that was the end of the issue. How simple! Why had I not thought of that before? Because an invisible belief was at work - one learned in my earliest years - that you could never, ever throw anything away that remained at all useful. During WW2 there were very few consumer goods and you often simply could not find replacements for anything. Hence, the frugality and "hanging on" until something was totally and completely gone. Or, as a friend answered long ago when I asked why he was doing a task a certain way, “There’s no reason for it; it’s just our policy.” A clever way to acknowledge that we mimic the values and requirements of our early experience without question.
Feel Larger And More Powerful Than Ever Before
What a great lesson! All kinds of “invisible” beliefs are allowed to run our lives and dictate our use of time and treasure. And, thereby, we keep creating ever more “messes” to clean up rather than dispensing with the “source of the mess” once and for all. Life is about discovering and releasing all those old programs that are driving us. Many were not intentionally installed - just the product of the time, country, religion, social status, etc we chose to be born into. So when the next recurring/distressing situation comes into being, stop and look for some over-looked belief that might not seem like a big deal, but is interfering with the smooth functioning of your life in some way. Then let it go, move forward, thrive, and feel larger and more free than before. So much more efficient than cleaning up those very same situations over and over and over again!
Love and peace to all,
Carol
