Difficulty

We are a needs-based organism. Every being in this reality runs on the process of converting energy into matter. Need is at the core of it all. It is the need that drives us to procreate with others. Once that part of it is complete the next need surfaces for the sperm to seek out the egg. This process continues on. The fetus lodged in the womb has its needs met through the mother but continues growing until the space it takes up begins to feel uncomfortable, threatening the life of both mother and child. Changes must be made to address the difficulty arising out of the process.

 So, Bub miraculously engages its head through turning over, beginning the arduous process of moving down the birth canal into Life, where its next challenge awaits. Breathing. Until now all has been provided by the umbilical cord to Mum. At some time, the umbilical will stop pulsing, causing the child to take its first breath. In our ignorant desire to control nature, we got into the habit of cutting the cord before the baby had time to figure out the next step. As a result, sudden loss of oxygen results in the child feeling suffocated before it has time to figure it out. We slap its bottom, turning it upside down so it screams, and low and behold the air flows into the lungs in the most violent way possible. The whole process has been taken out of the baby’s hands, creating the first feeling of powerlessness that will probably follow it for the rest of its life. Those Primal events are pivotal.

And so it continues. As we feel difficulty, it is our call to define the need it is pointing us to, then meet that need by trying solutions until we get it. Need met, skill accumulated, problem solved. This is the conveyor belt of change-creating needs that must be met to ensure survival until the next difficulty arrives to stimulate us yet again. On it goes, our kitbag of tools growing exponentially. We have learned that this is a natural process, and if we are not scared, we will begin to enjoy the challengers Life offers us. If in the Primal experience we have learned that we are controlled by another’s agendas, we will instead be cautious, looking to others to do it for us, and never building the confidence that is rightly ours to experience. It is at this point that conflict enters our consciousness. Should we try to solve it ourselves, or should we seek out others to do it instead of us? I say instead of, because often as we grow, we solve the problem of needs appropriately by eliciting the help of someone with those tools already, but the power to make that advance is ours to choose. We are not held in a waiting game of insecurity, waiting for the catastrophe that first breathing experience may have left us with.

Here is where we have come unstuck. By trying to control Life, ours, and others, by attempting to avoid the discomfort that is the precursor to change, to do it better, quicker, easier, we have denied ourselves an essential learning process. We have taken ourselves into competition with Nature. A competition we will never be able to win because we are going against Life itself, the end product of which we can see all around us. In essence, we are creating conflict by not realizing that the problems we face are natural difficulties designed specifically to meet the needs that are created by Life itself. Conflict overlays natural learning challenges, becoming an intellectual exercise that defeats the ability to rise to the developmental occasion, becoming risk averse.

We have forgotten that at the core of this is the needs arising when energy is expended, requiring replenishment. It’s the definition of a need, the process of which is endless. Even the activity that is created to meet the need expends energy to do so, leading to more challenges to keep at it. How could we possibly forget something that is so essential to the creative process? Well, in the process of seeking for a quick solution, we have only seen part of what the need is, forgetting the impetus it provided for us to evolve and gain wisdom. Today, we are desperate to see the needs we have inherited by what we have done to the planet. But we are looking elsewhere. We are looking to scientist, or politicians, or business organization to come up with a quick fix. There aren’t any.  We have to reclaim our ability to meet life’s challenges to grow individually, but we have been trained not to. As we learn to put up with substandard ways of meeting our needs, things have become worse. We fill the hole in our gut with produced solutions, rather than seeking out our own way. To do that however, we have to redefine what our base need actually is. There is no use drinking alcohol because of the stress of work. The solution actually inhibits the necessary needs being met. Where is the stress coming from? Unmet needs. How do we meet them? Stop doing the things that are not meeting them and do something else. If studying for a degree in Law because it will give you a good lifestyle while hating the process is not the answer. But with everyone encouraging us to stick with it, we miss the opportunity to know ourselves more deeply and find those activities that will meet the need. The deep need is our creativity not a Band-Aid.

We have thrown ourselves out of balance by trying to find workarounds that are outside the Natural Laws of Life, destroying ourselves in the process. The more we do this the further from those laws we move, accepting the existing situation as normal, while it continues to take us far away from balance. Theres a name for this. It’s called ‘shifting baseline syndrome’. Those that have never experienced any difference cannot envision another way of being. The decline continues as we move further from those laws, the baseline shifts and we think it’s always been this way. But it hasn’t. Another name for this is the Frog in the Boiling water analogy. Drop a frog in boiling water and it jumps straight out, its instincts showing the need to survive immediately. Put it in tepid water, slowly turning up the heat until the frog cooks before it realises what’s happened. So, friends, we are nearly cooked, but maybe not yet.

Is the change going to happen by lobbying government? No! Will it happen by suing them? No! Will it happen by complaining about it? Definitely not. What will help is for us to take personal responsibility for the changes that need to take place in our own lives, the choices we make and the actions we take. These have to be based on our real needs, rather than the manufactured ones that our culture advertises as a solution to everything. These are manufactured wants that we have been brainwashed into thinking are needs.

We have four areas of life that where needs that must be met for our health. Obviously, the first is physical. If we don’t take care of our bodily functions our time in this life will be shortened. But it’s not all there is, though that’s one of the stories we have been led to believe.  Then we also have our Mind, which has also been elevated as the vehicle through which all solutions are found. Problem with that is that as a result of our culture, our minds have stopped consulting with the rest of us, relying on what they have been told is the thing to do, rather than going deeper into the individual difficulty we are presented with. It’s the equivalent of buying everything premade. It will cover up the need but not solve it. It will arise again., keeping doing so until we listen or die.

Then there are the emotions and feelings. These are the most powerful of our abilities,  thus having thus been repressed the most. They are the messages that speak directly to our individual needs. Meet them, and we come onto an even keel, allowing balance to be restored, despite what our cultural societies want of us. Unless the individual is stable, nothing that touches them can be. We cannot create a balanced world without balance being the prime experience for its members.

Finally, there is the Big Picture, which is not the news of the day or the economic status of the country, but the recognition that we are parts of the body of a greater being called Life. Life is also working on the same principle of meeting its needs. After all , as above so below. It too must remove that which is toxic to it, as well as find that which nourishes it, continually adjusting to meet the challenges of its needs to continue to exist, as we must.  Even if that means removing toxic parts of itself to bring that about.

There is a way to come into line with the needs of all without sacrificing ourselves on the alter of Culture. We must shift to the awareness of our consciousness, through our feelings, knowing that if we do what must appropriately meet our needs, because of the Laws of Nature, that will also align with what Life itself needs to thrive once more. Is there time? Who knows. All we can do is start now to honour or needs, shifting from the never ending attention on wants, to see where that leads us.