WEEKLY MEDITATION
On Sudden Unplanned Changes
It’s an ever-changing world. Often, though, the changes are gradual enough that it provides us the illusion that it stays the way we want it to—that life is predictable. But life is not predictable. At times when change remains gradual, we may have the illusion that we have some control over our lives—that we control our destinies. But we are not in control. Granted if we practice and develop the appropriate skills, we can become more and more adept at influencing the course of our lives, but we are never in control of it. And it is often during the times when change happens unexpectedly and at warp speed that we may want to rely on our addictions as a means of containing the emotional resistance we automatically develop in the face of these unplanned changes. To loosen these psychic forces that seem to require our addictions as a response, we must learn to remove our resistance to them. If we can learn to start accepting the world the way it is instead of holding on to wanting it to remain the way it was, we can erase the need for soothing that our addictions dubiously promise.
