Thresholds
“It remains the dream of every life to realise itself, to reach out and lift itself up to greater heights.”
John O’Donohue
Our lives are a continuum of growth - physical, mental and emotional. It never stops, and we seldom give it any attention. Our external aspect is obvious and we see ourselves as growing up and later growing old but there is so much more beneath the surface. Looking back along the timeline of our lives we can see that each of our phases of development began with a decisive moment, a threshold if you will, beyond which one way of being was left behind as a new ethos replaced it. Often these thresholds are not obvious until they have been crossed and only make sense in retrospection. Becoming aware of these thresholds, and their ever increasing speed as our life seems to get ever more frenetic, takes only a small mental switch; the noticing that subtle signals are precursors to change.
The difficulty is often in embracing the changes; we long for the familiar, the status quo and the comfort zone and yet the very nature of growth means they must be continually breached and left behind. People often linger for far too long in places and spaces, physical and mental, that are far too small for the wonder of the being we are capable of becoming. If the existing space has been a pleasant one it is easy to deny the subtle signals of change and miss the threshold entirely. Conversely those who are in an uncomfortable place fervently wish for a better way of being and are often the first to embrace it when it arrives.
But bidden or not these thresholds, the gate keepers of growth, are inevitable. We may as well get used to them. Sometimes we find ourselves a being of two halves, partly enjoying the adventure yet also fearful of loss of the safety of the known. When this happens the clash is between the smaller, survivalist aspect of ourself that believes that we are separate from the universe, which must be fought at every turn, and the divine component within that only sees inclusion, growth and learning.
Threshold originally described the place where the wheat and chaff were separated at threshing. When our harvest (the experiences we have gained from living) are threshed it makes sense to allow the chaff (the environment that allowed the experiences we had) to stay behind and to cross the threshold to benefit from the wheat (lessons learnt and growth experienced)
Embrace the thresholds; they are an integral part of life’s harvest.
Namaste
Rod Briggs is an International Lecturer in the Mind Sciences. He has taught government departments, universities, Olympians and peak achievers in the corporate and private sectors from all over the world. He spends half the year in Europe and the USA on lecture tours but resides on the Dolphin Coast. Contact the Mindlink Foundation for one on one or group Stress Management Therapy or get Rod Briggs’ new book Simple as Breathing at www.mindlinkfoundation.com
“It remains the dream of every life to realise itself, to reach out and lift itself up to greater heights.”
John O’Donohue
Our lives are a continuum of growth - physical, mental and emotional. It never stops, and we seldom give it any attention. Our external aspect is obvious and we see ourselves as growing up and later growing old but there is so much more beneath the surface. Looking back along the timeline of our lives we can see that each of our phases of development began with a decisive moment, a threshold if you will, beyond which one way of being was left behind as a new ethos replaced it. Often these thresholds are not obvious until they have been crossed and only make sense in retrospection. Becoming aware of these thresholds, and their ever increasing speed as our life seems to get ever more frenetic, takes only a small mental switch; the noticing that subtle signals are precursors to change.
The difficulty is often in embracing the changes; we long for the familiar, the status quo and the comfort zone and yet the very nature of growth means they must be continually breached and left behind. People often linger for far too long in places and spaces, physical and mental, that are far too small for the wonder of the being we are capable of becoming. If the existing space has been a pleasant one it is easy to deny the subtle signals of change and miss the threshold entirely. Conversely those who are in an uncomfortable place fervently wish for a better way of being and are often the first to embrace it when it arrives.
But bidden or not these thresholds, the gate keepers of growth, are inevitable. We may as well get used to them. Sometimes we find ourselves a being of two halves, partly enjoying the adventure yet also fearful of loss of the safety of the known. When this happens the clash is between the smaller, survivalist aspect of ourself that believes that we are separate from the universe, which must be fought at every turn, and the divine component within that only sees inclusion, growth and learning.
Threshold originally described the place where the wheat and chaff were separated at threshing. When our harvest (the experiences we have gained from living) are threshed it makes sense to allow the chaff (the environment that allowed the experiences we had) to stay behind and to cross the threshold to benefit from the wheat (lessons learnt and growth experienced)
Embrace the thresholds; they are an integral part of life’s harvest.
Namaste
Rod Briggs is an International Lecturer in the Mind Sciences. He has taught government departments, universities, Olympians and peak achievers in the corporate and private sectors from all over the world. He spends half the year in Europe and the USA on lecture tours but resides on the Dolphin Coast. Contact the Mindlink Foundation for one on one or group Stress Management Therapy or get Rod Briggs’ new book Simple as Breathing at www.mindlinkfoundation.com
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