{"id":1018,"date":"2017-11-01T14:22:02","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.michaelmirdad.com\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2021-09-02T15:40:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T22:40:58","slug":"transformation-takes-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/transformation-takes-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Transformation Takes Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TransformationWhen St. Paul said, \u201cI die daily,\u201d he was clearly referring to the death of the old self AND his ability\u00a0to fully experience changes or losses of any kind in the fullest way possible. He also advised, \u201cI am crucified [changed] with Christ: and so [although\u00a0part of me\u00a0dies] I nevertheless live; yet not the former I, but as the Christ.\u201d This means that only the Christ, or Higher Self in us, knows how to come back to life after dying. The ego self, on the other hand, prefers that we remain dead or that we act lifeless<\/strong>\u2013helpless and miserable as though we are dead.<\/p>\n

When It’s Time to Get Up and Move Forward<\/h4>\n

The Bible tells a story of when King David had a son who was sick and dying. David was constantly praying for the child\u2014day and night\u2014even refusing to eat. But when the boy died seven days later, David got up and washed his face, changed his clothes, and then went into the dining hall and began to eat. People were bewildered at how he could shift from focusing so diligently on trying to keep his son alive and then so quickly into moving on. As long as there was still hope for the child, David was committed to doing all he could to help. But when the child died, King David knew it was time to get up and move forward.<\/p>\n

In the latter part of the 1960\u2019s, the Swiss were still renowned as the leaders in producing quality watches. They had more than 65% of the market share and 80% of the profits. But in 1967, when Swiss researchers invented the electronic quartz watch, the Swiss manufacturers shunned them because this new paradigm did not fit into their old paradigm of gears and springs. Japanese companies, on the other hand, embraced the new paradigm and ended up with a huge percent of the market shares. The Swiss portion of the market ended up dropping to a fraction of what it once was, and 90% of Switzerland\u2019s 60,000 watchmakers lost their jobs\u2013all because the Swiss could not accept the death of the old and the birth of the new. The same holds true for everything else in life.<\/p>\n

All too often we spend years trying to resuscitate the corpse of a marriage or a friendship or a job only to find it\u2019s too late and that there is no life left in it<\/strong>. Its previous form was already beyond hope but we \u201chung in there,\u201d in the delusion that the situation was (or could be) something other than it really was. During such times, it\u2019s time to move on and discover what tomorrow will bring. The metaphor of the crucifixion is a great example of this important lesson. Everyone experiences death on a regular basis, the death of a relationship, the death of a career, the literal death of a loved one, or even the death of their former home. All of these are symbolic forms of \u201ccrucifixion.\u201d But not everyone \u201cresurrects\u201d after crucifixion (loss or death). Most people allow themselves instead (in part or completely) to remain dead in the tomb. Some of us barely arise from sleep each day after the mini-death we commonly refer to as sleep. But this is not God\u2019s Will for us. We are meant to come back to life after every form of crucifixion (or change)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Why The Ego Fights Change<\/h4>\n

We try numerous ways to drag out the inevitable. For example, instead of accepting all forms of death and change, we bemoan the loss, fall into despair, wish it weren\u2019t happening, and\/or even blame others for the experience. We similarly attempt to delay our resurrection into a new life by\u00a0saying things like, \u201cI need to express my feelings or be heard in regard to this change . . .\u201d OR \u201cI just need more time to process before I move forward . . .\u201d But the truth is, since God doesn\u2019t feel such a desperate need to \u201cbe heard,\u201d nor \u201ctime to process or adapt to change,\u201d then why do we? The bottom line is that it\u2019s never the \u201cGod\u201d part of us that needs to be heard nor needs time to process. It\u2019s our human ego that needs such<\/strong>, which is fine, and is understandable\u2014especially given the pain we are often in. But it\u2019s our ego that\u2019s complaining because it wants more time to recalibrate the grip that it has on our lives, a grip that it can sense it is now losing.<\/p>\n

Sooner or later we have to see through these ego ploys and rise from the dead. We have to wake up and recognize that hidden behind our need to be heard is someone who believes they have nothing of value to say; hidden behind our need for more time to process is an attempt to control; hidden behind our need to be seen is someone who is vain and narcissistic. Of course we all should allow ourselves some time to process loss or change but there needs to be a limit on how much time we allow for such<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There is another common tactic that the ego uses to keep us from completing our transformation (death and resurrection), which is that even if we do have the courage to begin taking our first steps into a new life, we often will become too intimidated or overwhelmed by \u201call the changes\u201d going on around us and end up losing the will and courage to follow through. Again, it\u2019s not God that\u2019s feeling overwhelmed; it\u2019s our ego that\u2019s feeling overwhelmed and it\u2019s because it\u2019s feeling so out of control<\/strong>. So it tries to shake us up and take us off course in order to stall our transformation. It\u2019s wise to see this for what it is, rather than ignoring it or mis-labeling it as \u201csigns\u201d to pause or turn around. We might instead, remain prayerful throughout this time of transition, asking for the strength to remain faithful to our journey toward a new life, as well as the strength to follow-through with any Inspirations that are meant to Guide us along the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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There is an episode of the old, \u201cKung Fu\u201d television series wherein \u201cCain\u201d (the lead character) as a young boy is crying due to the death of his parents. His master tries to console him and advises he learn to accept that death (or change) is a natural process. But the boy resists and remains sad and then becomes angry at his master. His master reminds him that his anger is due to his own resistance to accepting what has happened. The master then also warns the young boy to be careful not to project his anger for his parents dying, onto the master, as that will serve no one.<\/p>\n<\/div>

Supporting Others in Times of Change<\/h4>\n

When others choose to share their loss with us (or even a complaint for that matter), we often can demonstrate love by allowing them to do so\u2014as it is possible that in so doing, we might help them in the process of \u201cletting it go.\u201d<\/strong> This is the same as assisting them through a healthy form of death. But once they share their pain or issue, they sometimes want to complain again tomorrow and the next day\u2014<\/strong>which means that they (like young Cain) are not actually accepting the death and are not in a healthy state of being. They are doing the same thing as earth-bound souls who are, in fact, dead but are not moving on through the doorway of light that offers them a new life. Instead, they are trying to live in the graveyard of consciousness, refusing to move forward into a better life.<\/p>\n

When others do, however, choose to move forward, it\u2019s wise for us to be loving, supportive, patient, and compassionate\u2014offering them whatever might help them to make their needed transition<\/strong>. But\u00a0if it becomes apparent that they are not willing to move forward and are actually trying to pull us backward into their grave of consciousness, it\u2019s best to for us to get up and walk out of the cemetery. We were never meant to live there. A graveyard is a place of death, not life<\/strong>. We were only ever<\/em> supposed to go to a graveyard to sit down (or kneel) and say a symbolic farewell to the one who has died. But then, we are supposed to rise (in body and consciousness), walk out of there, and move forward with our lives.<\/p>\n

One of the most important sayings that Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha all shared in common was, \u201cLet the dead bury the dead.\u201d This meant that when we go through a death (or any form of change) and refuse to rise and move forward into a new life, we are choosing death over life<\/strong>. If others are doing this, we must\u00a0let them be. But we, on the other hand, can choose to be a good example to others by demonstrating the Way of God by rising from the dead (resurrecting) and showing what it means to conquer death in any form\u2014including depression and despair. And once we do so, we discover a new level of consciousness\u2014our ascension\u2014and the resulting new life that God has held for us since the beginning of time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelmirdad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}