Baby Steps

As I sit here, our daughter Izabella, who is now 9 months old, is crawling around the living room looking for ways to pull her self up to standing.  Iza, as Shelby likes to call her, is such a wonderful gift.  Not only do we get to revel in her discovering everything for the first time, but we get to see her smile and laugh.  Seeing her laugh is pure joy, and I’d like to quit my day job to become a full-time baby entertainer (though Shelby is much better at making her laugh).  She’s such a happy baby that we can take her out to the store and restaurants, and she will just smile at everyone until they smile back.  She leaves a wake of open hearts and love where ever she goes, and it’s such a beautiful thing to see.  Her smile is a gift to the Universe :)

As I watch her crawl and stand up (she’ll be walking very soon), it got me to thinking about what drives the developing baby.  What makes them tick?  Why do they crawl?  Why do they stand, walk, etc.?  My wife and I certainly are not teaching her things.  We’re just watching in awe as she develops these new abilities on her own.

Though scientists might explain this drive to move as genetic programming or some such thing, I see an invisible force that is driving us, guiding us to act.  That force is like a primordial intelligence that knows what needs to be done.  In the beginning, when we are too young to start formulating opinions or analyzing things, we just naturally go with the flow without questioning that intelligence.  But as we grow older, we begin to question that force, even resist its urges.  We may be encouraged to ignore the innate urges by our parents in situations where curiosity might put us in harm’s way.  Right now there are only a few things cropping up that we’re discouraging, such as pulling Mommy’s hair and trying to eat things that aren’t really edible (baby’s apparently like to explore things with their mouths).

The older we get, the more things we are guided to do or not do, which is based at least partly on our caregiver’s level of trust in that innate force that drives us all.  Therefore, this lack of trust in, we’ll just call it Life, gets passed down from one generation to the next.  But before parents go blaming themselves for raising children with a lack of trust in Life, it’s important to realize that one’s lack of trust in Life is also a crucial part of Life’s driving force.  Things are as they are because they could be no other way, and what is appearing now is what Life wants for us.

So, if you think that you “could” have or “should” have done something differently in the past, you are believing in a lie (interestingly enough the word “believe” has the word “lie” built into it).  That lie is that you know better than Life, and that you could have done a better job than Life had intended for you.  This is why reliving the past and playing the “What if things had been different?” game is a lose-lose proposition.

Like it or not, it had to be this way.  That’s why the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, and the like, are so crucial to obtaining the peace we all desire.  Tolle has summed up his teachings at one point or another by saying, “All you really have to do is accept this moment fully...”  That’s what Life wants for you.  Our mind comes in with its lack of trust and casts doubt on what may happen if we accept the unavoidable isness of this moment (i.e. we’ll never do anything to make changes in our lives, etc.), but that doubt, too, is part of Life’s plan for us.  We doubt because there is no other way – until there is the realization that there is another way.

If you’re reading these words, I suspect that you are making baby steps toward the innocence you had when you were born, when you had no choice but to trust Life because you knew no other way.  You’ve been introduced to the idea that there is another way, which is to live in alignment with Life.  You’ve already learned how to avoid touching hot stoves and how not to lick the floor, so set aside your distrust and let Life start doing the work for you – one baby step at a time.

Here’s a quote from my Notes on Inner Peace to ponder, “What if life is unfolding just as it is supposed to, and you didn’t have to make anything happen?  What if it has been making everything fall into place from the very beginning, without you needing to worry, ever?”

As Byron Katie likes to say, “Let Life live you. It does anyway.”

Peace, Love and Life to you,

Trey
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A Seeker's Guide to Inner Peace: Notes to Self, by Trey Carland
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