Adahlia,
Yes, everything is connected.
How could it not be?
We accept that a loss of honeybees would mean destruction of ecosystems, the chain reaction that could spell our own destruction.
We accept that physical neurochemicals affect our thinking, our personalities even, and that our thoughts and personalities are reflected in our postures, possibly even in our diseases.
Yet so many people shy away from the larger implications of our mental-emotional-spiritual states to our physical heart, to our bodies, and to the heart and health of each other.
People say: “as above, so below” without any conception of what they are actually saying.
Just like: “we are all connected” becomes a slogan – yet, it is popular because when we hear it, we recognize a fundamental truth.
Our subconscious attracts us to things like that constantly, in its attempt to “wake” our conscious up, to get us to get our sh*t together. Such truths run through movie, after popular movie, after popular movie. The universe constantly inspires us to spit them back out: same message in varying forms. We yearn to hear these truths. We yearn to really know them, not to just intellectualize them.
But to know them requires life to be shaken up a bit.
Oh, people.
People can be very flippant in good times, and run very quickly away in the difficult.
It is much better to learn to relax in the difficult, so that neither the difficult or wonderful will make you want to crawl out of your skin.
Remember that everyone will struggle. Everyone will go through difficulty. Life is not meant to be charmed. We build up false expectations, especially in this society. Nothing we can do, no matter how careful we are, will insulate us from misfortune. The goal should not be to protect against calamity, but to learn more and to listen more (to your inner self first, and then others perspective second) and to become wiser, so as to be prepared to do what you can whilst surrendering to nature (god).
It is a balance, a floating. Feather in air and fin in water.
People create unrealistic plans that actually prevent them from being able to appreciate what’s happening now. Hardship allows us to see, allows us to glory in our blessings, in thanksgiving in the moment.
Do not get ensnared with plans, especially plans to escape current hardship. Let go of dreams, to live your dreams now, at the level you are prepared to handle them. You always have everything you need. When you are ready to move to the next level, it will present itself to you. This is true in all endeavors, in creative (artistic) passions, and it is especially true in love. If your path is difficult, you will have more opportunity to learn how to love. You cannot love if your heart is never challenged.
Once you realize great truths, you will receive many blessings. Then, you will receive many calamities. This will allow to bring those great truths to even higher realization.
Yes, there are always higher levels of realization.
You will always get exactly as much suffering as you can handle. If you want your soul to grow, accept suffering and blessings equally. They will rain down upon you. They will wax and wan, you will be called both extremely lucky and extremely ill-starred, and neither and both is true, for there is no stop-point in this motion picture.
Look around you. They are suffering too.
Look in and around you. You have exactly the support you need, exactly the tools necessary.
Start within yourself. Before you can help another man, before you can connect with anyone else, you must know what it is to be connected within yourself. You must at least taste the potential of these infinite connections. Allow yourself to be challenged in this. You could spend a lifetime simply learning your own landscape.
Remember, everything is connected. Hone your inner perception so you can learn to trust it in your dealings with the outer world. Your body – your unique blend of physical body, spirit, mind and emotion – is your ally in this adventure, but you must learn how to use it.
And there is simply no way to use it until you first learn that it exists.