As we age, it is scary for our minds to realize that we are not as sharp as we used to be, or as quick, or as organized, or as competent. It might happen at age 40, or 50, or 60 or 70. And fear can twist us into knots. When the mind gets afraid, it gets more and more stressed, and the stress accumulates in the brain. You can be having a perfectly normal day and, all of a sudden, your mind can’t remember something: a name, a date, an appointment, where you put something, where you parked, or even what you did yesterday. And your mind can’t handle not knowing everything. So, it crawls back even deeper into its fear-based place where it lives much of the time. When this happens, it is important to remember that we are not losing ourselves. We are losing who we thought we were. This is a very important distinction.
Most people are caught in this very small box of struggle called the mind. We don’t recognize that there is something else going on here and it is called “home.” Home is exactly where we need to be. Eckhart Tolle so brilliantly tells us, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” This means that there is a bigger picture here. People who have had near death experiences have often said that they come back to life and realize how claustrophobic it is to be in this small body-mind system. We are so much more than this.
Rather than judging that your mind or your brain are becoming less sharp as you age, maybe the brain is putting you in this situation to help you more clearly see the fear. Or maybe life is inviting you into a different relationship with your fear so you can get to know it. The greatest fear we all carry is the fear of not being in control. Changes in our bodies and our minds as we get older take us to a place that the mind thinks it should be able to handle, but cannot. But, it’s not true. We are being given this set of life experiences in order to see the whole world of fear, to see how desperately the fear-based mind wants to be in control. We are discovering that beyond this world of fear is our home, a place that is not run by fear. When we finally accept that we don’t have control, we are setting ourselves free.
For just this moment, let’s say you lose your perception of who you are and what you are in control of. What happens next? You get to see the absolute okayness of everything. The mind cannot fathom the possibility that even if someday you do lose whatever your mind thinks it is controlling, life will hold you and it will all be okay. The mind has a hard time believing that losing control actually connects us to life.
No one really has a clue what is going to happen in the future. Yet, watch the mind take over and create stories about the future as we get older. It might say “I won’t be able to pay my bills” or “I won’t be able to drive” or “I won’t be able to live alone.” This is just fear and fear is what cuts us off from home. Know that whatever is going to unfold in the next day, or week, or month or the years ahead, the highest is unfolding and you are exactly where you need to be. Say to yourself, “Life is for me” and trust that the perfect set of circumstances is happening for you. As you are waking up to life, be grateful that you can truly experience life while you are still in your body, for it is a time of healing and a time to reconnect with yourself.
Have you ever started to walk into another room to do something, only to forget what it was when you get there? What did your mind do with that?