After the Fall
“Success is a series of glorious defeats.”
-Mahatma Ghandi
Everyone has
experienced the sensation of falling, the rush of weightlessness, that odd rush
of adrenaline when you don’t know what is going to come next. It’s that sense
of xenophobia we all get, the fear of not knowing what is in store for us. Will
we be caught? Will we hit the ground? Will we be hurt or for that matter,
survive? What will befall us in our descent? Can we find the courage to trust
ourselves or others to cushion our fall or to make it less painful, either
physically, spiritually, or emotionally?
In
what ways do we fall? As a child, scrapping a knee was traumatic, as was being
shot down by the pretty girl I had a crush on. When rollerblading as a child,
it took me many years and many falls to master the art of falling physically. I
had to experience each nuance of the fall, along with the pain accompanying it,
to learn to catch myself so that I would not be as injured. A few casts and ER
visits down the road and the ability to transfer my weight and glide to the
ground instead of slam it, was achieved. But physical falling is definitely not
all there is to falling and not the only form of falling I have mastered over
the years in the trepidations and trials of my life.
People
fall in love, they fall for a gag, they fall asleep at the wheel, both
metaphorically and literally. They fall apart, fall from grace, or have a
falling out. Some fall in a hole or fall out of sync, while others have
everything fall into place. Why do we signify so many things in association
with such a difficult experience everyone has felt? What does it mean to really
fall?
It
means letting go, being in that fear and uncertainty, thriving in it, or
writhing in it, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. It means losing yourself
to something, embracing change and flow in the unknown with that sense of
freefall. It might mean approaching destiny or defeat, depending on what’s happening
and how you look at it. Think of it as a cusp, a climax, a turning point, that
last moment before the buzzer, whether beneficial or difficult. Sometimes it is
losing your way and having to start all over, or maybe just needing to rekindle
that fire deep within your soul. It could be not retaining control of our
emotions when interacting with others or losing face in the eyes of those who
revere us. Feeling stuck in a situation of trapped or duped by someone could
push that sensation of losing our balance with our lives. Being unconscious
while living our lives would create a perpetual sense of fearing what is to
come.
All
of us have these moments in our lives. Some more than other, like myself,
choose to fall way more than needed in order to learn the right way to do it
and then thrive after it has been experienced. This doesn’t have to be
everyone’s path though, as much as I have enjoyed taking the long way to get to
my goals, I know that there are far more rapid paths to our goals than I have
chosen. The great leaders and masters of all fields of study seem to live by
this “road less traveled by” mentality though. It is this art of falling, of
losing yourself to something greater, trusting your descent and reveling in the
sharp crisp feeling of that brief rush of fear, knowing all will work out as it
needs to whether we like it or not. Little has been studied or explored in this
phenomenon. We simply dismiss it as ill timing or unfortunate circumstances.
Many of the greats have used it to their advantage and capitalized on their
failings, faltering, and fumbles to create many masterpieces and discoveries.
It is by analyzing the misgivings and those mistakes that we are able to pick
up and strive forward to realize our true callings.
Maybe
some of us can’t see the stars until we are truly are, in the gutter, to quote Oscar
Wilde. Together we will analyze what this gutter is like and see where the
stars will take us, because things and events in our lives serve us as ways to
grow and improve. We will work to cultivate that mindset in order to see those
silver linings everyone talks about or hopes to find. By embracing the fall, we
may follow our bliss. By accepting our flaws, we may find our true strength. We
will work to bring more consciousness or awareness to our lives so that any
descent we make for ourselves will merely be that backing up to get a running
start. During these falls we will identify how to gracefully glide to our
resting place to begin anew. We will explore the passion and the butterflies of
a romance as well as how to keep it fresh and re-ignite the fervor of love as
we leap blindly into it. Acknowledging our egos we will learn to let go of
their vicious grip on our psyches and their needless control and difficulties
they inflict on our lives in the name of self-preservation. We will experience
how it can be safe to not always be in control.
“Reading
spiritual books is like reading the menu at a restaurant. Don’t forget, you
must eat the meal.”
-Trunga
Rinpoche
Are
you ready to master the art of falling?
