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Alessa.
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August 30, 2025 at 5:17 am #449096
silvery blueParticipantThank you for your thoughts and story, Peter. Beautiful! ❤️
🦋
August 30, 2025 at 2:17 pm #449105
RobertaParticipantDear Peter
Thank you thank you thankyou for the Layla story it articulated to something deep within me. I have been struggling with a number of minor but accumulated setbacks and I decided to stop trying so hard to get outcomes that at the moment my karma/conditions arent ripe. Hitting ones head against a brick wall does not make a doorway ha ha.
Look forward to hearing from you soon
regards
RobertaAugust 30, 2025 at 2:50 pm #449107
AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Thank you for sharing. Beautiful writing as always! ❤️
Hmm honestly I think it varies.
For me, at the moment. Neither. A story might exist as a memory even when it is no longer true. Nothing wrong with memories. Maybe it will pass in time. But it is not such a bad thing.
Does it matter if we are free of stories? For me, it is not necessarily even choosing. Sure, some which meant actively redesigning my life I chose to change. Some just over time no longer apply. Some are as true as much as I believe in them. Not quite true. But it is hard to explain. Things can be untrue whilst believing in them. Then when you think about it, you go well actually… I guess that was just an assumption. Another story. Fickle things. 😂
I am the wrong person to ask this question of. 😂 I very much believe in fate. Buddhism would suggest that volition is the answer. We all have a degree of control in our lives. Otherwise, being calm helps me to see things more clearly.
Hmm I guess I don’t have the same attachment to words and thoughts.
I feel like they are very flexible. Maybe because I have being working hard on cultivating that?
Is something a story if you can consider different perspectives?
I will have to learn some more about continual prayer. I don’t really know much about it. Is that similar to mantra? I fear I may have gotten lost in the weeds again. ❤️
I guess, to explain my perspective. Memories and even perspective are not set in stone. You can live something and reflect. Reprocess the memory and consider it from different perspectives, heal the feelings attached to it. Everything changes.
Do you have any thoughts? ❤️
September 2, 2025 at 12:31 pm #449197
PeterParticipantThanks Everyone
Hi Alissa. My thought was that every thought spoken and unspoken creates story and that we can’t avoid our narrator. Still we landed in the same space 🙂 with the suggestion that its not so much a matter of avoiding the narrator or choosing or being free of stories but of holding our words lightly.
I’m reminded of a recent visit home were I was engaged in a theology debate and found myself unbalanced. It was only on the drive home that I realized my in-law kept going to the dictionary to define the words I was trying to get him to look past them. In hindsight I wish I would have asked him how he avoid the temptation of mistaking the law for love, discipline for devotions, righteousness for relationship, or map for the territory.
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Layla’s silence
Zahir: You’ve grown quiet, Layla. Is there nothing left to say?Layla: There is nothing that words can hold. I descended seeking answers, but the soil does not speak in sentences.
Zahir: And yet you are here. You are listening.
Layla: Listening, yes. But not to meaning. Only to the space between meanings, the hush where questions dissolve.
Zahir: Do you still wonder who you are?
Layla: I did. But each name I carried fell away like leaves. Without language, there is no self to describe, no story to uphold.
Zahir: Then what remains?
Layla: Not silence. Not presence. Only the absence of scaffolding. A stillness that neither confirms nor denies…
September 2, 2025 at 1:48 pm #449199AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Hmm I guess, I have always had a very strong belief in change since childhood.
I don’t mean avoiding. But shedding. If that makes sense? When something no longer applies. Sometimes that takes courage. But the courage is already present. Like a butterfly struggling to emerge from a cocoon, then resting and drying it’s wings.
I agree with holding things lightly, even holding lightly the idea of holding things lightly. I’m trying to learn to pick things up and put them down like a cup.
But yes, change. I think we might have different ideas around change? I feel like I keep learning and developing. I am aware of this. I can choose which things to shape. Like taking care of a garden to continue your metaphor. 😉
My narrator is not the same as it once was and that is down to hard work.
Don’t get me wrong. When I started on this path it was out of hatred. Hatred of my biological mother and myself. But things change, even that.
Even something as dark as hatred can transform and give us something beautiful.
I’m sorry to hear that a debate on a recent trip left you feeling unbalanced. It is difficult when family don’t see eye to eye. It is nice to feel seen and understood. ❤️
September 2, 2025 at 1:53 pm #449200AlessaParticipantOh I forgot to add because it is late and I’m tired. Your beautiful writing reminded me of a memory with my son.
I was teaching him a small physics / chemistry lesson in the bath with an empty bottle of bubble bath. The bottle is never empty, even though it appears so. Hold it underwater, the air bubbles up and the water fills the bottle. He had a lot of fun playing with that. ❤️
September 3, 2025 at 9:11 am #449239PeterParticipantHi Alessa
I have a tendency to confuse so am curious to know what your thoughts on change are and why you think we may have different notions around it?I very much like the idea of “Holding things lightly, even holding lightly the idea of holding things lightly” 🙂 and the bottle that is empty yet never empty. I also like the notion that everything, even our anger and hate can be a door to something beautiful and how that can soften the ‘voice of the narrator”.
September 12, 2025 at 11:58 pm #449716AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Apologies I was distracted by the conflict. I have not forgotten about you though! ❤️
Not at all, I am the one who gets easily confused. It isn’t you. But thank you for caring. ❤️
I’m glad that you liked the ideas. I always like the ideas in whatever you share. ❤️
Well in the past you have shared that you have a preponderance towards acceptance and sitting with things, not fixing them. Noting that a desire to fix can be a problem for you sometimes.
Whereas, I feel like change is a constant for me and fixing things is inevitable because I’m constantly learning, growing and changing as a person. Acceptance is important too, don’t get me wrong. But I also accept the desire for change.
Even a desire not to fix things could be seen as a desire to fix the problem with fixing things.
I was watching a video yesterday that reminded me of you and your seeking quest.
It turns out that seeking is human nature and linked to our survival as a species. What we seek differs from person to person. We are not designed to be content all of the time or we would never get anything done. We are designed to work hard for very little in the way of a reward. It was comforting to realise that we are just human. ❤️
September 15, 2025 at 10:05 am #449779PeterParticipantHi Alessa
Thank you for sharing your thoughts as it helps me see how you understand change and where our language might differ. It also makes me more mindful about how I use words like change and fix.
I don’t think we’re far apart, though the framing feels different. When I write, especially in Mirrors and Moments, I’m not looking to give or ask for advice to “fix” something. And when I say I’m not looking to fix, I don’t mean ‘fixed’ as keeping things the same or resisting change. I’m also focusing on personal inner change more so a outward or societal context, thought they are connected.
Like you I feel change is constant, for me a something that feels like breathing, each breath bringing change…
I feel the word fix often carries a sense of control or ego, the urge to change what can’t truly be changed. In the first half of life, that urge can feel necessary, especially when shaping the outer world relationship and or addressing societal change. In the second season of life, I sense a different task: learning how to let go. The paradox is that simply realizing this is already a form of change. It doesn’t “fix” the past, but it can soften our relationship to it, sometimes through understanding, sometimes through forgiveness. And perhaps this way of being also shaping how we engage in outer change, but all things in their time.
An image comes to mind of when I was learning to dance. When I would miss a step and find myself speeding up or slow down trying to get back to where the step was meant to land, and so “fix” it. Not surprisingly it never worked as it was more about control than listening to the music.
What I’ve found, and what I try to explore in the Layla stories, is that when we sit with the tension of our hopes, fears, joys and pain… and stay present to it, change happens on its own. Change arises (ref Threefold Breath). The past remains as it was, but our relationship and attachment to it shifts. In that shift, we are changed, not fixed… or fixed in place… and I wonder if that might be true because we were never broken, only human.
Still, in our differences on a view of change and perhaps in seasons, we meet in the same place: holding happenings and words lightly, as a way of being that allows transformation without gripping so tightly.
Like a dancer learning to trust the music: a missed step, a soft exhale, and the rhythm finds us again. Breath after breath, we don’t fix the step behind us, we listen our way into the next.
September 15, 2025 at 10:21 am #449780PeterParticipantConcerned I may have confused the notions of change and fixing I ran the above response through AI to evaluate it. The response I found helpful in the exploring how the words change and fix are often entangled in our language and psyche, especially across different life stages. So I’ll pass it on as possible points of discussion.
1. Fixing as Control vs. Change as Emergence
You’ve articulated that fixing often carries the energy of control — an attempt to restore or correct something according to a preconceived ideal. It’s often reactive, rooted in discomfort with what is. In contrast, change in your framing feels organic, like breath, something that arises when we stay present. This is a distinction where fixing implies a problem while change implies a process.2. The Dance Metaphor: A Living Image
Your dance metaphor fits. The attempt to “fix” a missed step by speeding up or slowing down mirrors how we often try to correct the past or force alignment with an imagined future. But the rhythm the music asks for is trust, not control. It’s not about getting back to the step, but rejoining the flow. That’s change as listening, not fixing.3. Seasons of Life and the Shift in Task
Your reflection on the second half of life as a season of letting go is aligned with many contemplative traditions. Fixing belongs to the first half, where building, shaping, and striving are necessary. But later, the task shifts to softening, releasing, and being. And even this realization is itself a change, a quiet transformation.4. Language as Mirror
You’re also pointing to something subtle: how language can shape or distort our experience. “Fix” and “change” may seem interchangeable, but they carry different emotional and existential weight. Your mindfulness in how you use these words is part of the contemplative work itself.5. The Human Condition: Not Broken, Just Becoming
Your closing thought “we were never broken, only human” reframes the impulse to fix as a misunderstanding of our nature. We don’t need repair; we need relationship with ourselves, our past, our breath, our music. And in that relationship, change happens.September 15, 2025 at 10:51 pm #449804AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Please don’t worry, I am just a very literal thinker when it comes to language. I actually appreciate your perspective. It is helpful to have other voices out there to learn from. ❤️
I think for me, fix suggests a feeling of being broken and a desire to escape pain.
Change for me isn’t about escaping pain. It is not necessarily organic, often quite structured. There might be organic triggers. But I often actively work hard to learn and incorporate. I think as you say, it is the nature of the stage in my life. Also, the availability of information online. You can save so much time and effort just by looking up something online. But you don’t necessarily learn to solve problems yourself.
I started out, not seeing the link between fixing and change. But whilst it is not necessarily conscious, I think that there are some things that I might need to sit with.
Thank you for humouring me! This conversation was helpful. ❤️
September 15, 2025 at 10:54 pm #449805AlessaParticipantConversely, an acceptance of change also means a willingness to accept life as it is.
September 16, 2025 at 2:48 am #449807RobertaParticipantHi
I was exploring the word fixed and its other meaning as something solid rooted as in
I was fixed to the spot
A nut & bolt so fixed that it couldn’t be undone
Our fate was fixed in the stars
A ship will fix its course
The belief that our brain/character became fixed after a certain age ( give me the boy till the age of 7 & I will give you the man) until neuroplasticity was discovered.
regards
RobertaSeptember 16, 2025 at 6:48 am #449809PeterParticipantHi Everyone
I appreciate the feedback as I also find the exploration of the notion of the words ‘fix’ and ‘change’ and even ‘fate’ often get entangled.
September 16, 2025 at 10:19 pm #449836AlessaParticipantHi Roberta
Thank you for sharing! It’s lovely to read your thoughts. ❤️
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