The principle behind the Japanese Kaizen is that small, consistent actions taken over time produce lasting results. This is because consistent efforts build new neural paths in the brain. This is why I have been training my thoughts to be positive as soon as I wake up. It’s easier when I wake up on my own – not to answer the phone call, not to read the message of Julie Anne who lives on a different time zone.
Ironically, she messages to check on how we are. But every so often she calls late at night Manila time or too early in the morning. Even when half-awake my brain understands that when it’s a call from Julie Anne it’s some type of emergency ranging from physical to emotional pain. Or it could be heart-stopping incidents at work. Thank God it’s no longer about heartaches for about 3 years or so.When I get pleasant phone calls and text messages, I take time to savor the moments as if to keep them in reserve the next time I get scary or worrisome accounts from Julie Anne. I remember my own mom getting nervous when she would receive my letters via JRS or my PLDT long distance calls. Then there were no cell phones as yet. The internet wasn’t available yet. This over concern for a significant other seems to have been encoded into my nervous system. It is as though my life would be incomplete if I don’t worry over my husband and/or my daughter. I would sometimes laugh at the thought of being like mom going about her chores at home obviously in a worried state. But often enough I know I behave like her except for a significant difference – I don’t go around the house saying the rosary!
I remember one cousin-in-law who taught me to trust more. For him and his wife “No news is good news”. Not too consoling for me given the fact that they have several children. Having an only child is slightly more difficult for both parents and also for the child.
To build new neural paths in my brain, I turn to Nature. From the 37th floor I’m privileged to monitor the sunrise. I’ve observed that this February 2012 the sunrise doesn’t appear at its blinding glory earlier than 6:30 in the morning. I move away from the window to sit at the edge of my bed to meditate on connectedness. I refer to the connectedness that springs from the belief that everything and everybody is energy.
I call on the supportive energy of like-minded persons dead or alive. My experience with favors obtained by calling on my dead prayer warriors have convinced me that there is a connectedness with the dead. I even call on the supportive vibrations of my plants, the many trees in the neighborhood plus the numerous birds crisscrossing our building.
One money plant in the room has been with me for just a month but already it has outgrown its bonsai structure. There are some growths on the side rendering its original shape non-existing. It speaks to me. Even my bonsai defies rules. It teaches me to relax; I can’t be in control all the time. In fact, I’ve realized I can’t even be in control most of the time.
Perhaps I can put to use what I read from “The book of Awakening”. Mark Nepo had a paragraph where Carl Jung made a statement about being real. Apparently by simply being who we are we exude a peculiar energy all our own. I believe this means by our very presence we make a statement without sound. By our very existence, we sign up for life; leaving our personal signature in our area of responsibility.
Perhaps my money plant has outgrown its bonsai mold to reach out to me. Who knows it may have been reaching out to me sensing my intensity, offering to cool down my fears and obsessions, reminding me to use my personal power to lighten my sphere of influence.
With new ruts in my brains I know in due time I’ll get accustomed to the new shape of my bonsai just as I will adjust to shifts in my control system. I will be more open to new ways of thinking, new ways of doing. Given time I will even love the new architecture of my bonsai; I will learn to cruise along with the flow of life. I will be more pliable, responding to the challenges of life rather than my constant reacting if not resisting what life offers.