"Groovin' ... on a Sunday afternoon ... on a Sunday evening ... on a
Monday morning ... on a Monday afternoon ... on a Monday evening ...
on a Tuesday morning ..."
... Laurence Platt
This essay,
Groovin',
is the seventh in a nonet with titles borrowed from
Songs:
Sometime around now (it may have been during your teen years or it may
have been earlier, but nonetheless sometime around NOW)
you discovered you love groovin'. You enjoyed your life. You
were alive with your life. You were excited
about your life. Indeed you were excited about being alive. You
walked around with a smile on your face and a spring in your step,
groovin' along.
Then something happened, and you stopped groovin'.
If you tell the truth about it, you're not exactly sure
what happened or even when it happened - not
unless you've taken the time subsequently to intentionally
recall exactly what happened. It may have happened once,
after which you made the decision to stop groovin'. It may have been a
combination of incidents over a period of time which, taken together,
you concluded were the preponderance of evidence you
shouldn't be groovin' anymore, so you decided to stop.
Whether it happened once or whether it was a combination of incidents,
something happened nonetheless. One minute there you were, groovin'
along, enjoying your life, alive with your life, excited about your
life, excited about being alive. Then something happened, and the next
minute you weren't groovin' anymore. The next minute you'd gotten
serious and significant. The next minute, based on
the evidence, based on what you concluded, you decided groovin' isn't
something a serious and significant person like you should be doing.
So you gave it up ... just ... like ... that. And
although you really missed it, you made up and bought into
reasons which justify not groovin' anymore. In your heart you don't
believe any of them. Yet you stuck to your guns and abandoned groovin'
as youthful folly, as a thing of the past.
What happened is really quite simple, as simple as it's obvious - which
is why it isn't clearly seen or easily articulated. What happened is
you lost your power. Something happened ... and you lost your power.
Later we'll say more rigorously you gave up your power to
what happened ie you chose to relinquish your power to
your circumstances. But for now, saying you lost your power is good
enough for jazz.
Something happened, yet it's only interimly useful to get
in touch with what happened. Perhaps someone did something. Maybe
someone said something. It could be you didn't get a
result you expected or you were invalidated by something
or someone, or you were embarrassed, belittled, insulted, unfairly
judged, made wrong etc ... or something like that. Whatever happened,
there was a loss of power, and then you stopped groovin'.
It's always useful to come to grips with exactly what it is which
brings on a loss of power because clarity is half the
battle. When something can be seen in stark relief and is no longer
haunting from the shadows, it's easier to reconcile, manage, and deal
with. Indeed it's easier to complete it and get over it by
letting it be.
But it's more than simply clarity which comes with recalling incidents
around power losses in stark relief. What ultimately comes is a much
more valuable vision. What ultimately comes is the distinction between
"I lost power when such and such happened" (useful) and "Such and such
happened, then I chose to relinquish my power to my circumstances"
(extraordinary).
It's the latter distinction which has leverage and the power to make a
difference. It has a transformational quality to it. The
access to it is this: come to terms with the loss of power by regarding
it as a loss of power rather than by explaining it or by
blaming someone or something for it. When a loss of power is simply a
loss of power, then it's accessible, then it's
confrontable as
what's so,
then it's no longer buried by an explanation, by a blame, by a concept,
by a belief, or by an understanding.
When a loss of power can be gotten as simply
what's so,
only then is it possible to consider speaking it as a
choice. That's not "the truth" by the way: that a
loss of power is a choice - and it may be. It's not a fact
that a loss of power is a choice - and it may be. It's a
possibility that a loss of power is a choice, and when a
loss of power is spoken as a choice, a new space becomes available ie
new room to move opens up which wasn't available before,
which wasn't possible before.
To be sure, speaking a loss of power as
what's so
is indeed telling the truth, and kudos for this. But
daring to speak a loss of power as a choice is where the freedom comes.
It shifts the entire onus of the experience from something which
happened to you over which you have no control, to
something you, well intentioned or not, erroneously or not,
chose - over which you have total control. And when you've
reinstated choice in the matter of a loss of power, you've reinstated
your ability to choose to take back your power again, to reclaim it -
not like "the truth" but rather like a possibility.
When you choose to reclaim your power, the joy of life returns - that
is to say you re-experience the joy of life since it never
really went away in the first place. And here you are again, groovin'
again, enjoying your life again, alive with your life again, excited
about your life again, excited about being alive again.
There's groovin' like innocent frolicking, like joyous frivolity. And
then there's the exact Self same groovin' only this time
like a powerful
"don't mess with
me"
possibility, like an assertion of the celebration of Life.
