There are various ways you can relate to
"woulda, coulda,
shoulda"
- you know, that
voice
in your head, ever the critic, pontificating on how things ought to be?
(not to mention making excuses for your own behavior).
There's an essential difference between these two
"woulda, coulda,
shoulda"s.
The difference is drawn by whether or not they allow for it being
OK the way it
is
(and OK the way it isn't). It's
OK the way it is
and it's OK the way it isn't (be careful: that's an experience of
immediacy, not a moral opinion). This is
Transformation
101. The first
"woulda, coulda, shoulda"
misses this entirely, and so can only be critical and dissatisfied. The
second
"woulda, coulda, shoulda"
looks to inventing a new
futureeven though right now, it's
OK the way it is
and it's OK the way it isn't. Big difference! Really.
People who are invested in the first
"woulda, coulda, shoulda"
have a look of being old before their time
(listen:
it's hard living life when it isn't OK the way it is ...).
Not being congruent with the reality of age in a hard life which is
never entirely satisfying, they say things like "You're only as old as
you feel.".
Here's the thing about relating to age with "You're only as old as you
feel" (or about relating to age with "You're only as young
as you feel" for that matter): it isn't simply that both statements
reveal our propensity to use what we feel (that is to say
to use our
internal
states)
as a tenuous baseline for reality. Rather it's only the statement
"You're only as old as you feel" which has any old in it,
just as it's only the statement "You're only as young as you feel"
which has any young in it. Neither "old" nor "young" can
be measured accurately by the
internal states
- in spite of our oftentimes
futile
insistence on using the
internal states
as a yardstick for age (or as a yardstick for anything else, for that
matter).
In this
context,
both "old" and "young" are entirely subjective.
Internal statessimply aren't smart enough to make accurate age
assessments ie age assessments which objectively match perfectly with a
clock or a calendar, the true yardsticks for age.
What may have more utility for relating to age ie what may have more
pragmatic practicality for relating to age than "You're
only as old as you feel", is the statement "You're only as old as
you are.". In other
words,
"Your age is your age" (in
Zen
there's ease and
freedom,
yes?). It's undoubtedly true your age is your age. But
it's more than that actually. It's when you let your age be your age,
when you let your age be what it is, when you let your age be what's
true, when you let your age be
what's so
then leave it alone rather than futz with it ie rather
than kowtow to the
internal states'
assessment of old or young, it's likely to make fewer lines on your
face
(and erase some which are already there).
It's not unusual for people who've recently completed
participating
in
Werner's work
for the first time, to be met with an incredulous "There's something
about you that's different: you look ... well ... younger
-
what happened?".