“Consciousness is always drawn to the most distracting object: the bumped toe, the loud noise, or the hurting heart.” ~ Michael A. Singer
If change is a part of life, why are some changes so difficult?
According to Michael Singer in his book, The Untethered Soul, we can look at difficulty through the example of having a thorn in our skin. We can spend our whole lives protecting ourselves from the pain of the thorn when it gets bumped or we can decide to remove it.
This sounds reasonable and simple enough but what does that really look like in daily life? What happens when someone you love brushes against the thorn in your skin?
Let’s assume you recognize a disturbance and your consciousness is drawn there because someone you love expresses an idea about money that you don’t agree with and you have a story you tell yourself around this idea so that the mere mention of it bumps against your thorn painfully. If you are capable of letting it go, it ends there. You won’t draw other people into your personal drama around the thorn. You won’t put energy into protecting your thorn either. If you have allowed yourself to feel the disturbance before letting it go, the thorn starts to work its way out of your skin. Maybe not all at once, but little by little the sensitivity lessens and the thorn comes closer to the surface.
What happens when you let your consciousness move toward the disturbance and then reside there? You give away your peace and the chance to let it go. You also give away your opportunity to grow as a person when you become the disturbance instead of the watcher of the disturbance. This fallout often isn’t pretty…The one you love temporarily becomes your adversary so you can defend your position. What was once beautiful looks ugly or what felt possible becomes insurmountable. The world is the same but your consciousness has shifted and your perspective becomes obscured by the pain of your thorn that is pushed in even deeper.
Questions worth considering:
Do you want to use the life you have left protecting all of your inner thorns? Or do you want to lean into the discomfort and remove them? Practising presence is a practical approach amidst difficulty and a necessary tool for embracing change and welcoming growth.
