What is your favourite quote and or mantra that helps bring you back to centre? Do you have one? I’ve gone through a few in different stages of my life. For a good few years the go to quote that influenced my attitude towards the world and every decision that I made was a quote that struck a chord with me at the age of 13 from the movie Moulin Rouge. The quote that I took away from it and which shaped me as a person was the following:
“The greatest thing you will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
This simple quote had the most profound impact on me, it sounds simple and appears to be romantic on the surface, but actually it is a good reminder of what we are here for and what we ultimately need to go back to, Love. For years I would remind myself of this quote and had it written on post it notes, journals and all different places so that I wouldn’t forget the purpose of life, which to me was love. My view of love started off with the one dimensional view of romantic love. But throughout the years I’ve come to understand that love is much greater than romantic love and that love is the essence of everything.
For the past 12 months I’ve had a new quote that has been front of mind and one that has been incredibly helpful in getting me through this stage of my evolution and soul journey. I can’t recall how this quote came to me, but I think of it at least a few times throughout the day and have recently learned that its origin traces back to Persian Sufi poets Attar and Sanai; which makes it even more precious and meaningful to me because I am from an Iranian background and have been following Sufism teachings for the past couple of years and so it felt really fitting that this quote has been my reminder of coming back to centre:
“This too shall pass…”
Indeed everything is temporary, the highs the lows, the good the bad, every moment is fleeting. There is no such thing as forever, well not in the sense that we refer to it, as we are always changing. If you think about it, everyday is really another day of rebirth, another day of getting the opportunity to ‘be’ that is different to the day prior. I know we have routines and set responsibilities which may make our days appear repetitive, but if we are present enough and look closely enough we will notice that in fact every single day has it’s own differences, it’s own gifts, lessons, struggles and blessings.
When times are good I remind myself of ‘this too shall pass’ not to create fear in myself and or become upset about the continuous changing state of life, but so that I can remind myself to enjoy the moment more fully and more deeply. When times are tough and the pain is too much to handle, I also remind myself that this too shall pass and it gives me hope, strength and courage. The moment we realise the truth about our fleeting and ever changing selves, the sooner we can appreciate our moments and become fearless about the difficult experiences which come our way. Realising the fleeting essence of our experiences doesn’t discredit the emotions and thoughts we feel in the moment, nothing will ever discredit that and or take away the value and realness of how we feel, but it can help us observe these feelings outside of our ego.
Someone reminded me that even our bodies are continuously dying and being reborn because our cells continuously die and give space to new ones. One can argue that with the birth of new cells we are being reborn again and again as new people – physiologically speaking. So fearing change and or death is actually counterintuitive because it’s happening to us all the time; we just don’t realise it.
This was such an enlightening moment, I realised how true her words are and how easy and simple things can be if I allowed them to be. But realisations are only one part of the equation and being able to unlearn all the attitudes, narratives and behaviours which don’t serve us well is no easy task . But it shouldn’t be easy because it’s an evolution, it takes time, patience, trials and errors. The only lesson we need to learn to help us get through every other lesson is the frequent practice of self-love. It’s important to be forgiving towards ourselves when we have to relearn things over and over again, when we make mistakes, when we feel frustrated and or put ourselves down. Practicing self-love is the key to helping you tap into the consciousness and learnings that everything else in life is trying to teach you and for me the greatest reminder of self-love is remembering that ‘this too shall pass’.
No one can stop time, no one can stop change, no one can hold onto things the way they are and these thoughts can be terrifying. But we have two choices 1) live in fear of change and be consumed by the anxiety of loss and pain because you don’t want to accept that everything is fleeting OR 2) embrace the change, understand that that the temporary state of the universe allows us to appreciate our blessings more deeply and gives us the strength we need to move on from the pain that is knocking on our doors. It took me a long time to shift from option 1 to option 2, it’s easier to be afraid than to embrace change and if you’re like me, it will take you some time to shift fully from option 1 to option 2, but what helps me is reminding myself that this too shall pass and it puts things back into perspective for me.
This quote may or may not resonate with you and your soul journey, if it does, then great but if not find a quote and or a mantra that will help bring you back to your centre. It really is effective and helpful.
Love Always,
Miss Dreamer
Souloom™ 