It’s impossible to imagine a future wholeness without feeling, in the present moment, strangely incomplete — as though we’re missing something essential!

We’ve all sensed this disquiet each time we devise some new plan to feel “better” about ourselves. It’s a little like how much hungrier we suddenly feel when we imagine a special meal for later that day. Anxiety shadows all such expectations, as small fears tend to appear with new challenges. And, as this anxious feeling of being incomplete rises into our awareness, there comes with it a kind of pressure to hurry. We feel compelled to either pursue (or protect) what’s been imagined, or risk losing our hope for peace and happiness! The deception is complete and — bang — the trap springs shut!

In the ensuing struggle to escape our escalating concern, we leap onto the merry-go-round of whirling thoughts and feelings, hoping that getting on will get us off! What happens next is too familiar. Round and round we go, rushing through and running over anything in our way, trying in vain to reach the wholeness we’ve imagined awaits us in time… [to be continued]