Inertia

 'Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. (...) Inertia comes from the Latin word, iners, meaning idle, or lazy. Isaac Newton defined inertia as his first law in his Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which states:

The vis insita, or innate force of matter, is a power of resisting by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavours to preserve its present state, whether it be of rest or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.'

 

[Source: Wikipedia]

 

I noticed some things lately which made me think of inertia.

I used to think that I will never find love. Yes, I honestly did. There is absolutely no logic to this belief other than the fact that I didn't find someone to share my life with until now. I think there's a strange part of me that somehow finds comfort in this situation. Being single is what I know, what I'm comfortable with. The old feeling of aloneness feels familiar. When someone gets close, I believe I do everything in my power to sabotage the relationship either by finding something wrong with the other person or by acting in ways which justify why I'm still single. I'm doing a great job to prove myself unlovable. Or at least the old me did...

Over the last few years, I've put great effort into changing. Great effort which is definitely paying off. I stopped blaming the world and the people around me or my ill fate for when things don't go the way I want them to go. I see myself as a do-er, not a complainer. When I feel bad, I make myself feel better: I go for a run, I read an inspirational book, I talk to a friend, I drink a nice cup of coffee. I am a new person and that's why I was greatly surprised to find old thoughts and beliefs lurking around in my head.

Very, very weird thoughts such as 'I will never find love', 'Everybody finds somebody, but me', 'If it's not happening now, it will never happen' etc. And I almost believed these thoughts, but the closer I looked at what was going on inside my head, the more I realised I don't actually believe them! It's almost as if I took a step back and I was able to observe the bizarre dance of my thoughts without  letting them take control over me. I realised that they were nothing but phantoms of the old me, shadows that didn't want to go, lingering there out of inertia.

I also noticed that I sometimes talk about other people and the things that bother me about them. It's an apparently harmless habit, which allows me to release any feelings that are bottling up inside of me about one or another person. The way I see it, if you express feelings and opinions, it's therapeutic. In reality, the following phenomenon happens: the more I talk about someone, the more I start to believe the stories I tell myself about them. So my attitude about that person changes based on the reality I start to build about them. Instead of being a loving presence in the world, I add more frustrations which frankly I can totally do without. I add up grievances, which only make my growth and ascension harder and at this point it's the last thing I need - what do I care about that friend who didn't do what they promised? Has my life suffered because of that? Absolutely NOT! My life is still great :)

Robert Holden suggests that, when dealing with grievances, we first must acknowledge them, grief and release. So I decided that first of all I was going to totally accept whatever was going  on in my mind and see what happened. What happens is that the moment I start formulating opinions about someone I already start feeling uncomfortable with it, but I carry on out of habit. I am not worried because I know it's just a matter of time until I stop doing it. Also, I am starting to linger a lot less on saying negative things about myself and I carry on with my life. It's all inertia. Old habits and thoughts are resisting but it's only a while until the driving force of change starts moving everything else along.

We may be spiritual beings at our core, but we exist in human form, we are made of matter. And we are subject to the laws of the matter: we have emotions which are triggered by chemicals, we contain mostly water, we react to physical pain and pleasure and we obey the laws of physics - inertia being one of them. So accepting that forces who resist change will be hanging around for a while, it's the first step to transformation. Good things take time. I accept my inertia. I'm only human.