“Hidden
within the patterns of your personal history is a code that once deciphered
reveals the meaning, purpose, and direction of this life.” – Carl
Jung
It is within the patterns
of our life that we find our purpose. There’s a popular movie
from the early 1990’s called Groundhog’s
Day. It’s a comedy about a man who becomes stuck in a loop where
the same day repeats itself. Each morning, Phil awakens and its February 2nd
all over again. No matter what he does, he cannot seem to progress to the
following day. At first, he sees this as carte blanche to do whatever he
pleases. However, it’s not long before Phil becomes disillusioned with the
state of his repetitive life and attempts to end it all. Still he inevitably
awakens on the morning of February 2nd.
It is in Phil’s exhaustion and hopelessness
that he begins to contemplate his place and purpose in the loop. He understands
that he can use the repetition the universe has provided him to make himself
and the world better: He learns to speak French, play the piano, and after
witnessing the death of a homeless man, creates a plan to avert this and other
disasters from happening. It is only then that the cycle is broken.
It’s a funny and clever film,
but perhaps the greatest reason it has become such a classic is because it
speaks truth to our soul.
Each of us has our own
“Groundhog’s Day,” an unpleasant situation that continuously repeats. Maybe we
leave one job to get away from our tyrant of a boss only to arrive at a new one
where the boss is an even greater nightmare. Many people divorce their spouse
only to end up marrying the same kind of person with similar shortcomings years
later. What is this phenomenon that sees the universe placing recurring
patterns before us? And more to the point, how do we break the cycle?
The kabbalists had a name for
these patterns: tikkun,
indicating that which we have come back to correct. Each lifetime may afford us
several chances to accomplish our tikkun,
to learn the lesson and make the inner changes necessary for our spirit to
progress along its journey. Once we recognize the moments
that repeatedly pop up in our own movies, we can seize them for the gifts they
truly afford us. For instance, maybe the reason one is faced with a tyrannical
boss is to find the areas where they themselves lack kindness and mercy with
others, or perhaps it is to learn to stand up to an authority figure if that
has been a persistent problem throughout one’s life. If someone finds
themselves dating or married to the same kind of person time and again, it
could be to learn how to accept someone’s shortcomings and love
unconditionally, or it could be simply to start looking outside the box! This
is a deeply personal spiritual work; only you can recognize the patterns, and
only you can decipher what they are meant to teach you.
In this week’s portion of
Va’era, Pharaoh finds himself in a loop of his own making. He experiences ten
plagues, one right after the other. He could have prevented the plagues, if
only he had learned what he came to learn, and let the Israelites go. Still, after
each plague is over, Pharaoh does not acknowledge the Creator. Still he feels
this is his domain and he will not release the people. Like Pharaoh, we too can
find ourselves making the same decision several times over before we realize a
need to change.
The unique energy of this week
is one that can assist us in discovering our own cycles, empowering us to make
a genuine start towards inner transformation. It is so easy to fall into the
trap of asking "Why do these things keep happening to me?" and yet in
the movie Groundhog’s Day,
it was only when Phil used his misfortune to make himself and the world better
that the curse was broken. Of course, Pharaoh’s story has its cinematic ending
too… but well, that’s another movie.
The truth is, there is a
pattern to our hardships, and that pattern is called opportunity.
This week let finding the pattern be your
true North.
Wishing you a blessed week,
Karen
Karen
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