We're all different......

We’re not all the same!

The other day, someone asked me to make a custom digital meditation recording for her. She knows I offer guided meditative journeys at my website, (anoasisforyoursoul.com), has a lot of stress in her life and wanted a guided meditative journey specific to her lifestyle and condition, something she could listen to every day. The first one I crafted for her was good, but there were some areas that didn’t quite work for her. With her input, my second attempt was perfect, she said. It was so perfect that, at the end, she found herself crying tears of joy.

When we talked, once again it became clear to me that we are each unique. We have different backgrounds, interests, and ways of experiencing the world. What works for one person might not work for another. However, we live in a cookie cutter world.

From coffee shops to restaurants and hotels, the brands seem to have overtaken the world. Even in spiritual organizations, it seems the larger they get, the less unique the offerings. I think this is one of the reasons we see fewer people drawn to organized religions – the cookie cutter approach just doesn’t seem to work for everyone.

How do we balance this individuality with the need for some sort of structure? How do we balance this with following time-tested, ancient, wisdom teachings? Can everyone just make up their own versions and enjoy the same results? Well, yes and no. It all depends on the results we want.

For instance, I could go to a yoga class and after a few sessions decide that I don’t like all the poses they teach and decide to come up with my own. Sure, I could do this, but without the deeper knowledge of why the poses exist as they do, would I still be working the same energy centers? Probably not. Would what I come up help me anyway? Perhaps, just in a different way. On the other hand, I could injure myself because I wouldn’t really know what I was doing.

It’s not unlike using a recipe. Sure, you can substitute ingredients, but the end result won’t be the same. Maybe it will be better and maybe not. My 90-year-old sister loves to cook and I have shared many recipes with her. When I ask her how a recipe turned out, she tells me, “Well, instead of sugar, I used honey. Instead of white flour, I used whole wheat, and instead of buttermilk, I used skim milk….” And so on. By the time she is through editing the recipe, the end product is very different. Sometimes her version is great. Other times, it isn’t.

So it is with things like meditation. A particular type is taught a certain way to gain specific results. Yes, we can play around with what we’re taught, and we might even be happy with the results. But will they be the ones intended by the system we’re learning? Probably not.

Here’s what I find useful. If I want to learn something from a particular teacher or system, I learn it the way it is taught to me. I don’t make changes. Once I become proficient at it and have integrated it into my life, I may or may not make some changes. If I do, they are made based on my experience rather than simply an intellectual observation or on my personal preference.

What I have learned is this. The older a system is and the more people who have used it, the less likely I am to fiddle with it. Usually when this is the case, it is because the system works. Someone else already worked out the bugs and if I just follow the system, I can have the same results others enjoy.

Younger systems seem more open to interpretation and changes. These haven’t been around as long and don’t have the solidity of older ones. Usually, these are even better once I add my own signature to the stew.

No matter which way you feel about it, though, one thing that’s true is we’re better off when we have a system of some kind instead of living with a hit and miss attitude.

Do you have a spiritual system you follow? What about other areas of your life? This applies to everything: health, creativity, career, relationships. The more we’re able to be very clear on what we want to accomplish and then seek out or design a system we can follow, the more easily and surely we can accomplish what we’re setting out to do.

Give yourself the gift of looking at the different areas of your life and discover whether a system might serve you or, if you already have a system, perhaps a new or amended one might support you better.

Living in grace and ease,

Krysta

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