What Makes the Difference?

What makes the difference between a person choosing to turn toward health, meditation, love and one that does not? One that copes, drinks, ignores, represses?

Twins are a great example of how nearly identical situations can occur, and even humans that share 100% DNA can behave differently. A single, tiny difference in the way someone chose to respond to stimuli versus their twin’s response blossoms into two totally unique lives.

From that point, things start to aggregate quickly. Personalities form. Tendencies solidify into belief systems. And choice becomes buried, dormant and asleep, under the stories we believe.

I woke up one day when I was 25 — it was a sharp awakening in one moment followed by a gradual, sleepy, stretchy, disorienting few years where I sometimes dozed back to sleep, hitting the snooze button. But, ultimately, I woke up.

I woke up to seeing my aggregated self, composed of stories that I believed were made for me and about me, but hardly by me. Thus began my second life of empowerment and awakened choice — of choosing what I want the stories to mean and crafting new chapters. It’s been great and I would wish it on my worst enemies (so that they can chill and we can all be friends!). I wish it for all.

Then I find that I can never, ever force someone else to wake up. In fact, pointing out that they’re asleep usually comes across as rude and confronting, so that defeats the purpose! Trying to get someone to replicate my path — to feel lost, drugged out, end up in a yoga class, find something unnameably addicting about it and never stop going — is like trying to get someone to laugh at an old inside joke that was only ever funny to me. I may get a chuckle, but it’s not the same.

So I ponder and pray: where does the spark of awakening begin? What is the domino that falls right before a human decides to realize their true nature?

My hunch is that the person in question has to be at their most maxed out amount of pain. Because we only do things that are bad for us when we get something out of it, like avoiding the more painful or difficult things. Example: by blaming others for how I turned out, I got to feel better-than, I got to never have the discomfort of trying harder to take control of my life, and I got to avoid feeling the deepest of my depths of sadness and anger. I didn’t realize that’s what was waiting for me on the other side of waking up; that waking would mean facing the trapped trauma and memories of my past. Avoiding how we really feel about stuff is a huge pay off for a human, so many would keep the kind of pain they’re used to (like having a painful body, chasing pleasure til exhaustion, or not enough money/safety, etc.) if it means they won’t feel a feeling their subconscious believes is too intense to handle.*

At some point, it became more painful for me to remain asleep and avoiding, living out a pointless, powerless life than it was to face the scary music. So, I said “yes” to something new and opened my eyes. And changed my life.

That point of something becoming more painful than something else… that’s where the difference lies and it’s still a mystery how and when it’s going to happen for someone. I can accept that 100% of the people on the planet with me right now will not all die happy. Yet I still wish it so. Is it weird to say that I hope that disempowered, unhappy people, especially the people I personally care about, finally take on so much pain that they decide to wake their hibernating power of choice?

*and sometimes it is. Suicide is no joke. I have felt it’s grip at one point. It is a medical emergency and that person requires help — please call someone if you or someone else experiences a suicidal mental space.