There's another train, there always is.

We all have good intentions, we all have ideas of what we want to do, how we want to do it.  I bet we all fail regularly to live up to our expectations that we put on ourselves to be the people we want to be. We know we could be all that we wish for if only we did what we know is best for us. 

I don't know about you, but I have serious resistance to keeping up with the things I know are good for me, things that support me and things that have me progress in the way I want to in life.  This is a great source of self-attack for everyone - whether it's an exercise regime we only do for 3 weeks and then give up, a meditation we do daily and then we stop, eating healthily that lasts for a week and then the junk food creeps back in, tidying our desk and within a week it's piles of paper all over again.  Our habits are deeply grooved into us, and change is hard.  And we are really good at giving ourselves a hard time when we try to do something differently. 

I find this especially around my growth as a person - how many times I have failed to be kind, failed to be patient, failed to live up to the personal ideals I have of what it is to be a loving human being. 

I remember a particular day very clearly when I was subtly giving myself a quiet and incessant telling off about not being good enough and as usual, only I was privvy to this low lying dissatisfaction with how I was progressing as a person. 

I am good at witnessing what happens in me during these times of self-dissatisfaction - I feel hopeless, a bit useless and many things look impossible to me because of my mood of resignation and I experience a lack of energy or a dullness in me.  Of course from this place, the world looks a certain way to me, I feel what I feel, say what I say, see what I see, and sense what I sense because of my mood. You could say that my orientation to life at any point in time is what determines my experience.

A mood of resignation, hopelessness and inaction certainly brings forth a world flavoured with a lack of possibility, sameness, nothing changing, smallness, victim stories and a diminished supply of energy available to me to engage in what matters to me.

On this day that I can remember so clearly, a song was played to me - it's called Another Train by The Poozies. A couple of the lyrics of which are in the picture above.  The song begins with 'The Beginning is Now, it will always be'.  And I remember the balm that this song became for me in this moment.  A gentle and heartfelt reminder about the truth of life, how it is constantly renewed.  Each moment presents it's possibilities for beginning.  Each moment holds another train of possibility that we can climb aboard if we choose.  We are empowered to make choices from moment to moment.  However 'given up' we are, however hopeless we feel, life itself is here for us on a plate.  Its forgiving nature, is endlessly served up ready to welcome us into the next moment with open arms. 

The nature of trains is that they keep coming, life keeps arriving to take us to where we want to go. Each moment holds the possibility for this opening to be taken up. 

When I remember this part of how life itself is, I watch how my mood changes.  What arises is a mood of relief, of energy, of opportunity.  Life is not holding it against me that I haven't lived up to a standard.  Life is happy with everything, just the way it is right now.  Life is not judging me - it has no opinions of me. Life is inviting me, holding me and showing an opening in each moment. 

It's never too late.  We're never too old.  We may have missed a chance (or many), but there's always another one.  And life give us infinite chances, life is providing train after train, moment after moment, inviting us to get on board, take it up and participate.