Medium Monday: Closing the Gap Between Your Lived Life and Your Aspirations

As we move into this week of Thanksgiving, I am present to the amazing blessings of family, friends and work that I love. Thinking of how my life has unfolded, I am reminded of the famous quote by Helen Keller, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

Life is a daring adventure, isn’t it? For those of us who are actively engaged in creating our lives with intention, pushing the edges of our human potential, life is indeed quite an adventure! We live with vision and when we allow our vision to pull us forward, life is truly magical.

But there are times when there is a tremendous gap between the life we imagine and the life we are living isn’t there? There is often a gap between our lived values and the values we aspire to, that call us forward toward our highest expression of who we can be.

I want to get underneath that gap and explore it, understand it more fully and use it as a way to bring each and every one of us closer to being our God-Self-on-Earth.

I know I have this gap between how I live and move and have my being and who I want to be. The vision I have for myself in much more engaged, effective, confident… more loving, and more patient, much kind…. The “me” I want to be exercises every day, eats a raw foods diet, practices yoga on a regular basis and raises at 4:45 AM to meditate for an hour before starting my day…

But then there’s the lived experience of me and let’s just say it doesn’t quite look like that! You know that wonderful Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world?” I can’t even be the change I want to see in my own life!

There is the “you” that is always being called forth into existence by your higher mind and then there is the “you” that is having your human experience. And therein lies the gap.

I want to get deeply connected to this notion of the gap and create a whole new experience of it’s place, its purpose, and potential in our lives.

First of all, it’s place. Where does the gap reside? What is the place that we hold it in our lives? It resides in our mind and in our consciousness. We have a relationship to the gap; feelings and judgments about it. So the first thing do to in closing the gap is upgrade your relationship to it.

Philosopher James Allen writes:

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”

In order for us to use the gap for inspiration, we need to understand its purpose in our lives — its purpose is for us to grow and then help others along the path that we have already encountered! It’s really not to tear us down and damage our self-esteem. The gap has the potential to call us higher and then call others higher because of what we have overcome. It relates to the purpose of all life, all humanity simply for us to grow in consciousness. When you hold the gap in that light, you suddenly have a whole new relationship to it. You recognize that the gap is there FOR you. You will only see and feel the gaps that are aligned with your soul’s destiny. You are most effective at helping others where you yourself have already grown.

For example, when I was in graduate school, I had an experience of someone who was able to help me in a profound way because of something she had overcome in her life.

When I was in graduate school, my grandfather was very supportive of my studies and of my decision to travel in Europe on the summer between my 2 years of grad school. Having been raised in a very rural part of the country, with very little economic means, I had never really traveled much in my life. So I was beside myself excited to do this 4-week trip around Europe.

The day before I was leaving, he fell ill and was taken to the hospital. After a series of tests, it was determined that he had a very advanced, inoperable brain tumor and likely had only a few weeks to live.

My poor mother had a grueling decision of whether or not to tell me about this on the eve of my departure to head to Europe. She decided not to tell me in hopes that my grandfather would hold out the 4 weeks I was gone.

He died two days later.

My first call home from northern England to home was the day that everyone had just gotten home from the funeral. I remember being in the phone booth (yes, it was that long ago) in northern England, looking out over the mountains and valleys, in awe of the fact that I was there. I called home, my mom answered the phone and I said “Hi Mom… I’m here, this is great! How’s Grandpa?” In an instant she started to cry and somehow I knew what had happened… I passed out and fell to the ground. My travel companion took the phone and got the details while I stumbled to my feet.

It was an enormous psychological blow. I spent the next few weeks wandering around Europe in a daze. When I returned to the US to go back to graduate school for my second year, I was not in good shape. I was struggling with severe depression and having difficulty functioning. As I was seriously considering dropping out of school — an angel appeared in my path with the help I needed; an angel who had overcome grief and depression herself.

The gal, Cindy, was one of my colleagues who happened to be a vocational rehab counselor whose job it was to help people with the support services they need to maintain employment or education. I had no money and no health insurance for therapy to help with my depression, but she helped me to get funding to remain in school by becoming a vocational rehabilitation client and receive funding to get the psychological help I needed. After a few months, I had stabilized enough to continue on in school. Cindy knew what depression was like, because at 18 years of age she had undergone a serious accident in which she became quadriplegic. She knew the pains of a shocking blow and the numbing pain of depression and how incapacitating it could be. Because she had overcome the gap between how her depression impacted her and yet she recovered and continued on with her life, she could see what I needed and was able to help get me on my feet.

The purpose of the gap is for you to grow and as you grow you are more able to participate in the ongoing evolution of humanity as you help others do the same.

Which brings us to the third point… Closing the gap leads us to expand our human potential. We are in amazing times. We are engaged in a time of conscious evolution and as each and every one of us expands our consciousness to become more awake, more aware, more loving, more divine, all of humanity changes. We are practical mystics, courageous in the face of cynicism and encouraging each other to pursue and fulfill our dreams. We are living with the audacious notion that our lives matter. We recognize the richness, depth and profound potential housed in our inner landscape where our potential is made manifest.

We recognize that our human potential is linked with Pure Intelligence itself. As Einstein wrote, “I want to know the mind of God — everything else is just the details.”

You recognize that the unrelenting drive toward closing the gap is the force of evolution itself. By becoming aware of the depth of your potential and take the necessary steps to actualize your ideal, you fulfill your purpose which infuses your current life with ever expanding human and spiritual potential. You engage in conscious evolution.

Conscious evolution can be defined as being aware of and fully responsible for your inner world, your wellbeing and for the direction of your life as a part of the ongoing evolution of humanity.

Closing the gap between your vision for your self and how you are living your life matters because it is what you are here to do. You are here to grow, and as you do so, you are fulfilling the call of conscious evolution for all humanity.