The story you just created in the Closer Look exercise can be seen as a metaphor for your own inner journey.
The idea of living in True Self is that it creates a lasting paradigm shift where we are able to expand our vision and see the bigger picture. Such a change of perspective is a way of changing the way we see the world so that the Refusal of the Return becomes insignificant. The Closer Look exercise can help to achieve this by using our observations and descriptions of nature as a window into our own souls.
The first step in achieving such change is to achieve beginner’s mind. Beginner’s mind is a way to look at the world anew with a sense of childlike wonder. It is a way of freeing ourselves from the assumptions we have made about the way the world works. If those assumptions are leading us to consequences in our lives that we don’t want to experience, the way to change those consequences is to challenge those assumptions that are leading to consequences we don’t want.
What assumptions may you have been making that might be creating a barrier to your intention of living fully in your True Self? How might you re-examine those assumptions, using beginner’s mind, to see the world in a new way? How might your new vision of the world remove those barriers? How might moving beyond your own Refusal of the Return help you to live more fully in True Self?
Read over the story you created in the Closer Look exercise. Now imagine that story as a metaphor for your observations and descriptions of what is going on inside your own mind. See the story you created as a metaphor for your own inner journey as you complete the Reflections on a Closer Look activity on the worksheet below.
