I am determined to see things differently.

Lately I am trying to see things differently, and that changes the way I experience almost everything.

When disappointment comes, normally I say: “I am disappointed”.

But instead of saying “I am disappointed”, I now say: “I am experiencing ‘disappointment’”.

That tiny shift may not look like much, but for me it changes the whole landscape. Because now there is disappointment, but there is also something that is aware of disappointment. Suddenly the little character I call “me” is no longer the whole story.

For most of our lives, we live through one particular point of view. We have a name, a body, a history, memories, preferences, wounds and expectations. This point of view feels so intimate that we naturally assume it is who we are.

I call this point of view “Gonny”; you have another name for yours.

Through all these countless points of view, life is experienced in an astonishing number of ways: love, fear, loss, joy, jealousy, tenderness, rejection, longing, laughter…ecc.

Billions of living beings, billions of perspectives, and an almost endless range of experiences.

But perhaps that what is experiencing is not as separate as it appears.

Consciousness is not something we each possess somewhere inside our heads, it is the other way around: everything we know…body, thought, emotion, memory, world…appears within Consciousness.

Then this person I call “me” represents a particular window through which experience is happening.

The window is unique, the view is unique, but the space in which the view appears is One….is All-There-Is…is God….is Pristine Awareness.

When I experience disappointment it is not necessary to deny what happens. We don’t have to pretend to be above human emotions.

The hurt hurts. Tears can come. We can still say no, leave the room, or tell someone that what they said was unkind.

But what we experience is no longer automatically being used as evidence about who we are.

A Course in Miracles speaks of this world as a dream and of the identity we normally defend as not our deepest reality. Whether we take that literally or as a metaphor, the invitation is interesting: what if the changing experiences of our lives are not what we are?

If everything appears in Consciousness, then even the dream appears in Consciousness. And if Consciousness is truly all there is, it cannot really expand into somewhere else, because there is no “somewhere else.”

What we call creation, manifestation or experience is not Consciousness becoming bigger, but Consciousness appearing as countless forms, countless perspectives and countless experiences.

Consciousness is not incomplete so we need to learn something. Experience is simply what form allows. Through form there is colour, taste, touch, joy, fear, loss, love, longing and wonder. The form says, I am experiencing this, but more deeply Consciousness is experiencing through the form.

When I remember that, even briefly, life becomes lighter.

If disappointment comes, I do not immediately have to solve Gonny. I can notice disappointment. If fear comes, I can notice fear. If jealousy appears, I do not have to make it spiritual or noble; I can simply become curious: So this is what jealousy feels like.

There is something almost innocent in that. An experience no longer has to become a verdict. Sadness does not define me. Anger does not define me. Fear does not tell me who I am. Even happiness does not have to complete me. These experiences come, they are known, they change and they disappear. But something is here before they arrive, while they are present and after they have gone.

What is that?

Perhaps awakening is not about escaping human experience or having only better experiences. Maybe it begins when we stop mistaking every experience for who we are.

The experience says, I am disappointed.

Awareness simply knows, Disappointment is appearing.

And perhaps, in that tiny gap, something of our real nature becomes visible. Not dramatically. No trumpets, no angels opening the curtains. Just a little more space, a little less defence, a little less fear.

The person is still here. The story continues. Dinner still needs cooking, and bills still arrive with impressive spiritual consistency. But underneath it all, something begins to feel different. Life is no longer only a series of things happening to me. It becomes a movement of experiences appearing, being known and passing away.

And perhaps the deepest freedom is not that nothing painful will ever happen again, but discovering that no experience, however beautiful or painful, can contain the whole of what we are.

I started and end with Lesson 21: I am determined to see things differently.

With love and light,

Gonny