As men, we are trained and acculturated to view the world as vectors of force–at times conquerable, and at others utterly unstoppable. We see the hard edges, the unforgiving lines of momentum and the hard arrow of destiny. It’s in the testosterone, I think, creating a context for high stakes games and low expectations. And this is why I’ve always thought of God’s creation as being more feminine. Because, at a quantum level, physical reality is amorphous, soft, malleable and unpredictable; and I think that tends to cause some cognitive dissonance among men and reassures women of their rightness.

Sexual politics aside, when we embrace the world as infinitely pliable and full of unpredictable possibility, we align much more closely with Cosmic Reality. How many times in your life have circumstances “turned on a dime”, or left you shaking your head in disbelief or amazement? I think this is a function of how predictable we’d LIKE to see life, but the universe has infinite ways to respond to how you are being–some of which are simply unforeseeable.

That said, if we ditch our ego expectations, throw away our judgments, erase our conclusions, and let life flow, we more effectively step out of our own way so life can respond to our desires. This means allowing the hard parts (as in this too shall pass), opening our hearts to the highest and best, and softening into the certainty that God has got our back, and everything is okay. Succumbing to worries of death and destruction only takes the joy out of what is actually a wonderful adventure.

I think we succumb to “worst case” because we get caught up in the illusion of separation from Source. It’s an illusion because our native state is connection. We are inextricably linked to all points of consciousness everywhere, and to deny that is really at the root of all suffering. It also hardens everything up, so that conveniences become hardships, and advantages become hassles.

When we start accusing Creation of perceived cruelty, injustice, pain and torture, it forces this mirror universe to reflect back upon us our own cruelty, injustice, pain and torture. And this is why mindfulness is so important to a life experience of joy and love. Mindfulness allows us to maintain situational awareness about our own thoughts, allowing negativity to instantly pass away, and opening to the highest possibilities of any moment.

My spiritual teacher used to talk frequently to me about the “size of now”. It was a difficult concept to really get, but once I did, it changed my perspective on how life events unfold. Stress, negativity, perceived danger and anxieties all narrow our “size of now”. Our attention fixates on the stress, negativity and danger as all-encompassing, when in truth, it is the merest fraction of the big picture playing out. Choosing to step back, and allowing the negative interpretations to pass, disengages the cortisol response, and opens portals of perception to see the higher outcomes and greater possibilities playing out over time.

Both curiosity and a sense of adventure calm the nervous systems, de-stress the immune systems, and dissolve the expectations leading to disappointments and suffering. It is the judgments and conclusions behind our expectations that harden the trajectories of quantum particles and waves, decreasing choices and calcifying outcomes. Curiosity and the sense of adventure loosen everything up, re-establishing hope and faith.

Consider the dualism inherent in opening, softening and allowing. Closing, hardening and preventing is a good description of tyranny, so when we are having those feelings, it’s a fair bet we’re being controlled in some way. This is because the true state of creation is opening, softening and allowing. The closing, hardening and preventing exists only to disallow possibility, making things much easier for the Controllers, than the wildness inherent in the opposite.

As Miranda MacPherson pointed out above, the price for a ticket to raw animal humanity and transcendent divinity is feeling everything. It is our feelings that describe how we are being. And how we are being creates our experience. Feel the opening. Feel the softening. Feel the allowing. This swings open the portal to infinite possibilities of the exquisitely soft goodness, and the deep love underpinning all of Creation.