Pick Yourself Up

At the beginning of the year we often sit back and look back on the one we just had. Sometimes wondering how quickly time has flown, sometimes at what we have achieved or not achieved. Sometimes with regrets and sometimes with fondness. I have been looking back at a year of challenge. Personal challenge, set by myself. A year of constantly bringing myself up against my shadows and all the forces that have seemingly held me back throughout my life.

One thing I have noticed throughout these yearly reviews, reading my journals and recalling all of the teachings that I have absorbed over the years is that we are never in the same place twice. It may seem as if we have come back to the same point, that we are living the same drama yet we always have the benefit of new perspective. We may be moving ever closer to a release of emotion, a cathartic event, or a monumental shift in our ideas or paradigm.

My first big teacher came in the form of my Grandpa. He raised me as his own son and truly, I was the son he never had. We had a special bond yet he was old school. He grew up in India, was in the army, rode horses, played polo, cricket and tennis and was a big strong man. I was a small frail kid without a daddy. A little blond boy with a soft heart.

I used to get bullied at school now and again. More often than not because I would stand up for others, like my sister, like the smaller, weaker kids in school. I was one of them. It was hard because I was an easy target. Somehow though, the low-grade bullying didn’t seem to grind me down. My Grandfather was a very determined man. He was quintessentially British. He told me to carry on no matter what.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again”, he said as I fell of my bicycle for the hundredth time. His encouragement emboldened me. Those lessons stayed with me and have brewed and chugged along in the background as I have spent a life moving from country to country, exploring, travelling and battling my own demons. Demons we all have. Demons from childhood, from school, from an education system that does not reflect human spirit.

One other teacher, my reiki master, once told me that we are always in a spiral, moving upwards. Whilst it feels like we may be sinking, we are forever moving forwards and the drama or situation we seem to be repeating is actually an opportunity, seen from a new platform, to shift, change and acknowledge our feelings, emotions, issues or blessings.

When the last year passed, I again saw a spiral. An ever-shifting perspective that we create by ourselves. A perspective born of our own thoughts, view and ideas. We decide in any given moment when to change ourselves. When to accept what are seeing, when to love those lost parts of ourselves, when to forgive others and when to be wise enough to overlook the trivial.

It has taken me many years to discover my true potential and what I am capable of and I am just at the beginning. I think everyone is a magical being blessed with the ability to create and become whatever they want. I am starting to see it for myself and starting to create daily habits that support that infinite well of potential within. Anyone can start and you do not need a New Year to begin.

And… as with everything, you and I will fall down from time to time. Just remember the words of my Grandpa…

“Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, start all over again.”

You can listen to Matt Rivers’ new album Nature on Spotify or Bandcamp.