What is a "Reality Check"?
A reality check can manifest in different ways, but it is mainly through information or an experience that we receive and process that opens our eyes to see something that we didn't see before, that may shock us to realize something as a new truth, or that may cause us to pause, reflect, and feel like we have been jolted into waking up to a new level of what is real in our life, or other's lives, or the world..
What does "bouncing" mean with reality checks? Could the bounce be a new reality check that shows us that the first one was not real? Or could the bounce be when we choose not to accept a reality check?
Some Examples of Challenging Reality Checks:
Reality checks can be challenging and not fun. How we respond to them offers us choices.A husband finds out that his pregnant wife is carrying someone else's child. A family member finally acknowledges mental illness of another family member. A prisoner is found not guilty after DNA tests reveal a different truth after he has already served years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A political reality, held by millions, is found to be false. Alien life makes its appearance known to the world. Losing a loved one who passes on. Turning sixty years old and realizing that we have been sleeping one third of our lives...about twenty years. Having a diagnosis of a serious illness. And of course many more not listed here.
Some Examples of Positive Reality Checks:
Reality checks do not always need to be challenging. They can be empowering and positive. Some examples are: Giving or experiencing birth. Becoming a father or mother. A spiritual insight into a limited belief or attitude or emotion. A mystical experience that offers a different and profound experience of reality. The moment that causes a break in an addiction or bad habit. Getting married, falling in love, creating a new idea or work of art, finding a lost relative, experiencing a different culture, receiving an unexpected gift, receiving wisdom or knowledge from a best friend. In deep meditation, an insight that changes our life forever. An "aha" experience of a new realization. And of course many more not listed here.
Can a "Reality Check" Bounce?
Is it possible to be in denial about reality checks? Can they "bounce"? Even though we are shown something or have some new insight we can choose to not see it and not accept it. And life goes on and we may get another reality check opportunity to see if we can accept it and prevent it from bouncing again.
A Divine Spirit Reality Check?
Is there an ongoing reality check that there is a Divine Spirit that is transcendent of all things, that is an infinite intelligence, and that is one with us? The reality check here is to acknowledge if this is a reality for us, or a limited belief, or if we choose to let this idea bounce, in any given moment, for whatever reasons. Reality checks can happen in any given moment, in addition to being a sporadic surprise wake up call.
Being Open to "Reality Checks"
In today's fast changing world, we need to be open to reality checks, and if we are choosing to let them bounce. Sometimes living in the question can help, so we do not get stuck in limited beliefs, or ways of thinking that would prevent an open minded approach to letting reality checks happen.
Then inspiration can happen from accepting a reality check and overcoming any fear of change or a new reality, or a freeing up of a blocked emotion, or limited belief. We can celebrate life, have gratitude for the new insight or wisdom, and live with more freedom.
Otherwise we may only be willing to accept a reality check that keeps bouncing. Are we choosing to "let it bounce"? We can try to blame something externally, yet we may have a reality check about that also.
Baby Boomers and Reality Checks
For baby boomers, we have had years of life experience, and have the wisdom of having lived those years, with the challenges and joys, the sweet and the bittersweet, the gains and the losses. Along the way on this journey we have had many reality checks, and may think that okay, "we have been there done that", and then another reality check hits us, and then another. Just when we think we have reached a point of "retirement" and an easier life, we have had elder parents issues, family issues, financial concerns, health issues, loss of friends or family members, the negative news and media interpretations of "reality", and the reality checks just keep coming. And maybe some keep "bouncing".
Yet we can also be celebrating life, as an adventure, a spiritual journey, with the joys of family, grandchildren, books and novels, movies and plays, art, yoga, music, or whatever enriches our lives. Whatever reality we have created, there are many areas of our life that do not need reality checks.
The Baby Boomer Aha Moment, Serendipity, Insights, and Wisdom of Life
What happens when we do what we can to enjoy life and then a reality check happens and we did not see it coming? What happens when we have a set view of life and the world and then it changes with new insights, an epiphany, an "aha" moment, or a breakthrough in awareness? As baby boomers are now the elders in the world. We are the carriers of traditions and wisdom, and carry the full responsibility for what we have created in our life individually and in the world. We have inherited a legacy from the prior elder generation. What legacy will we leave to the next one? On a positive note, our legacy is already being celebrated with "our music" from the sixties and seventies being popular with the younger generation. In the lyrics of many of those songs, they see our idealism, our hopes, our seeking of liberation, freedom, love, peace, and hope for a better future. Our legacy is also seen in art, in technology advances, the educational opportunities, and the intense divisiveness of politics. Baby boomers still have reality checks. We don't have all the answers even though some may think that we do. We are still learning, as life is an ongoing learning process. As the new generation of elders, what we have to offer is the longevity of life experience, and a lifetime of reality checks and how we have dealt with them and are responding to them now.
The Reality Check of Aging and How We Choose to Live Our Life
It sort of creeps up on you. Like, "hey I'm in my sixties", and "sixty is the new forty", and my fifties are just behind me. Then the reality check hits that, wow, I'm in my sixties, but late sixties, and in thirteen years I will be eighty. This reality check does not bounce. It is deposited and cleared. In this last stretch of twenty years or more, or whatever our time is, what reality checks can we leave as a legacy for the younger generations? What can we do to share the wisdom of reality checks and to avoid or be aware of the ones that keep bouncing? How can we manage our own reality check of aging? How do we choose to live our life?
The Reality Check of Death and Dying
When we experience the death of a loved one or friend it is one of the most devastating and powerful reality checks. Thunder just struck as I wrote that sentence. How synchronous! And the experience of grief can also be like thunder; a loud bombardment of emotional pain, felt in the throat, the heart, the body and the mind. Memories of loved ones that have past, good times, healing times, challenging times come back to visit our stream of thoughts during the day, or in the middle of the night. Then the news on Facebook of another high school friend or friend of a friend shows up, and we have another reality check. We lose a good friend or family member. The reality check of death and dying is not fun, and sometimes it is hard to accept it as a part of life. Yet that is the reality check that we can accept or reject, and embrace or resist. In any given moment we may experience both. Being open to all forms of grieving allows us to do this.
Reality Checks as a Blessing
Are the following some of the realities of life that will not bounce? Maybe Love, inspiration, gratitude, giving, forgiveness, ongoing learning and curiosity, increasing spiritual awareness, and cultivating a peace within? We choose what we want to experience in life, and then life happens beyond what we choose. Then we choose how to respond to that.When we choose love, inspiration, gratitude, giving, forgiveness, and anything else that enhances our experience of life and what we can also give to others, then we can celebrate life daily, be open to all possibilities of new experiences of "reality", and learn from any reality checks that "bounce", accepting them as a blessing fully seen, or a blessing in disguise.
Then we can avoid a reality check that keeps bouncing.
Carpe diem. Namaste.
