The Puzzle Paradigm

Do you remember why it was so much fun when you were a kid to receive and assemble a jigsaw puzzle?

It was a box of affirmations! Every time you located and fitted just the right piece you confirmed to yourself that you could achieve, using your senses and analytical thought, something that had seemed impossible just moments before. The fun was in the starting and the finding.

Spiritual growth can be the same way. Every practice that clicks for us, every clue from the Universe of its miraculous magnificence we develop the ability to tune into is like that crooked edge fitting into just the right spot. But if you are like me, you did not always let yourself play. “Understanding” and “wisdom” are serious, grownup business. We are filling in a bigger picture, we focus on “finishing” the puzzle and “completing” ourselves.

Only this puzzle did not come in a box. And while each of us sees it differently, an ever expanding circle, or a right side forever ragged with no corners, the one certain thing is that we can’t finish. And no one else ever did either, no matter what they say. 

Shed the conditioning that your puzzle will look like somebody else’s that they have already finished so you don’t have to, or, that you are supposed to be working on someone else’s puzzle altogether, and you have taken the step to experiencing the joy of finding again, one piece at a time.

We are the puzzle, the puzzle is us. We are here to grow. And it is in the finding that growth takes place. 

Bonus Question:  How would it feel if we knew this puzzle was missing just one piece?