Controlled Chaos, by Scott Fisk (cropped)

heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, claimed that chaos was the true foundation of reality. In the Bible, chaos is “watery” and exists before God begins to mold reality into what it is today. In most religions, chaos is understood to be the state before creation occurred.

In Greek mythology, chaos was the first thing that existed. The Greek meaning of chaos is “gap” or “yawning”. Ovid understood chaos as being a place of jumbled “shapeless heaps” while other poets saw chaos as a place of torment and tribulation, a place where the Titans lived and operated. This place was gloomy and dark and not attractive one bit.

The Oxford dictionary defines chaos as complete disorder or confusion. In physics, chaos is defined as, “The property of complex system whose behavior is so unpredictable as to appear random, owing to great sensitivity to small changes in conditions”.

In general when we speak of chaos we associate it with a negative state and negative energy. When someone says, “My life is chaotic” or “Chaos is everywhere” we understand that person to mean, “My life is a mess and I am a mess”.

Feeling Lost and Disoriented?

When I think of the term “chaos”, I understand that it is a state in which our egos cannot grasp what is happening and in which we are feeling lost and disoriented. In this state of feeling lost, we must develop new skills with which to navigate.

We cannot simply rely on what used to be, we must stumble around in the dark until we learn that with our eyes closed, we can feel what is happening around us rather than understand what is happening. Thus the first insight to learning to cope with chaos is about letting go of trying to understand everything and learning to feel again.

The argument can be made that being born is very chaotic. We are expulsed from the warm interiors of our mothers into this noisy, bright, confusing world where we are forced to speak, walk, analyze, and eat properly. Chaos is our first contact with reality but when we are children, we feel our way around this new reality and we do not lament our condition.

We are curious creatures when we are first born and we are fascinated with everything new around us. We fall and we get back up again. We get sick but we learn how to be stronger physically. Chaos is our first teacher in life and our wisest one because we learn to just go with the flow and get back up again and again.

The Need For Control: Ego vs. Heart

Henry Adams, an American historian, once said, “Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man”. If we study nature closely, we find that there are patterns that repeat themselves but we also find chaos or the lack of predictable patterns. The most obvious examples are the weather systems or climate changes that occur. Nature operates by laws that oftentimes surpass our reason and we have learned to accept that nature is more powerful than us.

I agree with Henry Adams that we dream of order in this vast and complicated reality; it is human nature to try to understand what is unknown at first and to categorize and try to control everything. This need for control, however, comes from the ego not the heart.

The second insight to coping with chaos is to focus on being in the heart rather than the ego. If we are caught in our ego, events happening can seem so chaotic as to completely drown us or suffocate us. If we live from a place of heart, that is total surrender and letting go, then events happening become learning experiences and good in their own light.

Chaos Is Never An Enemy -- It Is A Friend and Powerful Ally

From a place of non-judgment, chaos is never an enemy but a friend and powerful ally. If we return to a place of childhood within ourselves, we will relish the confusion or darkness and learn new exciting things that will serve to make us wiser humans.

Chaos is not a negative state or energy. It is the foundation of reality when you strip away the ego and the need to control everything. Chaos is the unknown at work, sometimes predictable, sometimes random, pushing us out of our comfort zones and transforming us into more evolved humans every day.

We must embrace the feelings of loss and disorientation and like children, laugh when we stumble and get back up and try again another time.

(Subtitles added by InnerSelf.)

©2014 by Nora Caron.

Book by the author:

Journey to the Heart: New Dimensions Trilogy, Book 1
by Nora Caron.

Journey to the Heart is the tale of how one woman overcomes her bitterness and anger regarding life and love.

Click here for more info and/or to order this book on Amazon.

Watch the book trailer: Journey to the Heart - Book Trailer

About the Author

Nora Caron has a Masters degree in English Renaissance literature and speaks four languages. After struggling through the academic system, she realized that her true calling was to help people live from their hearts and explore the world through the eyes of their spirit. Nora has studied with various spiritual teachers and healers since 2003 and she practices Energy Medicine as well as Tai Chi and Qi Gong. In September 2014, her book "Journey to the Heart", received the Living Now Book Award Silver Medal for Best Inspirational Fiction. Visit her website at: www.noracaron.com

Watch a video with Nora: New Dimensions of Being