Opportunity Costs and Paying the Price

All choices have an opportunity cost; I learned that in an IGCSE Business course, but its full meaning didn't hit me until recently.

Nothing in this Universe is for free, we pay the price each and every time. I was told that one many times, and by many sources (Pathwork, my parents, spiritual teachings, the Sanatama Dharma and the Laws of Manu) but what nobody had explained is that the price is not necessarily what appears on the price tag, or what the other person says it is... or what I tell myself it is.

What is the true price of a process of change?

When I started going for AT lessons nobody told me what the true price was. Of course, I was given the price tag, which is the superficial level of the energetic exchange: I give the teacher x amount of money, he/she gives me a 45 minute lesson aimed at helping me restore my psychophysical coordination. The lessons were great and I enjoyed immensely the feeling of lightness and ease that would linger for some time after each session.

But time and again I would find that if I stopped taking lessons and "forgot" about stopping, inhibitting and directing, my old habits would creep up on me and pretty soon I was slumping around again. So back I would go to taking lessons, quite distressed, and get another "fix". The process repeated itself for a few years. My coordination and posture improved but I don't think I ever apprehended what was really being asked of me on a deeper level; I was shirking acknowledging the true cost of the process, so I was getting only as much as I was putting in.

It was during my training that the true meaning of what was at stake became clear: I had to open myself up to change on deeper levels, a whole new outlook on life would be born from the ashes of my old world view.

The most important thing the Technique has ever taught me, is to show me in a truly sensorial and experiential way that to fully welcome the new I need to give up the old... really give it up, the price of any true transformational process is the old skin, it has to be shed completely.

We spend a lot of time in the inbetween state: taking off the old skin but not fully discarding it, as we sun the new hide for little stretches of time. Eventually the new hide gets tanned enough to not be so sensitive anymore, it can take the wind and the sun and the rain with ease. Then I can enjoy it for as long as it feels good; knowing full well that eventually it will too become too tight and limiting, and will have to be shed.