Yesterday I was caught feeling the familiarity and stuckness of a well-worn cycle of longing. This longing has yet to take shape in the practical world. I see glimpses but I don’t abide in this place yet.
How often do we sense a longing from deep within and find ourselves gently holding it like an exquisite hummingbird that startles us with her beauty as swiftly as she disappears?
How often does it crack us open to something bigger that we sense but don’t yet know as intimately as we would like to?
This is the kind of longing that the ego enjoys co-opting to ‘manifest’ a temporary ‘fix’. But we’re on to that strategy and we recognize that neither this temporary grasping nor the highs that follow are not the truth that we seek.
The ‘bypass strategy’ becomes futile
After years of attempting this sort of bypass we understand it’s futile and it doesn’t touch the essence of what we long for. I consider this a ripe and juicy time of being receptive to how Life appears to us even when we feel lost or resistant.
Life usually has such grander plans in store for us than our mind can fabricate from its limited view. We are much bigger than we can begin to imagine.
The game is up and we now prefer to pause and listen. We know this waiting can be challenging for the part of us that doesn’t want to be in the unknown. The aspect of us that needs to put things in its place to feel a sense of safety.
We witness this experience of ‘grasping to solve’ with equal acceptance to the experience that has an undercurrent of mysterious unfolding. We become a spectator at our own game.
The Addiction to Being Busy
When I am in this tender space of longing I grow inspired to get busy. I want to engage in projects to feel a sense of being ‘productive’ but instead I sit on my cushion, lay in a patch of sun on the ground and I get quiet…listening for insight, clarity or openings to emerge.
I’ve learned to pause before I let the driver take me on roadtrip away from listening. The attention required to slow down in these moments, and understand how I avoid the sense of not knowing what to do next, is well worth the investment.
Voices of the Human Heartbreak
When I choose to stop and take inventory of what’s really going on, rather than distract myself from the moment, I listen for the voices of our basic human heartbreaks. I hear the old voices arise that tell me I’m lazy, not lovable, not enough or don’t belong. I expect them to visit.
Yesterday I lay in a patch of sun on my floor wondering if my longings will find me. I wondered if I’m doing too much or not enough? I wonder if this lack of traction is where I need to rest and if my pattern of working so hard is getting in the way.
What I did was make room for what was really happening when it would have been much easier to run to Home Depot for those new potting planters.
Full Self-Expression
I struggle because I want to fully express myself and not hold back any ounce of what moves through me. On one level, it doesn’t seem like one’s self-expression in the world should carry so much weight. On another hand, the world longs to receive our unique and beautiful expressions.
My deep desire to share, grow and awaken with others runs to the core of my being. It’s what inspires me, moves me and reminds me of the way in which I belong.
I’ve spent my life preparing to hold space for people and systems to heal and to invite collective innate wisdom to support, nourish and set a new template for what is humanly possible.
The Paradox of Responsibility
How do I take responsibility and then let go of responsibility all at the same time?
There is a fine edge between being responsible for creating our life circumstances and surrendering any sense of responsibility. I’m exploring this edge right now as I find my way into creating work that inspires and sustains me. It’s so compelling to be responsible and take every action known to mankind to ‘make things happen’.
The worker part of me just wants to work even if it’s not in alignment with the bigger vision. This keeps me disconnected from the rhythmic flow that appears below the radar and at the center of my heart.
How do we each find our particular edge of balance between taking action and let letting go to see what appears?
Gratitude For the Times of Disorientation and Loss
When I reflect upon my life and the cycles of deconstruction and loss I feel grateful and loved.
When things are falling apart we are invited to get present and available to our experience in a radical way. When all at once we end a primary relationship, leave our home without a place to live, experience financial instability, grieve the loss of a parent dying and start a life with a new family member who has severe trauma it can feel like a lot to bare.
I have experienced this amount of simultaneous transitions enough times to know that these times offer profound riches. Sometimes the gems are yielded immediately and others are not revealed until months or years after. As they integrate I experience myself having more freedom and love to share.
These periods of deconstruction can be seen as Life’s way of loving us; calling us home.
“Stay Awake with Me”
The invitation is to stay awake during these challenging times and to watch all the impulses to avoid, get busy and push away from being in the depths of the experience. What happens when we allow it to take us, like a lover, into the depths of our own being?
I trust this cycle of destruction and grief. I feel Life is constantly calling me to wake up. How it calls me forth is really none of my business. Any illusion of having control over any of it, other then how I respond, is just more suffering and delusion.
How do you meet yourself when life isn’t looking the way it ‘should’? When it feels like everything is changing, falling apart, starting anew and you feel disoriented?
Can you pause to grow more intimate with what’s underneath it all?
Life is alive, it’s real and it keeps us on our toes…whispering, ‘stay awake’.