I just want things to work out for me……God Goddess etc. Grant me the things I need, to get what I want……OH MY !!!! The battle cry of the sleepwalker! Someone do something for me to get me what I want— I’m helpless and can’t figure it out on my own.
How many times I’ve asked for someone or something to “get the job done” — because I wanted it to be fast or the way I wanted it. My manufacturing trained me to look external for solutions. I had to learn and be vulnerable to the fact that I have the answers— I just have to ask the right questions.
When my practice is serious and strong, then any question I have is serious and strong— I find this stirs things up— until I reach the eye of the storm, until I actually stand in the door of transformation. When a true question gets asked “I” begin to recognize my mechanical behavior. “I” subconsciously recoil and throw a tantrum when the world does not open to ME.
Results in life cannot be forced, well truthfully results in anything cannot be forced. When I hold a question over time, the universe gives me many signals— Most of the time I don’t notice them at first, but if I’m still and in my body the signal percolates through my subconscious and becomes emergent in my behavior and speech; people start to notice that I’m paying attention- I create a mood of Aim without even speaking about it.
Recently I’ve been feeling stiff— in thought and in practice and in my capacity to #remembermyself. My teaching has become stifling — I feel from time to time that I have really no knowledge to impart— like really who cares what I have to say— and really what if I mind my own business and let people just figure it out themselves. I get angry when I feel stifled, it comes from feeling boxed in— I perceive there is no where to go— I start to challenge the universe, my guru, my teachings. I start to look for the universe to “unstiff” me, as if on the street there will be an unstiffing store I just walk in, buy and unstiffer for $10 and poof I’m good.
A dear friend reminded me recently— really without knowing it— which is the best way to be told— that INSTEAD of being stuck—I have to remain steadfastly connected to my Aim— trust me it’s painful to be stuck, to stubbornly insist on clinging to the perspective that something is wrong “out there” and that the universe must change for me.
I’ve realized that when I scream internally or externally for the universe to “show me, make me, do it for me” that I’ve rooted myself in external hope- I begin to surround myself with #shieldsofsabotage. There is no one and nothing outside myself that is going to “make me” do or be anything. I have to make a conscious choice. I have to be available to embrace what is here and now; to embrace what I’ve been given. To sit in the ashes of my former self, full of self doubt, unworthiness, and helplessness and emerge— truthfully to AWAKEN and Remember.
One of my fav quotes is by Anais Nin:
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful that the risk it took to blossom.“
When I feel or hear myself become stiff— I take this as an opportunity to source my stiffness— I have to start to observe myself WITHOUT JUDGEMENT— the answer to all my questions lies within my own language that I use about myself. Who has to shovel my shit— so that I may un-stiffen — ME! I need to pay attention so that I can see and even predict when I’m going to recoil into stiffness. “I”, at some point get sick of myself and my wallowing, to stay inside the bud, and I start to listen and become still and I get out of my own way— I shovel the shit piled on top of my good Work and I WAKE UP.
One of my teachers, Lalitha states:
“The fruit of practice is discovering that ordinary life is not inherently meaningless when you are the gift in your life.”
This was revolutionary to me—- I am the gift of my own life— my stiffness is between me and me— my lack of wisdom to impart is a mood that is created by lack of inspiration— and when I pay attention all of life is inspiration; every person I meet is inspiration, my breath becomes inspiration. When I focus on my Work, instead of the fruit of my Work, I am inspired because there is nothing more inspiring that being in the Work of my life— truthfully what the hell else is there?