Avoidance has cost me some peace of mind recently. I hadn’t written nor posted anything for two whole months. Why didn’t I write and post for two months? Most likely it’s due to trepidation, distress and dismay. In other words fear. The more I bring awareness to the reality of life, the more I realize how fear impacts the quality of life. The fear of not doing enough, the fear of not enough time to do enough, the fear of failing, the fear of succeeding. It’s just crazy when I observe it through my mindfulness eyes – but when I’m in it – and this time I was in it mindfully at times – I can spin. The more I spin the more I go into fear and movement stalls.
So where did my “yes” go? On some level where it always goes – on the shelf. When life starts to spin for me (and it often does) I tend to park my “yes to life” on a shelf and reassure myself that I’ll pick it back up when “things settle down”. In reality I have every opportunity to say yes, but I resist it – as if that will make it more palatable. In reflection of the past sixty days, I might be being a bit hard on myself. I did meditate daily (almost) and did practice daily (almost) yoga. Hey, that’s a whole lot better than I used to be! What I didn’t carry with me though, was the sense of well-being that I feel when doing meditation and yoga throughout my day. Looking back I had too much on my plate and too many commitments to honor; that’s a pattern that I am beginning to see more and more and only through nonjudgmental observation of my pattern am I starting to shift and move into the place where my “yes” feels authentic.
So now it’s April and those two months are gone – but not without lessons that I’ve learned and will honor. One lesson that came through loud and clear was “I know what I know and I don’t need to change my system – it works just fine”. So it was about trust – trust in myself and when I didn’t practice that simple foundational truth, I suffered! I was all tied up in knots and tightness – in my body, my mind and my spirit. Another lesson was “the more life speeds up, the slower I need to go”. This lesson is about calibration for me as I take on a frenzied, almost panicked, sort of inner dialogue and I know its roots are planted deep within my younger self – always fearful that I am not enough somehow. The younger, fearful, me-in-my-mind starts the spinning and even in my mindfulness moments, I could observe that she was in charge more than she needed to be. So my message to her is one of “oh yes, I see you and you’re scared” and “it’s okay, I’ve got this – you can rest knowing that and trusting this new speed of just enoughness.” It is about saying yes.
After reflecting on my two months this past weekend, I decided to name my month Alignment April. I often do that – naming my month – something a good friend inspired upon me. But it serves as a touchstone, so to speak. Something I can fall back into and regain my intention whenever I drift and need to find my foothold. The word alignment came to me as a metaphor –“A line” – a line in the sand. What am I no longer willing to compromise? For me this is honoring the promises to myself – the ones we all make in our heads around health and well-being – but for me it comes back to mindfulness. I am making a commitment to be aware and not compromise the truth I know at my core about what’s right for me. I might still have to make choice that I don’t like, but I want it to be done with full awareness – with all parts integrated – body, mind and spirit.
Beginning with physical and committing to daily yoga and mindfulness of food and drink. I am committing to asking, “Is this what I want?” Mindfully pausing and dipping my toe into the pool of inquiry about what I really want this physical vehicle to “feel” like. I recall that not so many years ago, my focus regarding the body was one of “how do I need to look?” and then I’d punish myself into a relentless striving toward an elusive perfection, never pleased and always unkind to myself in the end.
The mental component of Alignment April consists of stepping more and more out of the “thought stream”. Committing to asking “Is this real, now?” as often when I’m in the fast moving current of thoughts it’s hard to differentiate what’s reality. Again, inquiry will be the touchstone for bringing me back, again and again. “Is this real, now?” helps me step out of any judgmental thoughts I might be having about my time travel and with that freedom I can just be present with what is happening in this moment – allowing space for whatever was just there a moment ago to be released. I’m adding a component regarding relationship – both with self and other. The question is, “What am I experiencing?” So often the me-in-the-mind wants to bypass experience and jump right into problem solving and usually that includes some judgments on self and/or other. You know the voice, “If he would just….or if I could only….tomorrow when…” So this question of what am I experiencing brings me back into the body of sensations and out of the thinking mind.
Alignment in my spiritual practice includes, of course, meditation and prayer; but I’m also adding service to other(s). I intend to make that a daily practice. Not just the routine service that is present in my life as mother, wife and therapist, but seeking out an additional way to send out service in love to the universe. It could be a conscious smile and eye contact with the clerk at the grocery store, it could be an online donation, it could be a loving kindness meditation moment when my shadow self comes up in the form of another’s irritation in me. Spiritual alignment for me is asking the question, “What can I do to connect with God?” – and it’s all about connecting with source. This life is always showing me ways to be with the divine through my interconnectedness with everything and everyone. I just need to step into it and participate with my yes.
As my earlier posts mention, intention lays the foundation for change and change is happening all the time. I want to be in flow with that change and that means to recognize any forms of resistance to the natural current of this life force. Whenever my energy gets fragmented and scattered like my last couple of months showed me, I realize I’m not meeting my life with yes and I’m in resistance instead of acceptance. I’m grateful for the lessons these two months taught me-on some level they’ve always been there in the background waiting to be learned-yearning to align me back into acceptance and yes.
(originally written 4/16/16)
