Control creates the illusion of safety.
The more I seek control, the more insecure I become.
The more I allow myself to trust the not-knowing to result in wisdom, the uncertainty to to inspire clarity, and the gift of others’ feedback to grow my confidence, the less I approach life as a field of potential failures and instead find a river of opportunities.
The less I grapple with control, the more I understand how much there is to learn and realize how much I already know.
How often I have longed for the confidence of another, the apparent success of others, and what seems the ease with which they live.
Then I remember I have my own gifts and talents.
These thriving others are likely not concerned with what I have or don’t have and rather are living within their own gifts and abilities.
It is in living within our gifts that brings ease to our existence, success in our challenges, and the knowing that each of us contributes a beautiful and very special piece to the tapestry of all.
Much like in painting, when the unique colors blend just at their edges they are often more vibrant than when they stand alone or try to take on characteristics of the others and simply become mud.
Today, I aspire to walk confidently and brightly in the shades and shadows of my own unique talents and abilities.
Sometimes life really is as simple as following the messages around us to get back to the place within us to feel whole, loved, and enough.
I know I am part of the cosmos,
a little spec of star dust put here on this earth to sparkle.
I am meant to connect with other particles of the universe to create something greater.
Some times I feel I’m not bright or powerful enough to pull it off.
Sometimes it seems my internal guidance needs calibration…signal weak, lost.
Other times I foolishly try to shine all on my own.
But the energy it takes to stand apart, to try to be the universe on my own
quickly brings me to exhaustion.
It is only when I recognize the I, the me, the we and the shared power in our communal healing and being
That I become the vibrant, harmonious, full sense of who I really am.
Your dreams are never out of reach.
Because they are yours to touch, change, create or release at any time.
They can never be bigger, scarier, or beyond you because they are an extension of you,
Here to serve you,
Linked to your greatest potential,
Always with the intention of informing your highest good.
Holding out hope for resolution or dissolution of pain or suffering brings heartache…a direct misalignment of the brain and heart as the heart knows that change is needed but the head resists the shift because it’s too much work to reorganize the memories, beliefs, stories. Gestures we make toward evolution instead of resolution free us to make transitions knowing all will be ok.
The shift doesn’t erase or do away with feelings – it alters receptivity and focus, it forges new pathways of being and seeing and offers a beautiful contrast informing contentment, the capacity to just be, absent good or bad. Contentment when fully present and balanced fuels joy and joy fuels awe…unconditional delight in experiencing evolution over resolution.
So much of this past year was spent retracted, curled inward, huddled up against myself. Darkness, distractions, and attempts to keep things all the same occupied much of my thinking. Circular thoughts woven into fears. Captive in this castle, spinning my time into the yarn of “what if.”
I imagined I was suffering, experiencing punishment of some sort. Separate from my routine, separate from others, separate from much of what I knew as familiar.
Now, a year later, I am being asked to do something with all the yarn that I have spun. I am being asked to go back to some form of the way things were, to put the yarn away. But I have rather come to enjoy the spinning and might just want to sit and spin some more.
Ah, but it could be time instead for me to learn to knit. There are endless possibilities of where I can go from here and what I can create. If I can only see that every moment is an opportunity to learn and create something new. How fortunate I have been to have this time to spin this yarn.
In this re-emergence as the gates slowly open, it is lovely to see what others have woven. Some have acquired new skills. Connected and inspired from within, they are already knitting. Some have rolled the yarn into balls to store away for another time. Some have just begun to make the yarn. In this experience, I have learned that I can resist the weaving, stumble and climb over all the yarn, or I can learn to knit.
So focused on the work,
on striving to be something, someone…
The joy has slipped away.
But there is no need to run after it, seeking it.
You see, luv, the joy is always right here in your heart. Your heart just beats more loudly to the rhythm of some things, like walks in the park, playing in the woods, cooking delicious foods and wrapping up in snuggly blankets.
Include those rhythms in your daily routine and you will not need to seek joy for it will already be there dancing with you.
It is here in the cool darkness that I harness the energy to grow, that I am held, and bravely take on the task of seeing myself as something I’ve never been before.
It takes great courage to stay within these confines and not feel restricted or inferior. The darkness gives me time to be a tiny seed – tight and small, contained in my protective shell —nurtured by all that is around me.
This time in the dark is essential for growing on the inside to support expansion on the outside.
Isn’t it fortunate that we all at some point or another have the opportunity to go inside and revisit our magnificence as a tiny seed…time and time again.
Why is it when something good happens, I assume I am dreaming? Good fortune couldn’t possibly come to me just because it is a way of living.
Our dreams allow us to live out endless possibilities, to experience great joys and work through sufferings. Yet it is more often the sufferings that we bring with us into the waking world. It is the sufferings we expect to find in the daylight hours.
As we settle into the darkest time of the year, let us awaken in this darkness to the fact that we are intended to live in joy and peace, and to thrive in the living more than in our dreams.
It is the suffering that is the illusion, not the success. It is the discomfort that we can relinquish to the dream state.
In the darkness, I awaken to know that this being is intended to be miraculous, exuberant, joyful and abundantly filled with ease.
It is time to give ourselves permission to celebrate our successes and well-being, fully awake and aware in our right to thrive.
Monday Mindfulness 