Waking up alone this morning, with the house quiet and realizing that there would be no one else to complicate my day brought relief as well as dread.
I do not do well with still or quiet. And I am usually the bringer of chaos and confusion if only for myself...so today, waking up in a quiet, relatively still house (the animals had their early morning say to which I objected) was a wonderful blessing as well as my curse for this day.
For whatever reason, I am getting to sit alone with myself this holiday and it is ok. I don’t love it, not going to lie, but I know today that what is happening is what is supposed to be happening regardless of whether or not I like it...
And I also know today, that I am being led to something new and undiscovered for me. That this relationship with myself is something that requires some new effort and, hopefully, insight.
All relationships require work. Auto-pilot and coasting is something that cars do, and it works. But auto-pilot and coasting in my relationships, especially with myself and loving kindness/God, doesn’t really work all that well.
It has come to my recent attention that in so very many ways that I have been using people, places and things to avoid doing some internal work. I feel like I am always doing work which is what has made this most recent relegation hard to deal with...
REALLY!?
AGAIN?!
STILL?!
Yep, apparently so.
So I sit in bed this Christmas morning, eat souffle, drinking coffee and Oj, while writing and I am content. This relationship with myself ok for the moment. I do not wish anyone else were here, I do not wish that I was some place else. Right now, all is well inside me and outside me...which is a pretty large statement for someone like me.
I feel like I have been running my whole life. Seeking, always seeking but really running. Running disguised as seeking. Always launching myself into something new, propelling myself forward and into new relationships while dragging along this not so great belief system about me. Oh, sure, sometimes I am happy internally with who and what I am but more often wanting you to come and distract me from me so that I can get some relief.
What has come to me recently is that I use others to feel differently. If I am down, then I want you to jolly me up. If I am sad, I want you to distract me or sympathize with me. If I am bored, I want you to entertain me. I now can see that my locus of control and center has always been on the external. Always seeking outside myself for guidance or distraction.
So today I sit with this knowledge and seal off my exits, all the habitual ways that I leave, me. I am not sure why I do this, I just know that I do. And that there is something to uncover with this knowledge more than just a nodding acquaintance with it. It is more than “yep, I do that, so what is up with you?” It feels more like, “yes, I do this...why, how, when, where and with whom?”
Today, I am just at the beginning of asking these questions but I know that the answers will come if I work for them. If I sit still while the habitual responses come flying at me hard and fast with very convincing storylines. Stories that are all designed to get me out of right here, right now. Today, I am excited, if not a little wary of what I might find if I just am still and quiet, keeping my own company and staying instead of running.
It is hard always running from yourself. Exhausting really. I feel like I have been running for so long that I don’t even know why I am running...it is just what I do until recently.
So today I will sit as still as I can and be here with me on this holiday. Loving all despite the distance, physical, emotional, spiritual, distance that I feel acutely lately. Nothing is wrong, it is only changing and that brings about a certain level of discomfort and, dare I say it, hope.
Hope that perhaps if I sit with this feeling I will come to know it better, understand it more fully. Not so that I can make it go away, but see that it is here to teach me things that I do not know about myself and, perhaps, about you. Maybe it is about how we relate, or don’t. Maybe it is about why I am the way I am. Maybe it is to show me where and why I have felt so stuck. Maybe, it is just here to show me that slowing down and being still will not kill me...
Results come later after the work. Footwork is always mine and today my footwork looks like doing not much of anything except being still and quiet...results, are always, and will always be up to the cosmos. Oh, I can continue to wrest satisfaction through my control and management of my life, but today I want something more than satisfaction...I want joy, and love, and connection, and intimacy. I want to be happy, joyous and free to love myself and all of you in a new way, a different way. And that is going to take some effort and work with the results that I want not promised...
But I know, I really do know, that I will be lead to a new place of understanding, compassion and love if only for myself. And that I can use that love and understanding and compassion to help others find their own path toward the light.
And today, on this lovely, bright and sunny Christmas morning, that is what I want more than anything...to love without conditions, to seek to understand myself better so that I have a prayer of understanding you, and to have compassion for all beings great and small.
May you all be well.
May you all be loved.
May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May you find yourself in all that you do.
And in that finding, may you waken to a more loving you, a more compassionate you, a more understanding you.
May we all seek to give freely of what we have to help each other live this life the best that we can one moment at a time.
Happy Christmas everyone, everywhere. No exceptions.
