Now and then my thoughts have felt like I’ve suddenly stepped into a rabbit hole of regret: bemoaning a youth where I wasn’t sure what I wanted or how to go after it, lost time and missed opportunities. But I usually notice fairly quickly that this line of thinking is not worth it. It feels awful. It’s exhausting and I am loving my life far too much these days to allow myself to get lost in that hole for too long. I am sixty-six years old and my life is opening up more than it seems it ever has before. What a surprise! There is a part of my mind that sometimes chatters on like the white rabbit scurrying with his pocket-watch in hand, “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.” But my world and my heart are also somehow growing “curiouser and curiouser”.
So, instead of regretting the past, my practice is to breathe and return here, to right now. I drink in my life and I spin with the music of the moment. I remember that it doesn’t have to be so hard. The marvelous thing is that it really is a choice, It’s a simple way of seeing. Somewhere along the way I learned that life can be joyful simply because I say so. It’s not about the circumstances. It’s not about things necessarily going well (going as expected?), nor is it about not having any challenges. It’s not about being safe in the conventional way we seem to mean that (and is that even real?). It’s about realizing that I am my own safety. And, as so many have said, it’s not about arriving at a destination. It’s not about living “happily ever after”.
For me, it’s about the lesson of leaning into faith. I had no idea what an amazing journey learning to trust life could be, just for the journey’s sake.
I want to see where that trust takes me. I want to pay attention, to listen to the loud and subtle messages of intuition. What if I don’t have to have it all figured out? Instead, maybe all I need is to take small steps into new possibilities.
I think a lot of us fault ourselves when we don’t feel as if we have every aspect of our lives in perfect order. I know that’s been me. Comparing. Measuring. Feeling as if I don’t have it all together and I’m losing the game. But what if life can be gentler and more graceful than that? What if we don’t have to beat ourselves up all the time? Yes, there is a place for discipline and building good habits, especially when those habits are bringing us closer to something we truly desire. The problem would show up for me when I really didn’t know what I wanted and was desperately trying to create a picture that I thought “looked good”. I’ve found coming from that place brings me nothing but frustration, fear and resentment. So rigid. So not fun. So harsh. So now I’m starting to let myself be a little messy. Sometimes breakthroughs come by way of the mess.
I’ve heard it said, “What is meant for you cannot miss you.” I believe this because nothing else seems to fit, either in my mind or in my gut. I believe this music and this dance of Being is approved already by an intelligence far beyond our thoughts–but not beyond a deeper knowing that is grounded in our bones. Each moment seems to be electrically alive and all of it beating as One Heart. How else could we even be experiencing this journey we are on? It all seems to arise together. Every nuance of the myriad forms of expression that we are, every intricacy–all of the seeming paradoxes, all of the various shades of color and light bouncing and reflecting off one another–all appear somehow inextricably bound. Each of us belongs to it.
Perhaps that bouncing and reflecting light is what Love is.
What is for you IS you- not one atom of difference- always totally one, here, and now.