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cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
How much of my pain comes from ripping up what I've overfastened on days I need to see the sky?
After my rant of the other day I think I have answered this question several times over and I'd say most of it is self inflicted; the after effects of all this overfastening. If I don't do x/say x, then y will happen… and so instead z happens and I do nothing, then end up hurting with either my frustration or someone else's because nothing has been done… or the wrong things have been done.
Having a 'roof' that you can remove is useful, I suppose – allows you to change plans on a dime, go in the opposite direction when you need to – be flexible and subsume what you'd thought you might do and be back into yourself until a time when you can take it out again and dust it off… and actually have the courage to do that. Does it stop you feeling like you're being messed around though?
Damn it! Today I'm having salad and chips and chicken for dinner and to hell with it.
The only reason we don't open our hearts and
minds to other people is that they trigger
confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough
or sane enough to deal with.
--Ane Pema Chodron
How much of my pain comes from ripping up what I've overfastened on days I need to see the sky?
After my rant of the other day I think I have answered this question several times over and I'd say most of it is self inflicted; the after effects of all this overfastening. If I don't do x/say x, then y will happen… and so instead z happens and I do nothing, then end up hurting with either my frustration or someone else's because nothing has been done… or the wrong things have been done.
Having a 'roof' that you can remove is useful, I suppose – allows you to change plans on a dime, go in the opposite direction when you need to – be flexible and subsume what you'd thought you might do and be back into yourself until a time when you can take it out again and dust it off… and actually have the courage to do that. Does it stop you feeling like you're being messed around though?
Damn it! Today I'm having salad and chips and chicken for dinner and to hell with it.
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longer than i intended it to be ... but the story is here and i think it needs to be told ...
Date: 2011-08-04 09:39 pm (UTC)Eventually, I stopped and when I started feeling messed around (if I am understanding your meaning) was when I started craving control because I felt I had none. I needed to know everything, control everything, because I felt my life was not my own. The roof was there not to keep me from hazards but to keep me from the world.
The roof is (mostly) gone. Yes, I'm still a crazy control freak but I have fun with it now. I jump from cliffs again, but this time I am much more ready to deal with those consequences. In doing this, my control is my own. I don't worry about being messed around because if something doesn't happen or it does, I just deal with it. There are days, of course. Times when I just want things peaceful, places where I pull the over-control card more than I need to. But when I do it too much, things fall apart and I cry for reasons that aren't fun. So I enjoy. Just enjoy. I dance. Why? Because I am never going back to that dark place. I'm never walking that line again.
For my 30th birthday, I went down to Moab by myself. Just me and my backpack and a hotel room because I wasn't sure if I was up for camping alone since it had been AGES since I'd camped. I lay on my stomach in the hotel room, looking through hiking trails, and came across one that caught my attention. Not too hard, not too long, and a local favorite. The next day, I went.
It wasn't anything like what I thought it was. It started with these stairs cut into the rock and I was so out of shape for climbing. And then there was a trail up through a small ravine that meant I tripped over my feet a bit to get there. And then it was my first encounter with slick rock and there wasn't much of a place for me to slide and not go over the cliff. But I danced with the cactuses and I played with the ropes that had been set out by someone else for safety. And as I neared the final leg of the trail, someone sat on the edge of the cliff and started playing the flute.
What I would have missed if I hadn't been willing to just throw away my notions and be spontaneous. To this day, that place is my favorite place in the world. I sit under Corona Arch and the world falls away and I see us for what we are - part of the Earth and the sky and each other. We are meant to be as light as air and as grounded as the red rock. We control only ourselves, not others and not the world.
That's what I think about when I see some of your postings, love. Finding a way to shed that cloak you wear. We are meant to dance, even when our knees ache. We are meant to laugh, even as we cry. We are meant to exist and be and live all while we duck under roofs when the rain gets heavy.