The only lessons in life are the one's we teach ourselves. The universe is never 'out to teach us a lesson'. Remember -- the universe doesn't care. It's up to us to care enough to learn to make a difference in our lives.
"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." Thomas Merton.
Take a mirror. Any mirror. Stare long and lovingly into the eyes you see reflected back. Pause. Take a breath. Look long and lovingly into the eyes you see. Pause. Take a breathe. Gaze long and lovingly into your eyes.
Take a breath. Repeat after me. I am a miracle of love.
Every day miracles come in every day happenings.
Teutonic plates shift. Planets collide. I step aside and open up to possibility.
Yesterday, I felt the angst. That fissure of anxiety steaming up from my roots. Disturbing. Disruptive. It erupts with a tiny voice gaining momentum as it pushes upward, rising above the dankness of the past. Beating its fists against my peace of mind, it pounds a querulous tattoo of "you gotta gotta" and "get 'em before they get you's" against my knowing voice of reason and rationality.
Being in relationship is tough. Not because of him. Because of me. The fight or flee voices quarrel over who should gain supremacy. The in the moment voice of calmness waits for its hearing, sitting out the drama as these two monoliths consume the air with fiery tongues, unfurling their discord across the landscape of my mind, sending tendrils of anxiety shivering through my body.
There is no specificity to their disruptive flare up. No reason for their frantic barking for release, -- except perhaps, deep visceral fear. Fear that spews discord with every thought, fighting for me to act out, take heed, take their advice and 'do something', anything to make this moment go away so that they can settle back again into their comfort zones knowing I'm not stepping beyond their control, stepping out of my past into this moment where I am free to be all that I am meant to be.
The voices of discord do not like contentment. They do not like new frames of mind, new perspectives, new ways of being. They don't like freedom.
It is in those moments when I do not give into my anxiety that growth opens up my thinking as I expand into the moment.
Yesterday was one of those days. Yesterday, I felt the angst. That voice rising within telling me I needed to call, needed to demand answers, needed to end this. Change this. Make it more. Make it something else. Make it other than the lovely thing it is. I needed to 'know'. Know what? Where are we going? What's happening?
A pattern. It lies before me coddled by childhood voices, scratching for clarity, for security, for acknowledgement amidst an uncertain world, and undetermined future.
But when the here and now is flowing freely, why do I want to see the future? Can I not accept what is, without having to see what cannot be seen? Can I not accept what is as the perfect moment to breathe into, to live up, to experience, exactly the way it is?
Seems the voices of the past like to clamour for space when all is going well in the moment. They don't like stability. They don't like calmness. They don't like being ignored.
In every day moments miracles appear. This one came in a glance in a mirror. A breath drawn that calmed and centered my thinking. My anxiety has nothing to do with what's going on and everything to do with what's not going on -- turmoil, drama, uncertainty, fear, a hungry heart aching for replenishment.
In a glance in the mirror I was reminded of who I am, right now, today. Where I am, right now today. I'm not toiling through a web of deceit. I'm not scurrying through a dark and narrow corridor filled with lies searching for truth. I'm not aching for a man to fill me up with promises he can never keep. I'm not being anyone or anywhere I don't want to be.
That's the miracle waiting for me in the mirror. As long as I pause. Breathe, and settle into the moment without pushing my way through to the next I claim my peace of mind undeterred and undiminished by voices rising from the past.
The past cannot hurt me, as long as I put it into perspective, place it lovingly where it belongs and sail smoothly and joyfully into this moment, right now, right here, without fear that the past will be the present leading to the future.
The past cannot repeat itself as long as I don't repeat the mistakes I made when I was searching so desperately for meaning I threw myself in someone else's arms expecting to find my answers.
This is my rebirth. My awakening. I pull away the dark cloths hiding the mirror to my truth and embrace the awesome joy of living in this moment, right now, exactly where I am as I rejoice in the awe and wonder of being me.
I am the gift I've been looking for, the answers I've been searching for, the heart I've been waiting for as I fill my spirit up with the truth that my heart will never be hungry as long as I stand in love with the one whose eyes I see staring back at me when I look into the mirror and acknowledge, I am a miracle of love.
The question is: Will you pause, take a deep and steady breath, look into the mirror and see the miracle of you? Are you willing to love yourself right now, right here, enough to know you heartache is your spirit calling you home?
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