THE DEEP

     Everything changes: moods, energy, stability, health, attitudes, beliefs. Behavior changes and the way we feel about things, and people. Life and love, hardship and reward, all ebb and flow like the tide. Goodness and joy swell in an out. Whitecaps of fear and anxiety ripple and fume.
     But below the fickle surface of waves and tides, flotsam and jetsam, is the deep, the quiet, and the source of all life. It is essence. It is inside each of us. We share it with all living things. It is indescribable, profound. It is life and spirit and endless calm security: the universal oneness of all beings.
     Beyond all surface change, beyond all the impermanence we experience, there is that which does not change. It sustains us and inspires us and roots us deep so that we may grow comfortable with our circumstantial human lives. They are the game and the dance. They are the distraction and the illusion of importance. But what actually matters most is unseen and quiet. It is the reason for all of it, but it does not show itself in obvious ways. It beckons in our dreams and longings and it whispers us to trust. It is universal energy. It is indestructible. It is love and life. It is no thing and all things at the same time. It is deep and shallow, both hidden and ever revealed. It is paradox and simplicity. It is all encompassing freedom. It is readily available but we must pay attention. We access it wherever we look with our hearts.

I trust that I am bigger than the changing tides of my life. I share a powerful connection with all that lives.

SELF PITY COME AND GONE

     I somehow got tangled up in self-pity the last few days, and it's a dangerous space because it consumes all that it comes in contact with. It's violent and destructive and internally uncomfortable. Happily, I have recognized the problem and am climbing my way back into the light, but it has made me stop and consider. What is self-pity really all about? How and why did it happen here lately and what purpose does it serve? And what happens if it cotinues its rampage unchecked?
    From where I sit now, I see that it's a claiming of victim status. In self-pity, I have no responsibility, only rights. I have the right to complain and be miserable and make others miserable because I am martyr extraordinaire. Life is harder for me than anyone. I am stretched to my limits but unwilling to stop. I have the desire to complain and no interest in the business of correcting what's amiss. I "have to" do this and I "have to" do that. All is burden and heartache and weight of the world. I seem to want sympathy, but I don't really. I only want whining entitlement. You would too if your life were like mine. That's the way the thinking goes. It's stuck in the problem and has no interest in the solution. It's the perfect excuse for whatever kind of misbehavior I may covet.

     Even writing about it gives me the heebie jeebies. It's sick and infectious. Poor me. Especially when with only the slightest twist of the head I can see the other side of the coin. While self pity is blind and petty, it's antithesis is visonary and abundant. All is well, all is possible, and blessings abound. Getting stuck seeing only the one side is maybe just something that happens in life. Possibly I am too quick to dispell judgment and make myself bad or wrong. I am simply human. I got stuck in self pity and now I am restored to gratitude and the fact that my life is my responsibility. If I am miserable, there's something for me to look at, and an attitude adjustment may be beneficial to my peace of mind. And that's that; nothing grandiose or dramatic: problem identified, peace restored.

I remain on guard for self pity. It comes silently and lingers. It looks for its opportunity to grab me and hold me down. I see it coming and refuse to engage. I choose gratitude instead.



TRAVELING HAPPY

     Today my gratitude is for my car. It travels me safely all over the earth and doubles as a complete and secure home away from home. I can park it in scenic spots and work on my computer, or recline the seat for a nap. It has perfect and necessary cubbies and containers for holding chapstick and hand lotion and coins for the tolls and my phone. I have a commercial free radio which I can blast or listen to quietly. I can stay informed by listening to the news, or go country or classic rock or acoustic. I can sing, move gently to the music, or completely boogie down in my seat. I can talk on the phone, say my prayers out loud, or sit in absolute silence with the road passing with it's steady whirrr beneath the circling tires. There's usually no one in my car but me. It's my private and personal space.
     I eat breakfast and lunch while cruising down route 66 back and forth to the Shenandoah Valley. I see the sunrise and the changing expanse of the sky and the views. I travel daily from the mountains to highrises and back again to the mountains. I see animals and changing foliage and so many different aspects of life. I open the windows and let the summer wind buffet me, or close them and cruise in humming quietude.
     Our vehicles are such miraculous things that we mostly take for granted. What an incredible luxury that we can hop in our cars, turn a key, and go anywhere. Our cars mean freedom and adventure and distance and reliability. The ones we choose and the way we keep them reflect our personalities. Our cars are so much more than rubber and steel. They deserve our appreciation. Without them our lives would be smaller, and limited, more pinched, and less full of beautiful American vistas.

I express my gratitude for my car today, and recognize the incredible freedom it gives me. Maybe I wash the windshield, or vacuum it out, neaten the catch-all compartments, give it an all over bath, or fill it up with gas. I do something to say thanks.

ACCEPTING LIMITATIONS

     I sometimes underestimate the effect of hunger and exhaustion on my spirits. If I am hungry, and this is physical need-to-eat- kind of hunger, not emotional hunger which is rooted in something different, I feel on edge. I am shaky and irritable and I feel almost frantic, fearful, and negative, as if nothing is happening fast enough or the way I want it to and I just might explode if things don't change pretty quickly. I know these are hungry symptoms because they are utterly resolved by eating, and I am almost immediately restored to calmness inside and a certain sense of emotional stability and groundedness.
     Physical and mental exhaustion are equally dislodging, but manifest differently. I get misemotional and overwhelmed. I feel as if there is just too much to do and I cannot possibly do it. I feel drained and empty and frustrated. I am willing in some way, but limited by my physicality, which makes me angry. I am not very graceful about accepting my limitations. I want to be able to do everything and be everything and make time for everything, and do it all without needing to eat or rest.
     Certainly there is a part of me that enjoys taking care of myself and relaxing and dining on all of the succulent variety of tastes, but I want to do it on my terms. There's something about being forced to eat or rest out of necessity because I have hit some kind of wall that makes me feel weak or something. I resisit my own human-ness.
     It's ok to have limits. Although I have always done it, there's no real percentage in pushing myself to the edge of the envelope and beyond. What am I trying to prove? Today, I accept my limitations. I eat when I need to and stop physically when my body starts to whine. Going faster and farther and faster still and filling my life and my days with more things and activities and more yet again gets me nothing but misemotional and frantic and living on nerves. I can make a better choice today. I can be kind to myself.

I commit to not overdoing in any way today. I commit to reasonable and calm and grounded. I accept my limitations and am ok with not being able to do it all.

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK

     It can be a crush to my ego to hear through the grapevine what other people, people who don't know me, think about me, to get the bird's eye view of the way I am perceived from a distance. I always find it startling. The external perception is so different from the way I know myself to be. I have been told that I am intimidating. I have been told that I look angry and mean when from the inside I feel myself to be pleasantly observing my surroundings. The other day, as I was walking, a stranger said in rather a scolding manner that I should smile because I was outside, as if, what was wrong with me that I looked so cross on such a beautiful summer day? She startled me. I felt like I was smiling, at least, I was smiling on the inside.
     I am perceived as tough and masculine. Someone once described me as, you know, the one who looked like she would beat you up. When this got back to me I was horrified. Really? Me? I believe the people who know me and live with me and work with me closely would be as hard-pressed as I am to understand these outside opininons. I believe we all feel I am rather a burst of light, a sunshine girl, extremely sensitive, but unquestionably strong, and definitely loving. So I guess that counts for something.
     But what am I supposed to do with these external perceptions? I could try to change, and I have done that in the past, but it feels inauthentic. I can turn my sunshine directly on the people who have expressed fear in regards to me, and they seem to dissolve their position once in closer contact with me. But I can't even begin to know all of the people who have opininons about me, and I certainly can't manage the way everyone thinks. I work in an environment where it's almost as if I am on stage. I am boot camp inspirational. I encourage and push and exercise fiercely if I need to do that to motivate my clients. But my clients don't think I'm mean, even though it's them that I am pushing. I believe they know I have nothing but love for them. They feel my love and that's why they keep coming back.
     It bothers me that people think I'm tough and misperceive me, but it seems riduculous to resist it. I cannot change the way I am fundamentally. Perhaps it's best to quietly carry the knowledge that if they knew me better they would perceive me differently and just be ok with that. But it's a good reminder for me to consider the way I form opinions about others from a distance. I'm sure I have volumes of my own misperceptions as well. So, today, I'm going to take the lesson and give everyone a break. I'm going to figure that we all have a soft under-belly, and none of us is as rugged or tough as we seem.

I trust that we all have more depth and sensitivity to us than is immediately apparent from the outside. I keep an open mind and am willing to give everyone the initial benefit of the doubt.

WHY WORRY?

     A worried state of mind gets us nothing worth having. It gives us grey hair and wrinkles and a living sense of fear. Why do we worry? It seems almost like a form of preparation. We prepare for disappointment and disaster. We brace ourselves for certain horrors and try to prevent them in advance. We make our plans and then we fret over all of the unlikely possibilities.
     But things often turn out better than we think they will. And even if events do go south, they rarely mess up in the way we expect or have planned for. What if, like a child waiting for a surprise from a loving parent, we expect good things in our future, instead of trials and stressors and punishment? What if we trust that no matter what happens, it will somehow end up blessing us, and what if, no matter how chaotic or disastrous a situation appears, we know that it comes to teach us something that will ultimately result in our happiness, or our ability to better cope with life? Isn't that what always happens anyway, hindsight being twenty/twenty and all that? So why do we worry? It's a demonstrable expression of our lack of faith.
     Today, I challenge myself not to project in any way, to have faith that the future will be exactly what it's supposed to be. I know that some things will go better than hoped for, and some things may seem worse, or turn out differently than planned. But today, I choose to free myself from worry. I'm going to trust that all is happening just the way it should, and that I will be taken care of no matter what.

Worrying is not worth my time or effort. I trust the future and let go of my fear.

TRUE LOVE

     It seems to me that we have a cultural misunderstandning of true love. We think that if we meet the right person, that person will make us happy, take care of our needs and wants, and be our unending source of bliss. But I have learned the error of this thinking. It's all wrong. What I thought was his job is actually mine. I am the one solely responsible for my own happiness and the fulfillment of my needs and wants, for the pursuit of my dreams and the answering of my soul's callings. It's not up to anyone else.
     True and lasting love can happen only between two people who are fully responsible for themselves in this way. There is no obligation to make the other "happy." It's not possible in a long term kind of way. The burden is too great and the dependency that grows is too sick. Instead of dependency, there is freedom in true love, and allowance and appreciation and celebration. Neither partner needs the other for completion or happiness. There is friendship and enjoyment and support that can be counted on. The relationship is a choice and a pleasure, not a duty. It is two whole people supporting each other as each pursues his or her own dreams and happiness. The relationship is spacious. There is room for aspiration and growth and exploration of each partner individually and both partners together.
     There are individual goals and communal goals, both important, both valued, neither swallowed up by guilt or demands or excessive neediness. There is balance and flow and communication. Love does not insist. It encourages and respects and appreciates. True lovers reflect each others' happiness like mirrors. It is the result of self-acceptance and wholeness, not its cause.

 I have to be happy with me and ok as I am before I can be happy with another. True love happens when I recognize that I do not need it to be whole.