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I know that I am eager. I know that I have been told that I am “too kind”. I know what being lost feels like, both in the world and within myself. I know who I love and that loving myself doesn’t come easy. I know that life is an adventure and sometimes I get to choose the ride and sometimes the universe chooses the ride for me and I keep my hands clenched tight around the bar bracing my lap because I’m not one for putting my arms up around those crazy, unpredictable dips and corners. I know that I control very little. I know that I would like to have more control. I know that I am not entirely the same person I was a year ago, five years ago, or 20 years ago. I have been many different versions of me. I can see more broadly across the horizon than I have ever seen before. I know my time walking the Earth in this shape is both inconsequential and pretty profound.
I desire to know more, but I don’t think it is a matter of acquiring more knowledge. I think it is a matter of going deeper within what I already know. What can be brought up to the surface if I dive deep into my eagerness, into my kindness, being lost, and being with those I love (including myself)? The adventure may be a little bit more wild if I relinquished the desire to control and instead surrendered more often into acceptance. Might what I believed to be safe by having my hands clenched to the bar across my lap be instead reinforcing my fear?
F’in fear. Good grief. I know it serves a purpose and that instinctually we need to feel fear in order to survive – or at least we did, our ancestors did, and that lives on in our own bodies. As my form evolves I’ll need to make a concerted effort to notice when fear is actually beneficial and when it is not. If I create space around the fear and turn toward my inner compass, my divine spark that knows the way, then I will see the difference. I will live out that difference so that I can evolve even more in this life. I recognize that that is the work that I have to do here.
I have been gently moving away from the grind culture for a few years now. I transitioned out of full time work and took on more hobbies and learning. Some of that I have built into a small business and https://unsplash.com/@themeparkhq
some of it is just shared as it feels right to do so. It is not easy to live counter culture to the rewards of pushing harder and faster, hustling and producing. I am just not for it. It truly never felt good in my body to live like that. However, it wasn’t until I started to actually become aware of what I was feeling and listening to that message that I began to allow that message to inform my actions.
It’s also not easy to decide to step away from culture’s expectations when you have a family that you’re responsible for, but it seems all the more important to do so. I hear my children talking about their futures and I have to smile when I hear that they are thinking about their entire self when they consider how they want to spend their time. It is not all work, nor is it all play. It’s about fulfilling work that isn’t always met with a paycheck or external reinforcement. It’s about the common good and moving our communities and our world at large, forward. It’s seeing all the problems, setbacks, politics, inequities, turmoil, and uncertainties – yet seeking peace through love and our own unique gifts and talents and sharing them unabashedly! F fear. Fear is keeping us all small and in our place when those that are fueling their huge egos are intimidating the rest of us. Well, I think not playing their game is a form of peaceful revolt. It takes creativity. Being creative for creativity’s sake can be quite rewarding. Making space in your day, in your week – peppering it in as often as is possible will keep your soul happy. When we become disconnected from our creativity, our own unique spark, the part of us that knows and knows that it knows, we become stressed, depressed, ill, or just generally feel stuck or in a funk.
As much as I’d love to KNOW everything and seek wise counsel to understand what eludes me, it will not happen in this lifetime and that is ok. It is not the miles walked, the mountains climbed, or the oceans sailed that gets you closer to knowledge. True knowledge comes from the journey within the self. Your guide inside is waiting for you to arrive.
https://unsplash.com/@onurssenay