A lot of people are going to try to waste your time with nonsense.
But you stay laser-focused on that which gives any meaning to this thing we call life.
It’s not about niceties and formalities. It’s not about social obligations or familial duties. None of this matters. None of this has any meaning.
What does matter is the integrity with which you’ve lived. How hard you tried to live in Love. How hard you tried to overcome your own obstacles to Love.
And it might not look the way you expected it too. It might not be agreeable to others. But it doesn’t matter.
All the stuff that pretends to matter doesn’t matter in the end.
Not one iota.
So what does matter?
What matters is inexplicable.
It’s knowing everything that doesn’t matter. And not getting lost in it.
The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.
Rumi
It’s a devotion to all the little things.
The way your Dad’s hands look when they’re laying on his lap.
The sigh and the breath of relief when we stop talking.
It’s the catching of the glimpse of Truth in the eyes of another.
Everything else and I mean everything can be cut and thrashed with the laser-focus samurai sword of Truth.
To the love that won’t explain itself, but will just keep on giving.
Even in the most dire of circumstances, life doesn’t have to be dreary, gloomy, heavy, depressing, or a load to bear.
It can be a time to lean in even more. Soften even more.
Into resourcing, rest, simplicity, vulnerability, gentleness, slowness, self-care.
Not as a spiritual bypass but in the sense of life not being a problem.
And you can choose not to re-traumatize yourself.
You can choose to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before reaching out for the other. That’s true help. True love.
For it is not your job to protect others from their own pain.
But to give time and space for everything to reveal itself to you.
That’s not arrogance.
Living in your own integrity is not arrogance.
Processing in whatever way is healing for you is not arrogance.
Being supported and feeling supported is not arrogance.
Don’t let others’ behavior dictate how you live your own life.
Freedom includes not letting the limitations of others hold you back from your fullest expression of Love.
Not the love of sweetness but the love of Truth.
For it takes true courage, true strength to remain kind and soft even with the most unruly of them all. Something inside you won’t like that. It will fight that. Say it’s a weakness to show kindness when kindness is not shown to me! It will struggle.
But the struggle will pass. And in greater kindness and in greater strength you will remain.
That’s where you’ll find yourself and everybody else.
Don’t try to come to conclusions. There are none.
For in the end, we’re put back in the earth and it concludes it all for us.
The final conclusion that puts an end to all the messes. All the grievances. All that was ‘hanging in the air’ – unresolved. Goes to rest.
So live like this now.
That’s what it means to stay open.
To be available.
To not take a stance.
But be stance-less.
For rest assured every stance will be put to rest from the most heinous to the most noble.
Be stupid. Be desperate. Say the wrong thing and get it over with. Not everything has to be just so. Be clumsy. Be needy. Feel the space that offers.
Instead of the 5 cm² of breathing space you give yourself when you’re trying to be what you think ‘spiritual’ looks like. Or the 2 cm² of space of trying not to look like a fool or God forbid human.
These are all defense mechanisms. From years and years of self-consciousness. Of feeling like you’re under a magnifying glass and then having that magnifying glass internalized.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Feeling somehow suspect… just by being here. By speaking, by getting involved, by putting yourself out there, even by belonging. The feeling of being some weirdo who just popped in unannounced.
So what is that?
Genuinely be curious. Where did I learn that?
Maybe it’s a deep-seated feeling of not belonging. Never being welcomed into the world by your family. That you somehow arrived by mistake. Not having the right to be here. Let alone be seen, be heard.
If you weren’t seen at home, weren’t heard, then maybe it felt odd even phoney to be seen or heard anywhere else. Like it’s unreal somehow. What’s real is what happens at home. With the people who are “supposed to” love me, know me, see me, hear me… who supposedly know me better than I know myself. Or so they say.
Notice the arrogance in that. The bullying. The gaslighting.
Others might “know” events that happened to you as they heard or saw them. And as they remember them from their perspective.
But does that mean they know you?
Let alone… better than you know yourself.
What does that even mean?
It means they’ve decided who you are. They’ve made ‘you’ into an idea and fed you that idea on a daily basis. They’ve decided what you deserve and what you don’t deserve. What you can do and what you can’t do. What you can say and what you can’t say. And stepping outside the 5cm² of permitted space makes you…
Sensitive
Spoilt
Selfish
Irresponsible
Naive
Rude
Difficult
Crazy
And you soaked that in like a sponge. So it goes with you where you go. It’s called conditioning. A more insidious form of conditioning from a more troubled family lineage.
So when you’re putting yourself out there, (especially with family), and you’re not received, it triggers this old pain. And this is where the self-berating mechanism comes in.
I’m not good enough.
Why did I say that?
I shouldn’t have said that!
They’re gonna think I’m an idiot!
Noticing and seeing the systematic way in which that was and is fed to you is part of the waking up out of that. Out of the family lineage. Out of the hypnosis. But you have to see it. The raw, ugly, insidious nature of it. Without covering it up. Without the spiritual bypass of yeah but they’re unconscious. That’s a true statement but it’s not real for you, not yet. It’s a spiritual bypass. A coat of paint over the raw, ugly, bitter Truth of it.
And don’t be surprised if family doesn’t receive you with open arms when you do step outside the 5cm² of permitted space. When you do voice yourself, when you are seen. Or when you’re seeing yourself. When you’re challenging this preconceived idea of who ‘you’ are (in their eyes or even in your eyes). Because that is a threat to who they want you to be in their world. So it’s overlooked, ignored, gaslit, bypassed.
But you have to see that your impulse is innocent. Your impulse to belong in the family, to be seen, heard and supported in the family is innocent. And in turn to see, hear and support them. It’s innocent and natural. It’s human.
But when a whole family lives in the trance of sweeping things under the rug. Of denying all that is human. All that is natural. Bottling things up and never addressing them. It becomes unnatural for them and not within their capacity to see, hear, support or be seen, heard or supported. It’s very sad. Heartbreaking.
So we all have to move in this 5cm² arena in order to be able to “get along”. Be kosher. And in stepping outside that, the agreeable comfort zone of 5cm², you’re popping that bubble.
Am I speaking to the many or am I speaking to the One?
Speaking to the One doesn’t require much. Just a settling back into yourself.
Speaking to the many is noisy, confusing, busy, hectic. It requires you to leave yourself. To accommodate. To to talk to not talk with.
Speaking to the one bypasses any shenanigans. It brings you back to the simplicity of the breath. Simplicity of the quiet. The audible silence.
This is an art. A practice. You cannot ‘do’ it. You be it and it does you.
And it requires a great slowing down. A great turning around. From the hectic to the still. From the confusing to the direct.
And it requires an acceptance or a letting be of the unresolved. Of the mess of it. This requires a willingness to be with the raw, undiluted truth of the moment. Whatever it may be. No matter how painful.
And there’ll be struggle there. Sometimes.
And you will mess up. But how will you clean up your mess?
Never-ending home improvement project. Everybody doing it. The plight of being human. Shoddy house (no matter how fancy) to shelter a tender fleshy body.
We make nice fences and gardens, grow big trees. Fix our plumbing and put up nice wooden doors.
We try our best to create a structure that can protect us from the elements, from an ever-changing world. Out there.
Shooting for the picture-perfect Pinterest home. More luxurious, perfect paint job, pruned garden, sealed cracks, throw blanket.
We’re constantly trying to make our bodies look good too. Feel good. Look younger. Fitter. Wrinkle-free.
And when all else fails, there’s the never-ending improvement project within. Healing, fixing, seeking.
Nothing wrong with any of it.
But…
The futility of fixing, improving, renovating has to get us on our knees at some point.
Death starring us in the face. Change and movement constant.
So what? Do we give up and let our bodies decay and our houses fall apart? Do we let our unhealed trauma fester and just sit in a corner waiting for it all to end?
Maybe we go through that phase. But it’s also a kind of running away.
Life is balance. and you don’t balance. Life is balance.
So the never-ending home improvement project of the flesh body, the brick house or the internal landscape of the psyche has to be seen through.
See through the endless running on a hamster wheel.
There’s always something to fix. Always something to improve.
But it is so important not to get stuck on this loop.
Life is not a never-ending project. That’s the mind’s version.
Life is Alive.
Yes, we can make our ‘houses’ better, cleaner, healthier.
The sweeping and the vacuuming and fixing and the healing. All good.
But don’t get stuck there.
The futility and the breaking point have to be seen, felt.
That’s why the mold in the corner of the room is a gift.
The cracked wooden floor is a gift.
Not being able to fix is a gift.
Because it makes clear the futility.
Fix this and then that pops up. Fix that and the other pops up.
Whack-a-mole.
Step back from whacking the moles. Lay down the ‘whacker’.
This is what the ‘world’ is.
The speed, the hectic-ness, the chaos – is the collective whack-a-mole, the collective stuckness on the hamster wheel, on the loop.
You see the futility.
You step back.
And notice the endless invitations (subtle and obvious) to re-enter the rat race. And these invitations extend to spiritual circles too.
Beneath the need to make a beautiful home or have beautiful clothes is a deeply hurt and deeply scared child who was deeply wounded for her utter simplicity. She was not loved as a child by her mother or father who were too busy screaming out for love themselves.
She was not met.
Was not held.
In fact, she was doing most of the holding and the meeting of those around her herself. The big adults. The lost, wounded adults. And so this big responsibility was thrown at her.
She wanted the child’s life. The cozy home. The nice clothing. The friend’s birthday party. But everyone around her was too self-involved to see. To meet. To care for. What so deserved to be seen, met and cared for.
And so now she wants to make it all happen. But that turns into suffering. Mental noise. The suffering of always striving for the next thing to add. The next thing that will make a more cozy home, a more beautiful life. And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things in themselves.
But when there’s an unmet need or hurt below the surface of it, that needs to be seen, met, held. So that there can be a real relaxation. A real trusting and slowing down. Not a hectic mental cacophony. Let’s get this quick, it’s not good enough, I need to make it better. And the effort and striving for perfection, for validation.
And really noticing trying to impress others in that too. Wanting mom and family to see how beautiful you’ve made your home so that they finally admit to your worthiness of love. Look, I’m lovable. Look!
And not shaming the one who’s looking for that validation either. Not making her wrong. But really honoring her and what she’s been through. Validating her experience. Yes, it was scary, it was crazy, still is with the family, yes, it was a lot.
She’s so overwhelmed by it all.
Let’s really give her space.
Give her safety.
Give her love, compassion.
Gentleness.
Have her back.
Slow down for her.
She’s the hurt wolf in the wolf pack. She’s in front. She sets the pace.
You deserve to have every beautiful thing in the world. You see the beauty because you are that beauty.
Beauty recognizes beauty.
And the more you slow down, the more you’ll see yourself everywhere already.
Trying to not let anything hurt you is a suffocating stance. And it can be dressed up in spiritual clothing with a subtle agenda. It looks like trying to be two steps ahead. And it’s disguise is, “I can face anything”.
But this could be a fear (possibly from an underlying unmet trauma) masquerading as bravery or invincibility. It’s like trying to skip a step.
“I’m not scared of not having money.”
When really deep down there’s a deep fear and an overlay of pretense to cover up that vulnerability, that fear. Bulldoze your way over it by speaking too soon, acting too prematurely.
And it can look very convincing. But this is the personal self trying to be “brave”. And it can get confusing because if there’s more of a deepening into true sovereignty then it can appear to be a byproduct of that. And maybe some of it is.
But there’s something to going really slow and not trying to skip over anything. Not trying to override something because it’s secretly labeled as a ‘weakness’, as non-spiritual. Being dependent on money or being scared of losing money is not an advanced spiritual person‘s problem.
And this is where it gets tricky because there’s a part that wants to get to invincibility with the agenda of never getting hurt again. And that’s the clue. Because true invincibility is not trying to avoid hurt, not trying to avoid problems.
It might seem counterintuitive to err on the side of caution, the side of humility. But humility, real humility, is more open and honest. It’s more like… I don’t know what I would be like in this situation, maybe some stuff could come up for me. And it’s not a disappointment because the only one that’s disappointed about stuff coming up is the spiritual person. It wants to be invincible and it can’t be.
So it’s like recognizing the running shoes that one is wearing of wanting to speed past everything. And slowing down even more. Especially when there’s a triggery, uncomfortable, unresolved situation or circumstance percolating in the background.
You might not have any immediate decisions to make or any immediate actions to take. But the situation or circumstance is still lurking somewhere in the back recesses of the mind. The “spiritual person” can then try to overlay another defense mechanism of denying the fact that this is percolating, this is weighing on me just a little bit. And this denial can be dressed in spiritual clothing too.
“This triggery circumstance, unresolved situation doesn’t exist for me because nothing is happening right nowin The Present Moment.”
Very sneaky spiritual bypassing. Taking spiritual teachings verbatim and over simplifying them. Because things can be happening below the surface and it’s not easy to catch if something is off-kilter because it’s unconscious.
One little clue is to notice if there’s any unusual behavior on your part happening. No matter how seemingly insignificant, it’ll feel a little off. And it can have a sort of false calmness behind it.
Another clue is to try and sense (without judgment) whether you’re actually operating from truly not knowing or if you’re two steps ahead. Then you know, you’re either preemptively striking or defending. That’s called strategy. You’ll notice you’re out of the simplicity of not knowing and into the complexity of time, people, things, decisions, anticipation, bracing.
Strategy is a protection mechanism to cover up the discomfort of not knowing. Especially when that something triggery is taking time to resolve itself. You want to get it over with already.Move past it. That’s a red flag.
And it’s then that you can notice…
Oh something’s off here, I’m trying to skip over something.
Not as a force, a slamming of the brakes. But just by noticing.
Oh, I’m two steps ahead again.
Let’s move snail pace. Let’s be two steps behind or under or at a side angle.
The mind will make it seem as though you’re putting your head in the sand – Don’t be naive!
Drop in the body. Feel whatever energetic tension, movement or tiredness there is. Be with that. Keep coming back to that. Long exhales. Deep inhales.
But I need to say this and that.
Nope.
And this happened in the past.
Come back.
You’ll effortlessly find yourself able to feel out whatever needs to unfold without agenda.
Without, my safety depends on this.
Without, this person is trying to dupe me, take me for a fool.
Let the mind vomit out its’ doomsday scenario and apocalyptic hypothesis.
Let it make mountains out of molehills.
This doesn’t mean denying the vulnerability and tenderness of being human. Or suppressing any trauma that’s bubbling up to the surface. It’s admitting to and meeting with honesty, gentleness. Slowness.
And you don’t have to “be strong” and pretend this.
Just drop into the body and feel the energy of it. The lethargy of it. And let it be here. Don’t fight.
