No matter what position I put myself in, what positive change I make, what intention I make, what activity I do, I come back to uncertainty. Living in this world is living in uncertainty and it doesn’t feel good.
Sure, I have glimpses of ‘what used to be’ and work towards what I expect, but when I sweep away the grit and grime, the losses and the fears, it comes back to an unknowing that is unsettling.
Routines are comforting to a point. And then they become a rut that screams for freedom. I need a change and then bump into limitations due to Covid, due to money, due to something that blocks my way.
Worrying about worst case scenarios is seductive and I choose to turn away. The idea of looking forward to something is exciting but I tend to not get my hopes up for anything. My key to serenity comes back to the present moment.
I’ve been reading about focusing on dreams, something I long for. It’s easy for me to figure out what I don’t want. What do I want that is within my current reality? Small or big. I sit with the possibilities and end up complicating my thinking. I’ve got myself convinced if I understand what is happening in the world, it will free me from the uncertainty. I’m trying to soothe my pain by complicating my thinking as I try to figure out what’s behind the next corner? I’m back to uncertainty. It feels like a hopeless loop. I get tired. I get impatient. I get confused.
There’s no doubt about it – everyone is feeling it. My remedy exists in the present moment. I am grateful for the sunrise and sunset. I am grateful for my ability to think beyond my limitations. I am grateful for the wisdom I’ve gathered and continue to gather from my life experience.
Everyone is doing the best they can with what they know. Everyone is unique and yet we are the same. Every person has had a childhood. Every person has wounds from living their life. I am grateful for my compassion. I am grateful I am aware of my thoughts, emotions and actions.
In the words of Matt Kahn, I pray:
May I hurt without hurting another
May I feel without projection
May I share my feelings without any form of gossip
May I act from my soul’s highest conduct and not use the behavior of others to justify anything less
May I abide in kindness and compassion, respect and gratitude for myself, my loved ones and for the world
May I become the change I wish to see no matter how tiny of a step or how bold of a leap I am willing to take
May I be faithful in the light that is always faithful in me
May I be the love I’m waiting for
May I be the trust I’m hoping to find
May I be the solutions I’m waiting to see for all sentient beings and
May it begin with me.
The Turning Point
by Judy Brown
She had spent most of life
anxious and agonizing –
Unnecessarily, as it turned out.
She even sensed it at the time –
the senseless waste of all that energy.
So she decided she would stop.
And did.
That was the turning point.
Participants’ Reflections:
Thank you. You said something about understand and I was thinking, I spend a lot of energy trying to understand and figure things out. It’s kind of like the energy that we spend worrying. Somehow, I think if I understand it, it’s going to help. And that’s not necessarily the case. During the meditation, it took me a while to settle down. I’ve been working on body awareness. I realized my lips were pursed and my jaw was tight. I relaxed those and I immediately got an image of an open window and the sunshine was fighting to get in, blowing in like the wind. If I kept everything tight, it wasn’t coming in. I relaxed. And then, pretty soon, I noticed my lips were pursed again and my jaw was tight again. And this time, the sunshine flowed in. It was warm and natural. It didn’t take so much effort to get in. Life is a journey.
I was caught by the end of the poem, the line ‘and so she stopped.’ That’s a letting go, not a forced letting go. Maybe an acceptance. It’s opening the hand, a moment of grace, when we stop the worrying or the thinking that we can fix it, and we just are and we let whatever that thing is to float away. The other thing I’m thinking about is what is the opposite of uncertainty. I don’t think it’s certainty. Maybe it’s expectancy or acceptance. I don’t know that we ever really have certainty. I think it’s an illusion, but we have lived parts of our lives thinking we are certain, but I don’t think we are. I’m not sure it exists.
That’s so true. I was relaying yesterday how the times I thought were certain blew up and how unsafe it makes me feel. To me, it leads to my feeling of being unsafe so much because I can’t rely on things even though I want to.
Thank you. What stuck with me heading into the meditation was the turning point. I went on a journey between turning points in my life, when I made a decision and shifted and everything changed. The last turning point that I held was the decision to be with my husband who died 30 years ago. We were together ten years and had three children together. There’s a lot of complicated emotions when I think of my spouse. But today, I felt gratitude. That’s what I held today and I feel so fortunate to have known him and that he was a part of my life. Still is. Thank you.
I never thought of the turning point. Since I lost my daughter six years ago, it was probably a year ago that I decided I wanted to see her pictures around. I had put them all away. I guess that was my turning point of accepting her back in my life and feeling the gratitude and presence, and acknowledging everything I learned about myself as she lived her journey. Thank you for saying that. That’s huge.
Some days I can’t settle in and some days I soar. Today was a soar. I had done some thinking about my vortex and was wondering what I needed to clean out. Last night, I watched a video where women were free and dancing like forest women. Rather than feeling the joy and kindred spirit that I would have liked to feel, it was something else I couldn’t identify. When I started in the meditation and heard that line ‘she just stopped,’ I remembered the feeling I had had watching those women. And I realized it was something in me that I had tamped down. I went to a memory of wildly dancing years ago. As soon as I felt that and embraced that dancer, she let down on my body. She was fluttering around in my aura, like Tinkerbell. And she was doing housekeeping stuff, taking things out, throwing it out, and I didn’t know what she was doing. She was doing it so fast. And I wondered if I needed to know what she was taking out. Maybe I need a list. And then it dawned on me, no, feel the lightness and just go with it. My mind wanted to grab it back and name it and label it. I just kept trying to stay with the energy and breathing and having this happen. Then the couch began to shake and I began to shake. I had a feeling of being a little bird in an egg. I felt like I was coming out of the egg and I was feeling joy. I’ve been chasing joy and it felt elusive to me. As I emerged from the egg, my shoulder blades started to quiver and feel heavy, and I felt like I was the bird coming out and I had the wings. And I have wings. Even if it’s metaphorical, it sensed something inside my being that said it’s time to breathe and to fly and to wake. And then I felt this band on my head and it came down and my nose turned into a beak. I claim that. In this transformation, there’s a part of me that is saying don’t say it, let it nurture. Another part of me is saying to speak it so that others know this is possible. That’s what I’m here to do, is to share what is happening for me. My voice got silenced a long time ago. I’m reclaiming that and labeling my truth. I feel it and believe it and am in awe of it. Thank you.
I’m taking a class on awakening to your deepest self. I became aware yesterday that it is those moments of letting go that allow us to have enlightenment. It feels like there is enlightenment waiting when we let go of ego trying to find the answer. We can awaken. I’ve never thought I could be on a pursuit of enlightenment. But there is no pursuit. We are already enlightened if we feel it and live in the moment of stillness.
It’s a matter of turning towards it instead of resisting and fighting and figuring and everything else our egos do in trying to reason and figure our way through it.
I want to acknowledge uncertainty. Life is uncertain and we think we have it. We put these houses around us and buy things and expect these things to be around us and expect people will stay. But life is uncertain. I’m glad you brought up this topic. The key issue is how to live in serenity in the middle of uncertainty. I’m glad someone talked about the opposite of uncertainty. Expectancy is a good opposite, to just accept. The best I can have in terms of certainty is expectancy that I don’t know what is going to happen but I can embrace whatever is coming. I liked when someone talked about gratitude. To be grateful for what comes our way and accept that. It’s a powerful way to live. Thank you for the reminder and the vision of living that way.
I loved the image of the bird. I wish that little fairy came over to me and cleaned out my energy. I like the phrase ‘be the change you want to be.’ I have a family member who has been very ill for years. It’s so scary. The uncertainty and gratefulness. The animals outside, the trees, our cats. Being grateful. I will say thank you when I get out of the shower and when I get home safe. I guess it gets down to small moments. Thank you.
We each have that little fairy and it’s just a matter of releasing it, allowing it to be present because this little fairy is there and ever so patient. Thank heavens our souls have endless patience.
Thank you all for sharing. What an incredible blessing of living in expectancy and recognizing the illusion and finding the serenity and the home within. That’s my task for today as I breathe and move and walk through my day. Have a gentle day.