Thich
Nhat Hanh
A student in the current cycle of
Priestessing Your Life asked, “Is the focus of our work to be completely aware,
like ALL of the time?”
While I admitted, there were times, younger
times, when I desired total awareness, my personal goals had shifted. Once I had thought that being always aware of
feelings or thoughts, of the motivations and implications of my actions, of the
world around lead me to fulfillment. I
had idealistic imaginings that I could support anyone in their journey towards fulfilling
their personal potential.
But I gave up that aspiration in favor of
becoming more fully alive to the moment; more available to feeling all sorts of
ways, to act impulsively out of joy or sorrow, the vicissitudes of ageing or perhaps
be triggered from a childhood memory that lingered in the deep recesses of my
psyche.
I gave it up because I wanted to feel more
successful in my life rather than feeling I was always falling short of this
unobtainable (at least for me) goal. I
wanted to feel as though I had done my human best to stay present to what IS. And what a relief it was to allow myself to
just ‘be’.
Age and a sense of self-compassion has
shifted my aspirations to simpler, more humble goals. In order to honor my very human-ness I seek
only to know myself and bring that sense-of-self to my actions. I seek to know when I am present at my Core
and recognize when I have strayed.
Mostly, I seek to remember who I truly am and that I can return to my
core at any time, at the blink of an eye.
Or at the pause for a breath.
Rather than demand that I always be aware I
seek to remember to treat myself tenderly when I fall short. I focus on the importance of the journey
rather than reaching for some imagined attainment.
This has been my struggle lately. Too many deaths, personal and cultural, the
senseless, the lingering or the sudden, the struggling and the peaceful have
stalked my heels triggering memories that had seemed to be long ago
healed. The humility of watching these
old wounds come around once again, asking to be healed in a new way, on a new
level is my challenge of the season.
I treasure the moments when I can merge
with the divine and bring back a spark to fuel daily life. But even more, I honor the moments when I
notice my old patterns emerging and choose to gently bring myself back home to
myself; to notice what is present in my body, what can open at my Core and in
my heart. These are moments of true
honesty, of unflinchingly gazing into the mirror and choosing awareness in this
moment.
This is what I call showing up for
myself. For these moments I am truly
grateful.
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