Another Year of Practice
I have not officially gone on record with any New Year's resolutions this year. That itself is something of a first--I typically love to start fresh, wipe the slate clean and plot a new course no matter what area of my life I feel needs some sprucing up--but I just cannot come up with anything in particular for 2014. Focusing on one little aspect of daily existence doesn't seem enough. Instead, I have been been examining what it is that I am committed to in my life. What do I spend my time doing every day? Are those commitments making me happy? Am I making time for things that lift me up or am I frowningly trudging through too many lost minutes, days, and months? In taking on this little science project, I have been trying to be as honest with myself as I possibly can. That is no easy task. I imagine nobody wants to admit that they don't particularly care about what they are doing for a living, or that they seem to be repeating past lessons over and over again that they never actually learned on the first or second or tenth go-round. And I am fairly confident that no one really wants to raise their hands in the air and surrender once they realize that the life they have going doesn't seem to fit them any longer. But this is where I am now. Like it or not, that white flag of surrender is firmly in my grasp.
I have thought long and hard about the images of 2013 that float through my head, carried along on the swirling breeze of my selective memory, and those flashes that are unafraid to reveal themselves are very telling. They are also very familiar, almost strangely repetitive. I have certainly lived through them before in one scenario or another, and I am sure that I have also assumed that I would never have to do so again. But one idea loomed large over my year-that-was: That no relationship, no job, no lifestyle, no way of thinking, no beliefs or dogma, no line of bullshit you are feeding yourself, no set of rules that someone else told you you should be living by, that none of it is ever done until it is really done. And how do we know when that is? Do we just make our best guesses and hope for some mercy? I would say it takes some real work. You can't fake it. I have employed a metric ton of delusional tactics during my forty years to convince myself that I am at a certain point in my development, that I will never to have to return to the "old ways" and seeming "mistakes" of my past, and that I am anywhere but right here, right now. I can still find myself wrapped in that delusion from time to time. I have wasted precious energy jumping over, circling around or attempting to float above the much more real state of my own affairs that seemed too messy, too sad, too complicated and altogether too human to even attempt to deal with. In school, we are taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Yet we are never ever taught that in life, the quickest way to heal from pain is to move through it--to just stop, drop and accept, not to skirt around it. Nobody ever taught me that one. Or it could be that I wasn't ready for that particular lesson. In the past year I think I at least found the classroom, even sitting down long enough to take notes from time to time.
As years go, 2013 was neither the best nor worst I have ever had. It played out more like a series of schizophrenic moments--quitting jobs/returning to jobs, having lots of money/being broke, feeling depressed/waxing ecstatic, taking charge of things/losing control of everything, thinking I am on the right track/worried that I am completely lost in space. It was a time of seeing a glimpse of what works best for me but then ignoring it simply because it was not what I had always known or because it didn't measure up to someone else's view of what I should be or how I should act. It was a time of asking myself what made me happy and coming up with nothing (that can be really frightening), and then a time of speculating that life is neither beautiful nor ugly nor anything in between, but rather that life is really nothing at all except for what you think it is (that can be really liberating!). It was a year of taking responsibility for the messes I found myself in, of breaking ties and letting go and doing so with more honor and respect for myself and the other involved parties than I have ever been able to muster previously.
More than anything, 2013 was the year of going back to the tried and trues that never actually begged to be tried again and that were never really so true to begin with. I started the year at Starbucks (again) and ended it at an office job (again). But the moments in-between are what really caught my attention, namely this past summer when I took one month to go off the grid and take care of myself over on the Big Island. I was in desperate need of some clarity and even though I knew I would be taking a month off without pay, I somehow knew it was the only right thing for me to do. And so I did it. I spent four weeks in contemplation--meditation and service, sometimes both--but always in the quiet. I even doubted my own decision to do so right up until about the third or fourth day, when I finally relaxed enough to see what was happening. I realized that I finally found something that I believed in, a cause that was truly worth my time. I couldn't imagine what else I could be doing that was more important than being right there. It was a noticeable shift, probably more like a rollicking jolt. I had made the commitment to be there--there's that word again, commitment--and was so very happy I did. I stopped worrying about the money I wasn't making or what I was going to do when I got home to make back the money I didn't make while I was off having such an experience. I gave up the recording in my head that kept telling me to be productive and get back to "work" or "reality". This was my reality. I sat still. I listened. I trusted that the other stuff would work out later, on its own and in its own time. It did. I got scared, but I survived. No--I thrived. Maybe not in such worldly ways, but in every one of the ways most meaningful to me. All of this resulted in what was easily my most inspired, joyous and soul-centered collection of moments during the past year.
So what about 2014? Here is what I know so far: I want to be committed to things that light me up inside rather than those that make me feel obligated or desensitized. I want to laugh more. I want to wake up smiling, curious as to what the day has in store for me. I want to recognize when and where I am stuck and summon up the courage to move through it. I only want to be wherever I am and not where I think I should be. I want to give myself space, space, and more space to be who and what I need to be, to make mistakes and be vulnerable and be alright with that. I want to give everyone the right to like or dislike me. I want to be honest with myself whether I am doing these things or not, and be grateful for however it turns out. More than anything, I want to do more than just want these things. I want to practice them all. I am committing to practice. And so it is: 2014 will be another year of practice. It's all I can do. Resolutions be damned.
I have thought long and hard about the images of 2013 that float through my head, carried along on the swirling breeze of my selective memory, and those flashes that are unafraid to reveal themselves are very telling. They are also very familiar, almost strangely repetitive. I have certainly lived through them before in one scenario or another, and I am sure that I have also assumed that I would never have to do so again. But one idea loomed large over my year-that-was: That no relationship, no job, no lifestyle, no way of thinking, no beliefs or dogma, no line of bullshit you are feeding yourself, no set of rules that someone else told you you should be living by, that none of it is ever done until it is really done. And how do we know when that is? Do we just make our best guesses and hope for some mercy? I would say it takes some real work. You can't fake it. I have employed a metric ton of delusional tactics during my forty years to convince myself that I am at a certain point in my development, that I will never to have to return to the "old ways" and seeming "mistakes" of my past, and that I am anywhere but right here, right now. I can still find myself wrapped in that delusion from time to time. I have wasted precious energy jumping over, circling around or attempting to float above the much more real state of my own affairs that seemed too messy, too sad, too complicated and altogether too human to even attempt to deal with. In school, we are taught that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Yet we are never ever taught that in life, the quickest way to heal from pain is to move through it--to just stop, drop and accept, not to skirt around it. Nobody ever taught me that one. Or it could be that I wasn't ready for that particular lesson. In the past year I think I at least found the classroom, even sitting down long enough to take notes from time to time.
As years go, 2013 was neither the best nor worst I have ever had. It played out more like a series of schizophrenic moments--quitting jobs/returning to jobs, having lots of money/being broke, feeling depressed/waxing ecstatic, taking charge of things/losing control of everything, thinking I am on the right track/worried that I am completely lost in space. It was a time of seeing a glimpse of what works best for me but then ignoring it simply because it was not what I had always known or because it didn't measure up to someone else's view of what I should be or how I should act. It was a time of asking myself what made me happy and coming up with nothing (that can be really frightening), and then a time of speculating that life is neither beautiful nor ugly nor anything in between, but rather that life is really nothing at all except for what you think it is (that can be really liberating!). It was a year of taking responsibility for the messes I found myself in, of breaking ties and letting go and doing so with more honor and respect for myself and the other involved parties than I have ever been able to muster previously.
More than anything, 2013 was the year of going back to the tried and trues that never actually begged to be tried again and that were never really so true to begin with. I started the year at Starbucks (again) and ended it at an office job (again). But the moments in-between are what really caught my attention, namely this past summer when I took one month to go off the grid and take care of myself over on the Big Island. I was in desperate need of some clarity and even though I knew I would be taking a month off without pay, I somehow knew it was the only right thing for me to do. And so I did it. I spent four weeks in contemplation--meditation and service, sometimes both--but always in the quiet. I even doubted my own decision to do so right up until about the third or fourth day, when I finally relaxed enough to see what was happening. I realized that I finally found something that I believed in, a cause that was truly worth my time. I couldn't imagine what else I could be doing that was more important than being right there. It was a noticeable shift, probably more like a rollicking jolt. I had made the commitment to be there--there's that word again, commitment--and was so very happy I did. I stopped worrying about the money I wasn't making or what I was going to do when I got home to make back the money I didn't make while I was off having such an experience. I gave up the recording in my head that kept telling me to be productive and get back to "work" or "reality". This was my reality. I sat still. I listened. I trusted that the other stuff would work out later, on its own and in its own time. It did. I got scared, but I survived. No--I thrived. Maybe not in such worldly ways, but in every one of the ways most meaningful to me. All of this resulted in what was easily my most inspired, joyous and soul-centered collection of moments during the past year.
So what about 2014? Here is what I know so far: I want to be committed to things that light me up inside rather than those that make me feel obligated or desensitized. I want to laugh more. I want to wake up smiling, curious as to what the day has in store for me. I want to recognize when and where I am stuck and summon up the courage to move through it. I only want to be wherever I am and not where I think I should be. I want to give myself space, space, and more space to be who and what I need to be, to make mistakes and be vulnerable and be alright with that. I want to give everyone the right to like or dislike me. I want to be honest with myself whether I am doing these things or not, and be grateful for however it turns out. More than anything, I want to do more than just want these things. I want to practice them all. I am committing to practice. And so it is: 2014 will be another year of practice. It's all I can do. Resolutions be damned.
Comments
Lots of love,
Elizabeth