What started many years ago as New Years resolutions has evolved into a more intentional planning or revolutions based on revelations. Often enough, these spring from frustration and intolerance, in other words, how I don’t want to live anymore.
There are so many analogies I could use perfectly here to explain this process, the bottom line is each revelation is nothing more than getting closer to, well, me. I’ve been struck by something I heard the late John O’Donahue say in an interview with Krista Tippett of On Being:
“…what I love in this regard is my old friend Meister Eckhart, 14th-century mystic…said, ‘There is a place in the soul that neither time, nor space, nor no created thing can touch.’ And I really thought that was amazing, and if you cash it out, what it means is, that your identity is not equivalent to your biography. And that there is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s still a sureness in you, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility in you. And I think the intention of prayer and spirituality and love is now and again to visit that inner kind of sanctuary.”
Congruency with that inner sanctuary has become my goal. I believe within that place is all knowledge, particularly the wisdom of who I am and why I am here. When I visit this place, as I do most mornings, every time I step on my yoga mat, and occasionally throughout the day, I feel peace.
What I have come to realize is everything else has been layers or veils covering that place, “protecting” it. Unfortunately, in protecting it from others, I have protected it from myself.
The journey home appears to have two distinct paths (though I suspect there are many less obvious paths). The first is a lot like cleaning out a hoarders garage- take everything out of the garage (which makes it real messy!), sort through it, get rid of most of it because it’s not useful, and put back everything that is useful in a more organized and intentional manner. Alternatively, like a child learning how to walk, the process is slower. The clild first learns to crawl and gets better and better until its confidence allows the legs to be tested by pulling up to a standing position. Standing it very wobbly at first, but eventually the legs are ready and a first step is taken, followed by a fall. That process of stepping and falling repeats many times before running happens. And even then, falls will happen. Most falls are not painful, just a pause. Some, however, are. Those are the ones what make us think and grow.
I cannot tell you how to start or what path to take. I won’t tell you that starting this journey isn’t scary because we all know that we must leave our comfort zone (even when it isn’t really comfortable in the first place, it is familiar). We know this journey is, in many ways, a solitary one. No one can do it for us (damnit!), but we are never alone. There is always something or someone there when we need them if we’re willing to ask for help. Amazing how that works.
Will 2017 be the year you journey home to yourself?
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