Imprisoned in the house from the cold, Christmas is a holiday to get through and New Year’s resolutions have never worked for me, so I struggle… every year, this time of year. Repressed memories. Unreached goals. Fear of more failure. Gratitude for having more than enough laced with guilt in thinking of all those in need. I know this is part of the cycle – to doubt myself and the good of humanity. This is not the time to place false external expectations on myself; it is when I peer into my cracks and burrow into the dark crevices in meditation. From inside, I find what I need and manipulate those spaces. Yes – manipulation because that is another term for manifestation. It is in the scary dark corners that I remember how to manipulate my own mind. And it does not happen from a place of repressed emotions or joy but from honest outbreaks wrapped in acceptance.
“Enlightenment is understanding that there is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nobody you have to be except exactly who you’re being right now.” – Conversations with God
We glorify rigidity and schedules and sweeping “undesirable” under the rug. The intellectual outdoes the intuitive. Our pursuit of unbridled knowledge and proper etiquette is the systematization of compressed emotion and lack of spontaneity. What if I don’t keep it together today? What if I surprise myself and cry in front of you just because I need to? Let my tears flow for this screwed up world. Cry for my friends who have left too early, and the ones that live feeling alienated. And then what if I tell you that it feels good to cry? That there is no shame. What if I scream at the headlines with no remorse? Would you be shocked to know I believe in righteous anger? Self control is not for the Self – it is a coupon book of societal etiquette – which is not normal but repressed; or dull and mundane at best. Sadness, jealousy, self-loathing; rip it up and replace it with something pleasant out of the Ms. Manners book. Seeing someone in their unmasked vulnerability is too delicate or complicated or unpredictable. Repression of shame, grief and anger is safe and keeps us within the norm, but normal is average and average is a cop out. None of us are on this planet to be average. I’d rather be called oversensitive or emotional than normal or stable. Reserve the stable label for medical coding. We all have something powerful and unique to share on this journey and we can’t recognize it by playing it safe. So in the safety of my morning space, I ask:
Who do I want to be for the world this year? I can’t answer that unless I fully embrace what I feel. What do I long for? What am I passionate about? This is not selfish – it is selfless, because that is how I give the best part of who I am. But I approach passion with kid gloves in the private of my meditation. Passion has two faces – desire and aversion, and if I’m not careful, the aversion exhausts me emotionally. Passion is the fire of desire…and desire, when manipulated, brings us to the highest expression of ourselves.
What is desire? It is a roller coaster relationship with my emotions; emotion is the byproduct of desire. Explore the emotions. First the dark ones. What do I fear? When do I protect myself from a new beginning by being complacent? When do I stop or not start again because of past failures and guilt? When and with whom do I withhold forgiveness? The kind that hides in contractive thoughts of myself and others. What do I crave that takes me away from my truest self?
Yes, desire. Physical, mental and spiritual. Acknowledge it. Illuminate myself in it. I am made of the same partially torn cosmic cloth as my source and it doesn’t serve the world to deny who I am.
So I ask, what do I desire? It is found in the the spaces when I feel creative energy. What do I do that keeps me in my highest vibration? Prioritize those things for myself. And who supports me in my highest vibration? Spend time with them. How do I encourage desire in my life, without confusing desire with expectation? I allow myself to WANT, with no presumptions or pre-arranged notions of what I will get so that the small, partial pleasures are satisfying. And denial is acceptable, because that too, serves my highest good.
Passionate, Peaceful New Year,
Megan
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