Truths We Get to Live Into

If I let go of what I think I want, everything I could possibly need—beyond my wildest dreams—is right there.

You guys, I know this.  I believe this.  I understand this.  Yet I find myself at times wanting—that which isn’t real!  Or possible!  Or even (here’s the kicker) probably even good for me.

And then—I practice.

Part of living into reality is abiding the part of me that demands that which is not real.

For me, this pattern shows up most strongly in interpersonal relationships.  The closer to my heart the person resides, the more easily triggered I am.  By the way, that’s why it was so incredibly easy to love you Kripalu guests!  You came, I loved you truly, knowing you were leaving.  It’s the people who hang around—and bless them—who are so much harder for me.

My spouse loves me in a specific and dear way.  She has a massively large and expanded world.  I am part of it.  I am not her entire world.  Nor should I be.  But there is a part of me—ohhhh, this is embarrassing–that doesn’t want to share her.  That wants her undivided focus and attention. 

Trust me, that would be BAD, incredibly bad, for her, for me, for us.  And still, the little girl that I am, has a tender and gentle heart.  She gets so scared.

And then—I practice.

Letting go
Of what I think I want,

So I can be present,
With everything,
With
Ever
Single
Thing
I have.
~~~

Show up.  Do your best.  Let go of the outcome.

Ohhhh.  A hard one.  I have preferences.  What I THINK I want and what I THINK I need, and what I THINK (here’s a killer) I deserve, these are the slippery slopes that can take me down in an instant, transforming me from opened into constricted, from trusting into terrified, from relaxed into anxious.

And then—whenever I notice—I practice.

I practice abiding the part of me that wants what I want.  

Growing old in an organization neverendingly has offered me a strange and wild ride.  I know what I think my role should be in the ‘new organization’.  Yet—who can imagine with what life might provide me?

Reality is relentless.  It wins.

It always, always, ALWAYS works out, no matter the content of the moment.  No matter the outcome, I am assured growth and evolution.

Coming into relationship with my humanity, forgiving myself for being human and so imperfectly perfect—

And then—I practice.

Letting go
Of the outcome,

So I can be present,
With the perfection
Of reality.

~~~

Pema Chodrin, the wonderous Buddist nun, tells us how to practice this, in this short piece, What to Do When You Lose It.  Even though she applies it to relationships with others, the practice so strongly stands, in relationship to ourselves.