Yep. There is a lot of that going on. Everything feels surreal. Like we are all living in this weird dream. Everything feels just out of reach. Just passed the place where I can feel like I know what is going on. My head is on fire with disbelief. My heart equally on fire with love and a yearning for connection. For contact.
I have decided a better use of my time is to live in the present. This present right now. Yearning for understanding or love or connection are not really alleviating my suffering.
When things fall apart, when there is upheaval, I am always presented with an opportunity, a time when I can turn inward and really get a good look at what I have in reserve. How I treat myself, a good barometer for how I treat others. Some days the self talk is pretty good, other days it is like I am possessed by demons. Luckily for me, I live in my own head pretty rent free most of the time. No large tariffs being exacted on my psyche anymore. Today, I remain very grateful for all the work I have done on myself and to myself over the years.
As someone who was hell bent on self annihilation, it is an interesting place to be right now. The whole world seems to be falling apart but I remain committed to living. All of my inner demons quelled at the moment. It is great confirmation that when faced with a worldwide pandemic, I still want to live. Once upon a time, I didn’t want to live and there was nothing really going on to feel that way about.
Upheaval is useful in finding out where you are on the path. Where you are stuck, where you are still broken, where you are afraid. Upheaval is a way to empty you out so you can inventory the contents of your own life, mind and spirit. Perhaps let go of some shit that isn't serving you anymore.
Uncertainty is upheaval’s closest friend. The two seem to move throughout our lives, allowing us moments, large moments of peace only to have that peace punctuated by uncertainty and upheavals arrival upon the scene. Life cannot be otherwise. I have chosen to see their chaotic arrival as an opportunity for growth. I will fully admit that my thoughts about their untimely arrival often fall into “great another fucking growth opportunity”. But after I push past my own resistance, I get to that place where I can see that it is happening for me. That is the place that growth begins and change occurs in my life.
Seems trite to say that all the upheaval now is for our collective consciousness’ growth. So I won’t say it. I won’t go there. Seems like the best I can do right now is to accept that for whatever reason, upheaval and uncertainty are here and seem to have taken up residence without my permission or consent. Seems like we all might feel that way.
There are two things that I have found that combat upheaval's uncertainty: breathing deeply and doing my best to occupy the present moment. One or two deep breaths reconnects me to the life force and shows me that I am still here, lucky to be breathing in and out. I can be grateful for that. Then I can realize that my life is not lived out there in some distant, or not so distant, future. My life occurs right now as the words drip onto this page. Right here and now, I am ok. I can breathe. I am not in pain. I am safe. I am warm. I am loved. I am healthy. I am ok.
A dear friend once asked me, “what if nothing is wrong?” It totally messed up my day, in fact, my life. The whole of my existence before that time, suddenly addressed to reveal the corrosive thread of the underlying belief that I had always had that something was wrong. In the moment, he asked me the question, I was brought up short. Who dared to ask such a question? How could nothing be wrong when everything was not as I wanted it to be, there were so many people, places and things that I wanted to be different, would characterize as being wrong. His initial question pushed into my chest and took up residence there. Now, at the moment I am first disturbed by life’s circumstances, I think, “what if nothing is wrong?”
Krishnamurti was once asked the question "how do you live such a peaceful life?"
His response? "I do not mind what happens."
My first reaction to that was to think, “that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” Shortly there after, I was so impressed by its wisdom I set it as a daily intention. Seems like a good use of the rest of my days is to do my best to not mind what happens. To not allow all the exterior upheaval and uncertainty to rob me of a core belief that nothing is wrong, and whatever is happening is occurring just as it is supposed to. It began a tiny, then momentous, revolution inside me...living in the present tense today. This is the only place I have a chance to not mind what happens. To allow it to all unfold and trust that all the upheaval will bring forth a new reality that is completely impervious to my wishes, desires or demands. Seems as though my best use of all the uncertainty is to allow it to be the catalyst to wake me up to this life, right now, in its current form and do my best to not mind what happens.
I have found that if you don't mind what happens, it frees you up to love and to be of benefit to others without being concerned with the out come.
As to the possibilities evolving out of the current situation, I am looking toward how in the time of crisis human beings become united. In some respect coming into unity happened during WWII but it still was a situation of one half of humanity at war with the other half. Given this crisis, the whole world is, perhaps, a step closer to acting as one humanity. It is one humanity that we will need to achieve if we are going to maintain our mother earth as a viable place fo…