Nope not another blog about HIM! Blessedly, I am finally past that! Jeez, that took a long fucking time!
No, the you I am referring to, is me. Leaving yourself. We all do it, tiny and not so tiny ways that we leave ourselves, wholly abandoning ourselves for lots of things, people.
Habitual ways we exit our paths, ways that we leave ourselves and what is important to us, up to the whimsy of other people. Allow others and their desires to trump our own, and cause us to deviate severely from our own plans, desires, wishes and agendas.
The other day, I was about to do it again, leave myself. Abandon what I wanted, needed and was good for me, for this compulsive and reactive trajectory that I allow myself to be consumed by...far too often.
I got done writing and posting and the next thing on my morning routine is prayer, meditation and yoga. Now I do this every day, but there are quite a few days where I skip it, or tell myself the delusion that I will do it “later.” Now, if later is the next day, I am totally on that! But that is not what I mean, later means before I go to bed, but the truth is that if I don’t do it when it is my normal timing for such things, I will not do it later, I will not do it at all. And like a good alcoholic who is consumed at times with black and white thinking, I am likely not to do it the next day either, streak broken, routine derailed, fuck the whole spiritual thing, I am going to allow my brain to become mush while scrolling through Facebook...again.
But something happen to me yesterday when I felt the slippage towards abandoning myself...I stopped. I sat, literally in my bed, and reflected about where I was, why I was there and how I was feeling about it. I vacillated between calling someone and checking out by using them as a convenient excuse for leaving my meditation and prayer life fallow. But I didn’t, instead I talked to myself and for me that means I wrote it down...
“I get lost in my day right here. I do my writing, drink my coffee and then have to get out of bed. I languish. I delay. I do not want the rest of my day to come. I get up and I get on the phone. I do not meditate, I do not pray. I do not yoga. I abandon myself right here...repeatedly. Why?”
And I saw it. This complete lack of backing I had for myself. Clearly I decided a very long time ago that yoga was important to me. I bought a book with allowance money when I was 13 and have been doing it totally unfaithfully since. I always return to it. So while I haven’t had a daily practice all these years, I have had a practice, be it sporadic as fuck.
Then there is the meditation and prayer. Why in the world would I leave that out? I mean my life literally depends upon it! Fuck, I didn’t know. But there was this very strong, stronger than my resolves towards, that pulls me away still quite often. Why would I not want to sit quietly with God, or the universe, or whatever is out there for a few minutes and then pray to all that is holy and good to be of service? Why would I want to skip that?
Something happened for me yesterday. I felt the pull towards the check out, the numb out, the leaving of my own life for the lives of others and I stopped. I just sat with it. I just sat there dumbly staring at my computer. I pondered. All while sitting in my pjs, I queried why I do the thing that I was about to do. And that, my friends, was enough to have me change. I wrote it down. I called my self out, I shared with myself as if I was accountable to me, and only me.
That is when I saw it. This life leaking out of me and me not even seeming to care. God, I have been here a bazillion times! Right there, that place where I want something, but this contrary thought process intervenes, derails and alters the course, usually for good reason...it is always justifiable in the moment. But I take another course instead of the only course I have ever known to bring me true happiness, the one toward me, and then the Divine.
Now this might not seem revolutionary to you. But it was for me. It was fucking life altering really. I stood on the precipice of leaving me for you, and I didn’t do it. I stayed with me. I held my own ground, had my own back and gave myself what I needed instead of throwing myself into you...I did not, leave me.
It brings me to tears. Really. I am crying right now. And I am not even sure why. I just know that something shifted in me yesterday. It was like I gave myself permission to live this life for myself, and me alone. Not a ticket to the self destruction rodeo, but a quiet path inward where the Divine resides, resonates and beckons. The still, quiet place where I hear God within my soul.
I put on a meditation poncho, lit my incense and walked out into my outdoor yoga studio that I built for myself and I sat the fuck down and claimed MY life. And it was beautiful. Tears ran down my face, even though I wasn’t actively crying. Just a quiet leaking of pain, anguish, expectation, grief held back for years where everyone was more important in my life than me. I took my throne, ok, well it was a meditation cushion but it felt like a throne yesterday as I walked towards it in my robe (it is really more of a giant sweater with a hood) and I sat the fuck down in my life and I took stock. I meditated, I prayed, I made a vow to occupy myself and my life so completely that I could just give myself away all day long to others. And I yogaed. I stretched and took possession of my body, right after taking hold of my soul. And it was good.
And the whole day, I took care of myself while taking care of others. All obligations squarely met, children fed and attended to, really, like I listened to them and was present for them. I played a game with them, I sat in the kitchen and stayed in one place for longer than a minute. We ate a meal together and talked. I learned things...a few things that I didn’t want to know, but that is life with teens. They will tell you their secrets, and then you will wish they hadn’t. You will be broken open by their honesty and their excitement about their lives unfurling at a pace that is worrisome to you and them...only they can’t own that. So they tell you, confident that you will worry, and you do. They outsource their own angst so that you who is better equipped to manage, can. And they get the privilege of hating you for it, while they silently thank the stars above that their parent cares, loves them and shows up. Totally nailed that last night.
What was new was that I took care of me while doing for others. I was not eradicated, left, abandoned while I did the other care and service. It was the same. I did both. I took care of me and them and some of you even. And it was magnificent. It was fucking AMAZING. So I am going to do it again today.
Turns out that one can learn a lot from abandoning oneself, and yesterday what I learned is that when I stop myself and sit with myself with honesty and curiosity I learn things that I never knew about myself, and you. And my life is changed, minutely at first, but then in great sweeping changes. Tidal waves of change that come at me like a lapping tide instead of a crushing tsunami. I am knocked off my feet, course altered, but I land, I land upright, in my life, anchored to myself which allows me to give to others. And that, I know, is the whole point of all of this living, to learn and share what you learn so that others can find their way home too. Home to the body, mind and spirit that we leave...
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