There is a pain wedged beneath my ribs, radiating like heat into the rest of my body. My heart rests on it. Together, they make a formidable weight.
I want to banish the pain. Obliterate it. Erase it.
All of my energy turns towards it, intense and focused. The rest of me is left feeling tired, weak, drained.
I drag myself around. Then I remember this is also a gateway, this pain. It is a gateway into discovering, as I have so many times before, only to promptly forget anew, that there is no separation between that pain and me. There is no me versus it.
I pass through the gateway, armed with all of my “going on an adventure” gear, including my curiosity. And the pain begins softening, dissolving into my tissue.
I know that when I am in alignment, my energy pulls in tight, powerful, so that anything I propose to myself unfolds with sharp clarity and flows with grace. When I am in alignment, even the obstacles in my path are shaped like guideposts that show me the way.
So I set aligning with the highest version of my Self as my intention, knowing in a quietly solid way that this intention will serve me well. It springs from that place, that essence of mine that I intuit, sometimes glimpse, but cannot even find a proper name for.
But how do I set about fulfilling such an intention?
I admire grit and determination. There is a beautiful, graceful and inspiring example in the life of my children right now. But I am aware, as well, that, if I am careless and lazy, it can turn against me, alienate me from the very thing I am seeking to achieve, becoming a forbidding taskmaster. So I know that it is not through single-mindedness that I can align.
I like to hold my intentions gently, like hummingbirds that nestle in the palm of my hand. But, again, if I am lazy and careless, they startle and fly away from me so fast that I cannot remember the feel of their shape. So I know that it is not simply by opening my hands that I can align.
There is a careful balance in it. It requires attentiveness. And quiet. And I dare not set my mind to achieving just that.
Instead, I make soup. I sit at the table with my family and laugh with my son as he jokes, relishing the sparkle of his eyes. And I hold the flavor of this moment, without anticipating the next.
I have been listening to The Story, and the woman is speaking of living in a community built around a nuclear plant, her complicated relationship with her memories and what she knows about the harm done to people there. She tells us it is not simple, there were no evil people, rather, really good people in specific circumstances. I know what she means.
I often reflect on fear and how it keeps us from moving. Today, I think about the risks we are willing to take and our willingness to lie to ourselves, to believe whatever we tell ourselves, rather than facing what we know.
Just a short time ago, at a crossroads, needing to make choices, I sat terrified that I could not tell apart what I wished for, from what was. I recognize my temptation to cover the sun with a finger, I’ve attempted it before. I know my own power to fool myself.
But experience has left me with new wisdom. At least, now, I know what I am capable of. So, I asked people I trust. I wrote my options down, pretending to look at someone else’s life. I tapped out my fear of wrong choices and failure.
Finally, I sat alone among the prairie grasses and the dragonflies, looking into a still pond, breathing, until my energy mirrored its quietude, until I could sense the shape of my core, until I felt my Self. And then, no illusion could withstand that light, then I had a clarity, like grace, cutting, true.
Once, in another time, I was working in an internship that was very important to me. I was living what felt like a desolate life, and trying to recognize what choices had gotten me there and what changes I could make. The internship was one of the places where I could get perspective, it was like a tree that gave me shade as I explored a sun-bleached landscape.
I am remembering that internship because one of the things I had to do was go through a long list of contacts and make cold calls to them, to tell them about our program and see if they would work with us. Picking up the phone felt utterly terrifying. I found all kinds of urgent things to do for a few days, before I could simply no longer put that task off.
I am intending, now, to recall what I did, what I thought, when the day came that I finally had to make those calls.
I know that, once I started, it got easier and easier. To the degree that making cold calls, even today, is something I can do effortlessly, without any moment of pause. There’s nothing to it. I don’t think about it, I simply pick up the phone and dial.
Sometimes, when there’s something I just have to do, that feels paralyzing, but that I have been shown in so many ways, ever more urgently and forcefully by my Soul that it must be done…well, I simply have to stop thinking about it, breathe deep and just take the plunge!
And if I allow myself to recall that internship, and so many other times after it, I can remember, too, that once I do that terrifying thing, it is not half as scary as it was when I was contemplating doing it.
Sometimes quiet doesn’t come. Even though I do everything that I should. I sit in the same place as so many times when I have achieved it. The door is closed, there is no noise, my eyes remain shut, a white sheet drawn over my thoughts. But images push their way into my mind’s eye, a story engages me and I find myself so taken that I forget it is a ruse and I gallop off with it.
Then I remember, rein myself in, allow the story to drift off without me. My third eye blazes in my forehead. My energy is aligned, flowing freely.
And all that notwithstanding, still, the white noise roars on in my ears.
Sometimes quiet doesn’t come. Sometimes, the stillness through which the directions of my soul can be unveiled seem out of reach.
Then, I have to tell myself that my efforts must suffice, that this is the equivalent of a silent “no” from my Self. I have to tell myself that I will sit again tomorrow, and perhaps the noise will lessen, or the story will be colorless.
I rise with a sigh, and go on with my day.
And sometimes, that is all.
And sometimes, when I finally step out my door, the sunlight drips through the tree with such radiance, it lights up the blooming tulips, their green velvet leaves, and the loamy soil beneath them, and, unexpectedly, the quiet is spilling within me and the world is suddenly, splendidly, transformed.
Holding space means clearing the energy of the physical place we are in, but also creating energetic boundaries around us that do away with distractions, often including the ones we bring along ourselves, so that it is easier to feel alignment with our Self and, therefore, our interactions are more authentic and reflect our truths more fully.
Holding space means our thoughts, our feelings, and whatever we choose to share, are safely contained, without spilling out into the rest of the world, the rest of our lives, if we do not choose to take them there. It means that the energies that are constantly trying to encroach on us are kept at bay.
And it means, too, that we are safe from judgments, those coming from others, and also from ourselves. If we are not safe, then we are not free to explore, to allow curiosity to pull us in unexpected directions and insights to arise in our awareness.
Holding space means we can do the soul work we are called to do.
My head is full of thoughts of conscious creation and of setting intentions to engage energy. I am planning a class discussion even as I am out in the world, at the post office, doing groceries. I am there, but not quite. Neither am I fully here.
I place an order for refried beans in Spanish, because I am shopping in that kind of a place, where I can speak Spanish to the man behind the counter. I am friendly enough, but somewhat absent, still thinking of the session that put me on this train of thought about setting intentions and making requests.
A voice at my side asks if I am Colombian. It is a young man, with skin so smooth, I think he can’t yet be shaving. He tells me his “prometida,” his intended, is Colombian, and he recognizes my accent. His eyes radiate joy when he mentions her. He leaves with a smile, when his order arrives, and I am left bathed in his fresh, expectant energy, in his exuberance.
Gratitude breaks over me, for the grace that comes with him, that remains within me, reminding me that I much prefer to be present to this, What Is before me, to this gift that is the Now, and experience this immediacy, the intimacy of what I am living and breathing at this moment. I much prefer to be fully here.
Every morning, after dropping my children off at school, I drive away thinking of all the work that lies ahead of me, of the demands of the day, of the ways that I will parse my time and the people I will attend to. When I arrive, every day, I park my car in the alley, distracted by all that is required of me, all that I want to give.
But when I open the door to get out, each time, I am surprised by the solitary wildflower that is growing between the cracks in the concrete. What began as an improbable, scrawny little branch last year has now grown many limbs, is occupying space. And it blooms abundantly, colorful and bright, amidst the drabness of the neglected alley, in spite of the dust.
I find myself slowing before it, despite the expected arrival of a client or the pile of tasks that awaits on my desk. I find myself slowing before it in gratitude, for the surprise of it, for its beauty, for the layers of meanings, and the reminders it holds for me.
Every day, I stop a moment, to gaze upon a wildflower, and to recover my Self.
Reflections From My True Self 