Do what you can each day. Then rest, let go, let it be. Social media and mass media bombard us with the messages of trying harder, making it, making it better, making it bigger, being more, doing more, mastering it all. These insidious marketing messages of “life you can control it –if you just tried a little bit harder/more/longer and likely spent a little more money on…”
Bullsh*t my beauties! There is place to let go, and let goodness do its own part. The random russian roulette game of life will do what it will! We can only do our best. We’ve got to learn to let go.
Yet this legendary “just let it go” thing is particularly paradoxical! How many of us attempt to master letting go, to read books on it, practice it, perfect it and polish our skills at it in an attempt to speed up the painstaking “just let go” process?!
Yet like it or not, letting go happens in its own unique time.
Sometimes we will need to surrender- be that sweetly or resentfully or tearfully- eventually reality will royally rock us and force us to roll with it!
Some days it’s exhausting getting up and starting over. and over. and over. Building bridges, tending to our businesses, caring for friends and family, finding a moment amidst it all to try and follow our bliss! Believing that it is possible to “get there” some days seems a sure fire way to meet our own time stretched overwhelm and then think thoughts that self-sabotage ourselves for not managing to manage everything!
Sometimes we do indeed get the balance beautifully right- it feels like freedom, sweet success, living a life that matters. For a mere moment we finding our balance between free time and making money, fun, family and more and all is well. Yet like a see saw, we will inevitably fall out of balance and have to “boing ourselves back” off the ground and back up the other way.
In the mean time we may feel disappointed, disenchanted and disinclined to even bother.
“I can’t do this anymore” is actually a great gateway towards a new way- dropping behaviour that don’t seems to serve us and trying out something new. In between finding the new way that better serves we will likely feel lost, lonely, a little discombobulated as we learn how else to do this. Supportive structures will serve us. Rest can be radical. As can phoning a friend. Or taking a walk. Or doing something that won’t get us anywhere at all! Self-care is soul-sustenance.
One of the most startling and surprising wise words I ever received from a wise elder whom I came to sobbing mid intensive deep dive residential meditation retreat muttering the words “I can’t bear it” about a stream of deep feeling that had come to light after many day being cooked on the cushion, was a stunningly surprising and curiously kind. He simply said: “then don’t- don’t bear it….”
He slightly blew my mind with this perfectly placed intervention. How would it be to not bear it? To not hold it all in heart and talk about it, work on it and work with it? To let it drop. let it go, put it down, let it have broken you down and baffled you. Be defeated. Feel it, fuck it. Put it down. Let it drop. Stop forcing it. Stop. Sigh. Soften. Sigh again. Wow!!! What a notion!
Sometimes flow just doesn’t flow. It’s exhausting pushing against the grain. We can show up great and still not get what we want. Our elders will still fade and pass. Life isn’t fair and we somehow have to find a good way through this truth- with heart open – to still see the good, show up, shine, give and make amazing alchemy out of it all.
When do you keep moving diligently towards your dreams? And when do you just give up and accept that this particular dream that felt so dear just isn’t worth forcing, pushing, prodding, poking, invoking and involving ourselves in any more.
At this time at least. Allowing reality brings acceptance. Acceptance (by some strange miracle) seems to cultivate change. Hmmmmmm…….that’s food for thought.
Sometimes we just have to give up and go do something different. Whether it’s due to the alignment in unseen stars or the dodgy “scientific scheme” of divine timing – (sadly) some things just can’t be forced. Things have their own weird and wonderful timings. Change is a constant. Good things will come. In their own apparently perfect timings.
Greif may get to us here- cracking the heart open to the “f’ f**ks sake life- I’ve tried I really have. I’ve dreamed, dared, done and done so more. Still reality refused to budge even just a little bit. gimme a break here….!”
Heartbreak is reasonable response to this present moment’s political and planetary decimation that we can personally feel so powerless over.
We can let ourselves weep, be worn down, defeated. Drop into it. All that falls will rise again. We have circles and cycles. We will indeed get to the “good bit” again. Life continues… fertile, fecund, fulfilling itself in its own mysterious ways…
If my dance practice has taught me anything-its authenticity. When it’ difficult dance with that. If you’re too exhausted to get off the floor then dance down there; or just lay still and soak in the sensate-ness of your own experience.
Apparently patience is pertinent here – sadly it’s never been my strong point… yet I expect that if we could have complete trust in divine timings then all would indeed workout well!
For now- here’s to being human- humbled, together, connected, concerned, care-free, following our feet, being fabulous, falling, finding a good way, fumbling, finding our way forwards as best we can…