Here is the mistake we all make in our encounters with reality - both good and bad. We do not realize that it was not the person or event right in front of us that made us angry or fearful - or excited and energized. At best, that is only partly true. If you let that beautiful hot air balloon in the sky make you happy, it was because you were already predisposed to happiness. The hot air balloon just occasioned it - and almost anything else would have done the same. How we see will largely determine what we see and whether it can give us joy or make us pull back with an emotionally stingy and resistant response. Without denying an objective outer reality, what we are able to see, and are predisposed to see, in the outer world is a mirror reflection of our own inner world and state of consciousness at that time. Most of the time, we just do not see at all, but rather operate on cruise control.
I keep returning to the notion that the world around me is a reflection of the world within me. For years it seems, my inner world was filled with stagnant waters as a façade, yet churning whirlpools of chaos under the surface just waiting to suck me, and anyone else who waded in, off to God knows what ends. I had been surviving on cruise control. But through my growth, I see how my outer world is shifting to match my evolving inner world. As I release my anxiety and self inflicted wounds, as I let go of my fear of the unknown and shrug off the crushing wait of my own self imposed burdens, I find myself building strength. I find myself finding my footing again. I find myself looking forward to the wonder that is life. I find myself no longer afraid to be alone. No longer a scared little girl afraid of the dark, begging for attention to be seen, heard, validated, loved. As these changes shift on the inside, things are shifting on the outside. My patience with my children increases, and their responsiveness improves. They become more stable when they are with me. And as I continue to reconnect with my faith (quietly, gently, and without fear) blessings find their way back into my life.
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Today is the first day of spring. In addition to my daily meditations and picking angel cards (today is Delight, btw), I have been reading weekly meditations from my "An Abundance of Blessings" cards (52 meditations to illuminate your life, by John O'Donohue). The one I randomly selected for today feels fitting, as serendipity has a way of doing.
A Blessing for Loneliness
When the light lessens,
Causing colors to lose their courage,
And your eyes fix on the empty distance
That can open on either side
Of the surest line
To make all that is
Familiar and near
Seem suddenly foreign,
When the music of talk
Breaks apart into noise
And you hear your heart louden
While the voices around you
Slow down to leaden echoes
Turning the silence
Into something stony and cold,
When the old ghosts come back
To feed on everywhere you felt sure,
Do not strengthen their hunger
By choosing to fear;
Rather, decide to call on your heart
That it may grow clear and free
To welcome home your emptiness
That it may cleanse you
Like the clearest air
You could ever breathe.
Allow your loneliness time
To dissolve the shell of dross
That had closed around you;
Choose in this severe silence
To hear the one true voice
Your rushed life fears;
Cradle yourself like a child
Learning to trust what emerges,
So that gradually
You may come to know
That deep in that black hole
You will find the blue flower
That holds the mystical light
Which will illuminate in you
The glimmer of springtime.
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