BUDDHA’S ENLIGHTENMENT “If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.” Zen Mind p131
I feel incredibly sluggish today. Drained by a poor night’s sleep and the old ‘back to work’ dread.
What are you dreading, dear soul?
Specifically, I’m really hoping my training – hastily put online and massively adapted for the purposes – is going to fly. Is this ‘taking pride in my attainment’ and deploying ‘idealistic effort’? I certainly feel confined by a thick wall today. Help me out please.
***Zazen5mins***
You must find it hard in these times.
I guess so. I’m not getting the stimulation of movement which I find so calming. I’m having to sit with my stuff in this less distracted time. I’m having to be more aware of what is actually going on in my life.
And what is going on in your life?
I think I’d like to be doing more of what I am actually good at. That would reassure me in this world.
How can you activate that?
Simplifying. Circulating.
Yesterday in the woods I had a brainwave, about my usp in neurodiversity…
And how will that look this week?
It all feels like so much work…
What One Thing could you do?
Put the word on my website.
I feel such unspeakable heaviness today. Was it the red wine or over-eating of last night? I’m so inflamed, bloated and …
Steady, sailor, Come right back. You are doing amazingly. Everyone is doing amazingly.
At the weekend (Saturday 4th April), I made this blog open online. With my name on it. For the first time ever. I’d finally decided I was done with desperately trying to hide my personal self ‘lest it should destroy my professional self.’ I finally decided, I’d love to work with the people at the centre of the Venn diagram circles of:
- those who can tolerate my actual self (ie reading this)
- those who have a conflict and want support
- those who have money to pay for services
I always felt that the first people and the last people did not overlap. But maybe this coronavirus era will change some of that. Maybe, my HSPness and my Aspieness will be make more sense in this new era. And maybe, if people wouldn’t want to work with me if they saw these dialogues, it’s better that they see them and make that decision. At last, I’d rather not ‘mask’ my actual self for business purposes. That’s a huge step.
So, on what happened to be the date ‘444’ (4/4/2020), I finally de-bifurcated myself and blended what had been ‘the masked professional’ and ‘the secret soul sister’ . And for that I am pleased. And it feels like a good to have arisen out of the CV19 period, for my part.
But maybe this is why I feel uncomfortable today. Like people might be looking at me. I haven’t told anyone this blog is online, so years could pass before anyone sees this, let alone anyone I know… But nonetheless. Maybe that’s why I feel antsy. Ayudame.
We see you spanning into your future. Today is a really good day to keep the parameters of your planning-and-reaching really simple. This CV19 era is not the time in which you need to do anything major. It is a time of rest and care and modesty and humility. There is no need to impress anyone. Find ways in which others can find themselves to be impressive. Let others be big or impressive today. Keep it simple.
Yesterday, two major things happened in your country:
Your Prime Minister was admitted to hospital with coronavirus:
Your Queen addressed the nation on coronavirus, and urged people to remain ‘united and resolute’, with the British attributes of ‘self-discipline; quiet, good-humoured resolve, and fellow-feeling’, pausing to reflect in prayer or meditation and calling on science and ‘compassion to heal’:
Would you like any more significant times? Can you fathom the moment you are in? Can you give yourself compassion for feeling dread at stepping into a week of work if you expect yourself to be acting in a ‘business as usual’ mode, or worse still a ‘and now I pivot my whole business in one fell swoop’ mode?
When we said that the keyword for this project was ‘pivot’, we must assure you of one thing: it’s an internal pivot at hand.
Ok, so what is that pivot? What’s at one end of the stick and what’s at the other?
On one end is discord; on the other is harmony. That would be plenty to work with for now.
And what do you mean by harmony here?
Converging energies, pulsating as one.
Oh, well then! Why didn’t you say? I’m sure I have some of those in my drawer here…
Very funny, sweet soul. You know what a harmony is. You know the joy it brings you in singing. You sense it. Your body senses it. Can you find harmonies today? What harmonises well? Take your laser beam of attention, and use it to spot harmonies today. That will serve you beautifully. Empty your mind a little as well. Don’t strain to attain or deploy any idealistic efforts. Just looks for what harmonises. What resonates. What complements. What goes together well.
Does that feel better?
Yes. I can play with this today. I feel lighter. What’s the final Message..?
Look for harmonies today.
Thank you. I will.
Look for harmonies
****
Later:
Where I found harmonies:
- Qigong in the garden
- In my routine
- In empty-headed naps
- In the birdsong on my walk
- In the uplifting talks I listened to
- In underlying a quote on calling in When Breath Becomes Air, and another piece of paper falling out with a quote on calling from Reality Transurfing
- In thinking about my upcoming training as ‘people finding connection’