In truth, yesterday was a really tough day. I was physically exhausted and spent most of the day either sleeping, or working in bed, on the urgent task of prepping my first significant online training for today. I cried ‘for Britain’ several times – triggered by something heart rending I’d seen or read, but not really being able to name why I felt so terribly sad. It was good to process emotions out of my body though. It felt like a purging of sadnesses.
It’s dawning on me that I have been so over-stimulated for so long, that just stopping is feeling like being in freefall. So much is floating up. Matt Kahn talks about the ego as ‘the over-stimulated nervous system’. YES. I am a cortisol cocktail at the moment. My poor system. I need to throw myself at HARMONY, LOVE, CONNECTION, PEACE like a groupie throwing themselves at their idol. Because it is getting tough out there, and there’s no time for the bifurcation game of:
- on the one hand, love is all
- but actually, I withhold my love for xyz because, hm, judgement
Look at this from a bench in my tiny hamlet… Sh*t’s getting real out here:
But this is just a lightener ahead of the really shocking news of yesterday. For months, I’d turn the radio off at the sound of his voice, full of my own anger and judgment at this man. But no one deserves this. This coronavirus takes no prisoners.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52192604
Last night, I finished When Breath Becomes Air, the extraordinary memoir of the neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, written at pace in the last year of his life with terminal illness, before his death aged 37, leaving behind a wife and 8 month old daughter. I cried from my belly upwards. Again.
Suddenly, in this miraculous time of life and death; of racing against the tragedy of time, and sitting still with the infinite springtime birdsong, I am getting glimpses of that concept I’d barely resonated with before: Life is short. And it might be shorter than any of us expect. And when death comes, will we have given all we could? When I say ‘given’, I don’t necessarily mean, served our life out to collapse exhausted at the finish line, I mean this… Will we have been honest enough, and unabashed enough, to have given what’s in us to give and to do? Will we have been able to have overcome our shames and hesitations in time?
It seems to me, if we can overcome our shames and hesitations, there is so much that can be enjoyed and relished and basked in. And, there is so little time in this life… I’m starting to get to grips with this notion, at last: today counts!
What say you? Today, we will have no Zen Mind reading. It’s the just the book’s Epilogue to go, and I want to have good time for that. What say you?
When we remove judgment, criticism or ill-will in all contexts, life returns us the favour. When we can be at peace with all that is, and see none of it as ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ or even ‘worthy of punishment’, the world becomes a benign and benevolent place. The world ceases to be the court room and prison which the ego would see it to be. It becomes the sanctuary for all aspects of creation. It becomes the forgiver and merciful. The world becomes the playroom in which all are seen to be ‘just learning’. Even the biters! Everyone is here to learn their spiritual lessons. That is all. Too often, we expect everyone to have learnt all their lessons. You’ll notice, occasionally, those who learn their lessons fast leave the planet a little early for the liking of their beloved ones. So, hey, there is no rush. All is evolving beautifully.
Shame is a great balloon-burster, a fantastic party-pooper. Spot your shames today, or your anticipatory shames, and race your loving compassion in there.
Spot too, your judgment of others. Wherever you deploy condemnation, of self or of other, notice your impulse, and free it gently. Release all condemnation now. Do not condemn yourself or others to punishment for invented crimes. Forgive yourself and forgive all.
Everyone is doing their best.
They are doing their perfection! If anyone should shock or annoy you, it is to show you that you still have judgment in you. Thank them for that.
Release all judgment, dear soul. Release it now. Cease to condemn. You will find such release in stepping down your inner judge. Such blessed release.
Say: all are doing their perfection! And embrace all that you see as “Perfect!”
Embrace all that you see as “Perfect!”
****
Later:
All is Perfect. Even the unspeakable shames which can not speak their holy names… Why? Because in the revealing of them to ourselves, we can acknowledge and forgive ourselves.