Understanding what I missed
I was having a day. One week after meeting His Holiness and being too caught up in the noise to find peace, I found myself there again. I removed myself. I cried for nearly an hour. I was low on tolerance and unsure as to why. Then my mother said something that spoke to the disturbances of my morning and I completely shut down. I was finished. It was like someone pulled my plug and I was void of all my energy. I headed home. Suffocating under the weight of the world it seemed, I just wanted to go home and strip away the bindings and breathe. I just needed and wanted air that I could not seem to find no matter how far out of the water I stuck my neck. I was gasping for any inkling of life when I felt so much like the opposite. I remembered one of my favorite parables...
Two travelling monks reached a ford in a river where they met a young lady of the night. Wary of the current, she asked if they could carry her across. One of the monks hesitated, but the other quickly picked her up onto his shoulders. Together the monks strode through the river until they reached the other side. The monk set the prostitute down on the other bank. She thanked him and continued her journey.
As the monks continued on their way, one was brooding and preoccupied. Unable to hold his silence, he spoke with anger. “Brother, our spiritual training teaches us to avoid any contact with women – let alone that sort of woman – but you picked that one up on your shoulders and carried her!”
“Brother,” the second monk replied, “I set her down on the other side, while you are still carrying her.
Why was I still carrying it? Normally it happens because you hold it to be true, or at least you are not sure of how untrue it is. When someone calls you an idiot and you get upset is it because you truly are an idiot or is it because you are embarrassed they have found out the secret "pet name" you have for yourself? It is too familiar and it is too true and we don't like looking in the mirror for that long.
This morning I watched Oprah and she was talking to people with miraculous weight loss. Each of them noting how they were able to make such change after visualizing their success and being unwavering in their journey. They saw something. They put down whatever they had been carrying for 20, 30, 40 years and they were able to freely move towards their goal. One woman said she would go walking and would eventually stop when someone on the street would remark not once, not twice, but three times about how she looked when she walked. It felt like that. When I made up my mind to be something different and see something different and hold something different but to be reminded of what I am was my dream slapped down. The thing I realized that I missed is that I was not holding it tight enough...and by that I mean holding it at all.
I believe it is in the letting go of things that the power exists. When we surrender them to the universe, god, etc. then we stand the chance of miracles. I believe that our thoughts pattern our energy and our energy guides our actions and all of that in accordance with The Way. As I typed that I felt a tingle throughout my body.
I dreamed of Flower this week. She told me of the power that I experienced at Quest Haven and she commented on how much of it still existed with me. She told me to trust my gift of sight, actually she said clairvoyance, and she said to give in to it.
When I walk to campus I tell myself about my car that is coming to me easily. I speak positivity into my life. I speak goodness into my life. I speak health into my life. I breath deeply and show gratitude for my physical abilities. And then...something happens and the poison seeps into my haven and I grow angry at my aching calves, I grow resentful of my dwindling money supply....and I spend the next few hours trying to get back to the place of happy and peace.
Four feet. Not two.
It seems the bar has been raised and while I find myself more spiritually aware and open and honest and thriving I find that the negativity is fighting harder. I have to give in to my Self and give up this battle. I forgot about the gifts I was given. I forgot about my divinity. I forgot about my spirit. I forgot my heart. I must remember not to forget it again.
I think, most of all, though what I failed to realize is if its yours then nobody can take it away. If its yours then it is and always will be.