“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi
The gap between contentment and turmoil shrinks, the time to recoup from the lowest of lows to inner peace shortens as I realize more of who I am.
It used to be struggle would grasp me for weeks. I would fumble through my life breathing in and breathing out waiting anxiously for the next moment to pass, just so I’d be closer to another moment passing after that.
Anxiety and self doubt is a waiting game, it has no rules, no time limit or ending. It’s just there, waiting.
The difference now are the little things, small reprieves I discover inside me and around me. Like today a good friend connects me to a meditation moment I have avoided.
In it I discover how quick I am to find distraction, any distraction that might take me away from the present. And in that hurry, my mind rushes and with it carries my emotions so rapidly that I cannot just simply enjoy the moment.
Today I meditated for the first time in a week and again rediscovered my voice.
When I slow down I can see so clearly that words and images become vivid in my mind. It’s like when I first started to get my taste buds back after 6 weeks of radiation on my throat and mouth, the excitement is beyond description.
Whats abundantly clear is the common lesson from all the great teachers, Never give up, never stop, never resign to not being enough.
I have lived my life buying into mantra’s I was sold and worse yet I bought. Those of instant relief if I take this pill, riches overnight if I buy this book, never ending love if I just do this. When all the time the answer was inside me, that to reach whatever I wanted I needed to commit to the process.
I bought the belief that if I had to work hard at it, it would be more painful than the joy I might receive. When the truth has always been that the joy comes in my doing it and achieving it through my efforts.
The other missing part was failing to give my self the gratitude for what I did achieve, I left myself with the feeling that because the effort was great I must be doing something wrong.
Today another chapter in my book is written, blame is not a game I will play anymore, I will trust in myself and take time to slow down daily and see all that I have and am.
Mozart once said – “I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.”
Some people described him as a mad genius – I don’t think he was mad at all.
