The Way of the Water

I am conflicted and torn.  I’m torn between knowing what it means to live in the moment and knowing when something is worth waiting for.  I am torn between being present to the now and holding space for what I truly desire to manifest in my life.  I am torn between long term happiness and momentary satisfaction, gratification in this present moment.

I didn’t think this would be easy.  I don’t know how I could.   To walk away from the ease of convenient half-love and hold out hope for future whole love, complete love, pure love.  The tension is inherent.  How could it not be?  How can I be in the midst of it all? What does it mean to just be here, to just sit in the tension?  Have I even considered sitting with the tension an option?  Is choosing doing?  Isn’t every action and non-action a choice of some kind?

At times I feel like my heart is fickle.  It betrays me in the presence of the sincerest offer of the incomplete.  It is tantalized by the invitation to settle.  Exposed is its longing to be loved, to be held, to be close, to be connected, to be respected, to be delighted in.  Concealed are the answers it wants to questions the mind parades in front of it, taunting it.  Can you do this?  Can you really do this?  Can you wait?  Is it worth waiting for?  Is it worth waiting for the uncertainty when the certain half-assed alternative bangs at the door, throwing itself at your feet?  Water flows downstream, doesn’t it?  It finds the path of least resistance?  Be the water.

What would the water do?  It returns to its Source, ultimately, I am told.  It flows through life taking each twist and turn as it comes.  It doesn’t stop.  It keeps moving and accomplishes its work as it passes along its way.  It doesn’t think about the next move, the next twist, the next turn.  It responds smoothly, easily, gently and quietly to every obstacle it encounters.  It transcends each one – not in triumph, but in gentle, fluid, instant adjustments to what it finds along its path.  And when it’s divided, it seeks its own and is quickly reunified just beyond what caused the separation.  It flows from height to depth, only to ascend again.  Only to ascend again.  To ascend again and begin its journey along its next way.

Can I learn from the water?  Can I flow without resistance?  Can I allow the way to unfold before me without creating my own obstacles?  Can I know the course, know the desired end and not be unsettled by the means which takes me there?  Can I be present to all I feel in the descent  without obstructing it, without clinging to the obstacle along the way for momentary half-safety?  Does the heart know the way of the water? Does the heart know the way?

Slowing Down

Friday night I changed my Facebook status to say that I need to slow down!  When I wrote that, I had just finished training a group of advocates for 8 hours, rushed home to grab my bag for my the weekend, rushed to the Metro to get to the bus to take me to New York.  My SIL went with me to New York this weekend.  As we were trying to get out of the train station to make the bus on time, I realized that I didn’t have enough money on my fare card.  I stuck my card in the machine to add fare and reached for my wallet…which was nowhere to be found.  I never carry cash.  I never carry a wallet.  I rarely carry a purse.  I usually throw my bank card and driver’s license in my back pocket, lip gloss in hip pocket and roll out.  Friday, I had almost $200 cash, my license and bank card in a wallet I apparently left on the train.

I needed to make a split second decision — go to New York and attend the classes I’m paying out the ass for, or say forget it and try to do the little to nothing I could do at the moment to get my wallet back.  I had 14 minutes to walk 3 blocks to catch the bus.  I told the station manager what happened.  He made a couple of phone calls, shook his head and gave me the number to lost and found.  My SIL told me she had me for the weekend and that I could pay her back when we got back.  We ran to the bus and made it.  I checked my bags a hundred times because I couldn’t possibly imagine how I could have sat my wallet down on the train and left it.  Nowhere to be found. I called and canceled my bank card and tried to figure out how I was going to make 3 apples, a bag of almonds, a bag of trail mix and a bottle of kombucha last all weekend.  My SIL was going to have to cover the hotel room; I wasn’t going to have her pay to feed me too.  Got to the hotel, checked bags 4 more times.  Wallet was nowhere to be found.

My wallet isn’t the first thing I’ve lost lately.  Two weeks ago, also in route to New York for the weekend I lost an expense check from work.  I had specifically gone into the office to get this check so that I’d have money to eat over the weekend.  I ended up not needing to cash the check, but when I returned and needed the money — the check was nowhere to be found.  Nowhere.  I asked the finance manager at work to cancel and re-issue the check.  She suggested that we wait a few days to see if it turned up.  I understand her not wanting to pay the fee — and I didn’t want to get into why I really needed the money.  We waited.  I got home from work two evenings later and a taped up envelope with no postage was on my steps.  The check had my address on it and it was showing through the little envelope window.  Someone found the check, taped it up and put it in the mail.  With no other address to send it to, it was delievered to my house stamped, “Returned for Postage”.

I also recently lost my Zune, which turned up later, and several other things which all turned up.  I’m clearly seeing a pattern  — one that reveals that my attention is way too scattered at this point in time.  I have let my whole yoga/meditation thing slip for a whole month, been burning the candle at both ends, spinning  my wheels, accomplishing a lot, but neglecting what’s most important.  Me. I’ve neglected placing a premium on my Self and my peace of mind.  I can’t afford to do that.  To the tune of $200 in cash and the cost of getting a new license.  Except that it didn’t cost me that after all.

I believe we can find a lesson in anything if we look hard enough for it.  I was convinced that there was something for me to learn with this last loss.  I knew instantly that part of it was that I needed to slooooooooowwww dooooooowwwwwn.  But beyond that, I believed that there was more.  As you can tell from my last post, I had become very troubled.  I’m training sexual assault advocates, attending a training to work at my local rape crisis center, trying to support people close to me through domestic violence, becoming aggravated by “the” domestic violence story in the news. I was becoming consumed, all of a sudden, by the reality of violence and assholes.

And then I got a text from my dad while in class with the name and telephone number of the gentleman who found my wallet on the train.  He looked up my address in the phone book, found my dad’s listing, called and arranged to get the wallet to him –  with every penny still in it.  A lesson?  A reminder?  A message from the Universe:  People are essentially good. Don’t let go of what you believe to be true.

Finding balance isn’t half as hard as maintaining it.

I’m a Believer!

I'm Free to be Perfectly Balanced

Today I am absolutely convinced of the power of intention.  I am finding my comfy spot in what has been, up to this point, a love-hate relationship with it.  I love that I spent December 31st setting intentions for 2009 and that when I reviewed that list on January 31st a significant portion, 9 of 39 actually, of those intentions have already manifested.  I hate that this means that I have wasted a lot of time believing that the outcome of my life was up to someone else.  And I hate that it means that a lot of the mess in my life has been self-induced because I didn’t know any better.  Meh. Water under the bridge — now I know, and it’s on!

In class Sunday (at Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where I’m studying to be a holistic health counselor) we were asked to write down some intentions for the next week.  I set the intention to let go of a relationship that’s standing in the way of another intention — to have the relationship I want.  I specifically set Friday as my target date to have this completed.  Wouldn’t you know that on the bus from NY last night I couldn’t shake the urgency to go ahead and end it.  The email composed itself in my head as the tears streamed down my face.  The knot in my stomach grew tighter and tighter and served as my reminder of how much energy I was sending into this wasteland.  The tears were cleansing — a loss is a loss — but were also mixed with a bit of fear.  I worried that I’d have to lose the entire friendship and not just the part that’s standing in the way of my future. Well, it’s Monday and by 9:00 this morning it was all done.  Finished. Over.  And the friendship remains in tact. Upon re-reading the specific intention I wrote down – it says, “Release “Guy” – while hopefully maintaining the friendship.”  So which would you say was more real, more powerful?  My fear of losing the friendship or the intention to keep it?  This grows curiouser and curiouser and I’m having fun with it all.

And that’s just one example–there are so many more here as I flip through my journal.  Get clear on what you want in life and the Universe delivers.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this work in my life in the past few months alone — and, if I’m honest, I can see how it worked when I was clear about how miserable my life was as well.  What you give your energy to grows — I’m such a believer!

So my energy is going toward creating the life I want.  It’s happening so fast it’s a little mind boggling.  The number of like-minded people who have come into my world is astounding.  They don’t come close to outnumbering the one’s who think I’m weird — but they definitely out-shine them.  There will always be those who think Lex is off her rocker.  They’ve always been around.  The only difference is that now they don’t affect me — not one single bit.  In fact, they amuse me.  Through it all I dare them, just dare them to try it.  Put more energy into your happiness than you do into your misery and see what happens!

Ah.  Loving life at the moment, Folks.  Loving it immensely.

Im free to do what I want any old time
Im free to do what I want any old time
So love me hold me love me hold me
Im free any old time to get what I want