Meditate, chant, read, journal, do yoga, get Reiki, go to a sound bath, heal, heal, heal!!!
How can we quiet our minds in the midst of what seems to be a global regression of all humanity? There is so much unrest in the world at this time. There is loss and grief of monumental proportion and the barrage of messages telling us we are more than our thoughts, our stories, our selves can become a mammoth bludgeon to the self that says, ‘fix, search, seek, you don’t know who you are’! Conversely, the healing movement conveys that you are whole and, complete and perfect as you are. So which is it?
Our world is currently in a mountain of pain. This pandemic has impacted each and every one of us in a personal way. No matter where you stand on the continuum of who is ill, suffering, passed or well, it exists, it doesn’t exist, it was provoked or not, you know this is not the world as we once we knew it and that the impact is undeniable. There are issues of war, collapsing economies, fractured governments, climate change, world-hunger, terrestrial unrest among the many distresses to mention. And still the message of strength and well-being, accessibility and resources toward a return to balance and progression has never been louder. So which is it?
Like the journey through the canal that leads from the womb’s internal ocean, is the unknown silence that blossoms into the cry of entry to this plane we call earth. The mother’s pain is the first earthly sensory experience of the child and yet that experience is sometimes quelled by the deep, profound and ineffable joy that is felt upon the realization of life being larger than we can imagine. And here for many is also despair. So which is it?
We are spending our days and hours filling our lives with trying to figure out the answers that inhabit the field of the known to questions such as these. We say we want to move away from a culture of critical thinking to one that values emotional intelligence and yet we’ve taken every ounce of healing available to us and turned it into evidenced based research and learning. As an academic, I get enraptured in the intellect of this game. But here’s the deal. It’s a trap. The more we try to prove what makes us feel good (and by that I don’t mean something that is simultaneously destructive and harmful), the more we have fallen back into the trap of the mind. So do we want research backed, evidence based wellness or do we want to fall into the intuitive space of self that honours feeling in order to surrender to our humanness and then let it all go? Which is it?
Here’s the place where I interject the story I am leading you down and tell you that in every case it’s both, that it’s the grand duality of life that ignites the burning fire that lights a thousand souls and dims a thousand more. But you already knew that. That’s another person sharing a possibly worthy truth, but one that is indoctrinating a fact into your mind.
The truth is, simple to understand and difficult to live by given that our world is full of this duality. The truth is that the answers are not mine to prescribe. It is not for me as a mental health clinician, an instructor, a consultant, a mother, a woman, a partner a whatever to prescribe your truth.
The truth is, there is a life expedition that is only yours. It leads you to a life that is full of navigating and owning every experience that comes into your path. It is you, your truth, your reality, your responsibility and your life.
Call it destiny, fate, circumstance, nature, nurture or just a deck of cards, it is your truth that matters to how you tune into the full embodiment of who you are with mind and heart in feeling, experiencing, surrendering and maybe even releasing all of who you are in your human vessel, in this human experience on this human earth. It still matters to ask the questions, to research, to investigate, to learn, to share, to create, to be. It all matters because it is all you in your life expedition taking in this amazing inexpressible ride.
So allow the noise that exists in your mind until you find that you have played it so loudly you’ve let out the scream and find yourself so weary that only thing you need is the suckling silence and soothing of an empty highway that leads from the mind to the heart. If you don’t allow the noise, you cannot find the quiet. And if you allow the quiet, you might get very scared and run back to the noise or you might just find your truth.
When we quiet the mind we gift ourselves. The stillness creates a doorway to the best within us to rise and flourish, filling our cup and radiating to those around us. Stillness is gift of patience, of unconditional acceptance of all we are and the surrender of thought. But you are human so you may only find a glimpse here and there of this silence. Chances are you will fail and fail again until you either push down your truth or allow the silence which can be louder than the noise and then, and only then, will your truth emerge.
