A few days more have passed of living without my favourite bad habits, alcohol, sugar, overeating and Facebook. And all is well and stable so far and I have had a wonderful low key quiet week. A lot less strain all round is noticeable. Ease even. Gosh, how about that.
Mentally I feel clear and alert, emotionally I’m calm and I feel more physically fit as I’ve been going for longer woodland walks. Amazingly I have lost over 2 kilos in 5 days, quite a reward for not really exerting myself much at all, 3-4 miles a day and the usual short swim in the morning. Really enjoying being this kind to myself and just enjoying being. Nothing to do, nowhere to go.
I like to think of us as radio receivers sometimes. I feel I have been getting a clearer signal this week. I’m more tuned into my heart. There is less interference going on without the disquiet and the grabbiness of seeking ‘treats’ in the form of wine, comfort eating, in believing I need very sweet tea when I know it’s not good for me, and being addicted to Facebook which is not the best use of my time. I was carrying some guilt and shame about these habits, felt I was letting myself down, and it’s impossible to get a clear signal feeling bad about myself.
Now I seem to be in a sort of comfortable spaciousness, even a nothingness. Not feeling any great yearning or want for anything. Life happens as it does and I step in and do what needs to be done, there is not much thinking going on. Lovely spontaneous enjoyable encounters with my team, and with clients and the general public and I notice that I am completely at ease with everyone I meet. How cool is that. I can be almost completely freely myself and it’s okay. I say almost as there are some habits that interfere with full honesty, like the habit of being a people pleaser. Working on that.
I can see that the tools of self soothing, self compassion and mindfulness have led to a greater resilience to life’s stresses. A feeling of stress is much more obvious at this moment because it is being noticed as it appears amidst a relative calmness.
I was swimming along this morning, being mindful, watching the swirling water shapes, feeling the sensations, next thing I know I went into thinking and became absent from the present. There was a feeling that came along with it, and the word strain describes the feeling sense of it well.
I felt something inside was strained till I returned back into the present using again body awareness. Leaving the present and entering the mental heady world of thoughts is a strain on the heart, unless I remain conscious of those thoughts as they enter and leave. Then I can remain in my heart.
I have an evening lying ahead and a weekend, and usually I would feel a certain strain/concern about that, and a need to give myself some treat to look forward to, to fill the time. I don’t feel that just now at all, and I am looking forward to a walk in the woods, a salad and maybe a good film later. A little taste of greater freedom going on here.
Odd to feel this okay. I’m not used to it for a continuous period. Feels like a gift of rest.
Just read this from Matt Lacata
“No matter how many profound insights we have, how many amazingly powerful awakening experiences we collect, or how convinced we become that we have it all together, we will always be at risk of further heartbreak, deflation, and crushing revelation.
In the bedroom of the beloved, there is always more humbling to come, as we are all beginners there. No experts, no masters, and no final, resolved landing place where we are guaranteed a life without vulnerability and deepening exposure … for the beloved has no interest in all of that.
It is by way of the broken places that he or she is able to reach you, and to fill you from within with essence. In that crucible where the opposites are at play, the rug is being pulled out from underneath us in an ongoing way, with our personas falling away one by one as they burn up in the fire of pure seeing. Buried within the tension of these opposites is a nonordinary gold. See it. Feel it. Hear it. Hold it.
Out of this highly-charged and creative field, it is revealed once and for all that your shaky raw vulnerable heart is not weakness and your tender sensitive body is not something to be transcended or “healed,” but are portals through which the sacred materials can descend into the earth and come into form.
Through at times it may seem as if the world has gone mad – as the dreams of separation play out within the collective, things are not always as they seem. You are the vessel through which love can come alive here. Without you, it will not be possible. ”
Learning to Rest with it All 