A Moment of Grace

I was pondering in a moment of appreciation, that this is a period of relative peace inside. A sense of balance is present. And noticing that this peace is not dependent on what is going on around me. The usual challenges are still there in business, I just don’t seem as worried now. At the moment anyway, don’t want to tempt hubris 🙂

What have I been doing different? A lot of inner work and a lot of time alone in nature and here in the house. Drinking in deeply and often the highest teachings from wise mentors such as Anthony DiLullo, and Marc Leavitt and old teachings by those such as Garab Dorje Longchenpa and other Dzogchen masters.

A lot of mindfulness in every day life, ongoing noticing and dropping of thoughts over and over and over. And being in the space between. Savouring peace, joy, beauty, love. Letting these arise.

I’ve been allowing myself to face some things about myself, my behaviour, reactions. Such as how I hide and tone down something that might stimulate the insecurities of others.

I shy away from being too happy, unique, wise or creative with some old friends and family members and don’t share my successes (most of those are inner anyway so they wouldn’t understand mostly). I saw it over Xmas with all the socialising.

It was painful to notice how I put myself down. There’s a fear there, I am afraid of feeling and seeing their insecurity as it is uncomfortable to me too, to experience theirs. There’s a sense of conformity to a script that has some unspoken rules about what is required to maintain a sense of belonging. I’m afraid of not belonging. Of being rejected I guess? It happens only with insecure people usually, there are other friends I can relax with completely…..and who can share my joys and achievements and realisations and ‘boast’ away happily waxing lyrical about my latest idea, development or realisation.

And I am certainly not blaming anyone – there’s my own timidity about leaping forward into the glorious unknown of greater wisdom, success, realisations that change everything. I see how we can all keep each other ‘in our place’ not going too high or far from the tried and tested ground. We mustn’t ‘get above ourselves’. That’s in our culture too. and it only works to keep us down if we remain insecure about ourselves and afraid of the new territory of potential.

So a new way of being with friendships perhaps. I was afraid of being alone and now I’m not. I know that space opens up and perhaps other new people will arrive and maybe not. Im okay either way. Enough arguing for our limitations. When we do that, we get to keep them.

So it has been useful turning inside to see and face some things. How I bend and twist to accommodate and avoid stimulating the fears of others. And nobody benefits really. Fear wins.