Actually doing it

Not only reading about it and watching YouTube videos about it…..

Being here and now

this.

very.

second.

I am often reminded “oh yeah, this is it”, this is all there is…..being right now, fully here and present to life as it unfolds and changes.

Not off in my head or trying to seek something else, a better moment, a better strategy. That was how I’ve lived. Seeking and searching and restlessly roving to catch a better moment. Anything but be actually present!

I was watching an Angelo DiLullo video this morning and he said a sentence or two about equanimity.

What I understood, was that once the inner reactiveness has calmed down we no longer have to try and seek for solutions in the mind (which we know isn’t really possible anyway hence the frustration of it). We can be here in the present. Facing everything as it arises, without judgement, cringing, contracting away.

This is a process of becoming so completely naked and vulnerable! No wonder people aren’t that attracted to it! What a terrifying thought. On one level anyway. On another it is enticing and thrilling….

The ego days “WHAT, no defences?!” Nope, none. Completely innocent. No guile, manipulative responses, no trying to change things. Meeting everything naked as we are, as it is. Knowing we are not in control and never were.

I can see how, for some of us including me, working through childhood traumas and conditioned responses has been helpful and the loving up the disowned parts we tried to chop off as they were judged as unworthy or deficient. I needed a lot of help from various people including therapists and teachers, to do that. Thank you to them.

We set these defences up in the hope of protecting ourselves. To now be asked to dismantle them, is damn scary. And yet to grow into our fully blooming selves these old defence strategies start to be a hindrance and even a prison.

Gosh, the irony! We spent all that effort as kids just innocently trying to look after ourselves with our defence mechanisms and strategies for living, only to find out these are not helpful at all any more. Man alive!

And we have to remove the armour bit by bit, lovingly, tenderly, encouragingly, slowly as our courage allows and our confidence grows. We were never deficient or unworthy, and that can come as a shocking truth. We are fabulous.

I have discovered another world emerging. I have gained the confidence in the knowledge that the sky doesn’t fall in as I let go of control. My world hasn’t fallen apart, not at all.

It was a control I didn’t have anyway. As I have started to ‘cooperate’ with this new fact, I am learning a new action, that of surrendering and letting go to how life wants to unfold. A kind of the opposite of an action. It is a very different mechanism from my previous strategy of ‘acting on’ things, or thinking that I am in control.

What my ego can’t stand about all this, is that the prize is nothing. For it anyway! Absolutely nothing. No increased specialness, no basking in public recognition for the achievement. It’s a grand booby prize to the ego.

And yet what happens? Now free to arise is more laughter, creativity, rejoicing in the smallest things, love, noticing beauty everywhere, a little dance and song coming out unexpectedly, no more worrying, no more being afraid of thoughts or feelings or situations.

Since we are no longer blocking abundance due to a sense of unworthiness or unfamiliarity with it – we are free to notice how it envelopes and caresses us and allow this. Letting go of blocking abundance wow. A new relationship as we welcome it.

Settling down with all this. It’s a lot. Had a leap there with that Roy guy on Zoom. Been adjusting every since. So grateful for those who have crossed over to the far shore waiting for us and shine and instil confidence. What a gift.