Serenity Whispers Into My Heart

As often happens, Module 47: SERENITY How to Recognize and Use the Elements of Inner Peace and Spirituality of A Year With Myself has caused me to gently slow down, take a little time, perhaps more time than I think I “should BE” taking, to consider and wonder long and easy and deep into these things. To live slowly into their place and purpose for me, NOW, NOT in some remembered Past, nor some imagined Future. Right Now. This moment.

Years in the 12-Step World had me straightaway associating Serenity with Recovery-related things; even if I know perfectly well it applies in ALL of Life… As I took that out to chew on a bit I discovered that for me, Now, Recovery-related is Life-related. Living my Life in Recovery doesn’t translate into must look like what it’s been at other times along my Journey.

I loved this early quote from Randi Buckley in Cigdem Kobu’s Mission Brief on page 2.

The soul speaks by whispering into our heart. Whispers into the heart come when they are ready and they don’t mean we were not clear in our actions, identity or know who we were before them. We evolve and peel back our layers. New layers reveal aspects closer to our core. We weren’t wrong before them but the whispers inform who we are to become.

This perspective is quite empowering, and a “something” with which I resonated. I love the context these words put around the “whispers” that are whispering into my own heart. Especially recently.

It has been sheer JOY to experience each of the modules in AYWM full-on and one after the other. I know I am blessed to have the sort of Time and Life where I can CHOOSE this, and I am deeply and truly glad for having chosen to embrace this Journey through 2012.

New layers are revealed almost daily. They might BE a new way of holding or considering a thing, perhaps one that was painful and difficult for me. Or a sudden lightbulb thought that reveals the “secret” of something I might have considered magical and IMPOSSIBLE.

Whatever form these take, and whichever way I “see” and experience the “whispers” into my Life, I am undone, utterly, with how Serenity flows gently through it all. I am NOT Buddha-glowy and enlightened… I’m just a girl, well, a woman, nearing 60, enJOYing the experience.

Some Reflective Thoughts on My Gratitude Practise, Gratitude, and JOY…

A YEAR WITH MYSELF MODULE 46: JOY AND GRATITUDE

Wholehearted Living Through Joy and Gratitude

http://ayearwithmyself.com/journal-prompt-joy-and-gratitude/

I have long known the benefits of counting my blessings. I just never knew the JOYs of having my own practise where Gratitude is concerned. I might have NOT got this BEcause I had some NOT-so-pretty-to-own thoughtsandfeelings about entitlement. Ahhhhhhh… the E-word.

Six years ago, in late December of 2006, I was living alone in Sedona, Arizona, feeling sore and sad and so confused. My relationship of 12 years was coming apart [though at the time I thought we were apart only temporarily] and it seemed I was desperately trying to herd frogs. This was a time that I remember with much sadness BEcause, frankly, I didn’t have my head OR my heart screwed on right about so many things. I was reacting, trying to force things to fit in the size of the boxes I had. Furthest thing from my mind was Gratitude, Practise, or JOY.

By happenstance and, thanks in large part to Google and my own memory reaching back to 1985, I found a Fellowship for ME. And I found it online. Suddenly I felt less apart, separate, alone, and more a part of. It was weird, for sure, an online fellowship, but hey, it was 2006, progress is, as they say, “all good.” All of the 12-Step “stuff” came back to me, like riding a bicycle. It was sweet. It was also tidy, simple, and Right Where I Was.

And so it came to pass that I was invited into a participatory Gratitude-Sharing Practise. I felt like I’d finally found the right sort and size of boxes, and all those frogs hopped into line.

Well, sort of. I am sure I make it sound much simpler than in fact it was.

Still…

In the BEginning of what is Now a blog called I Love You, Currie & a daily email I send to NOT so many anymore, I was utterly fascinated by this way of sharing and BEing shared with. For a Very Long Time I didn’t even see it as a “practise” just an opportunity to connect. How had I grown so disconnected, isolated, and apart from the World?!

A funny question in that last paragraph. Here I am in the nearly-end of 2012, where everyone is sharing about taking technology breaks, daily, and for whole days… A friend recently “fasted” with her church by staying off Facebook and Twitter. Pretty much every week I read two or three posts that address this new need we’ve come to have “living” as we DO Now, online. Virtually. Electronically…

Sorry I got on that little tangent, but this is definitely a reflective post. ;~D

Anyhow, as I read this week’s module, something happened. Almost straightaway. I felt defensive. I felt “dissed” for my practise. I felt judged.

WOW!!!

So I read it again, aware of myself and my tendencies in the way I have BEcome DOing A Year With Myself these past 46 weeks. I realised again that I automatically go there, to the defensive Currie, the one who thinks that she must BE understood. And I made her a cup of tea…

The thing that “people say” [which people and how they say it will vary for you, mayBE there isn’t even a “THEY” for you like there is for me…] about Gratitude is mostly just hooey. In my NOT-so humble opinion. BEcause, Gratitude, like other practises [meditation, prayer, mindfulness…] is personal. Individual. And really, it’s NOT to BE understood so much as simply experienced.

And so, tea enJOYed, defensive Currie paused. She thought back to where her head and heart and BEing were back in December 2006. She pondered the Journey they’ve been on these past six years. She remembered, like little twinkling lights, the connections and Life rafts her Gratitude Practise has brought her, been for her, and sailed her to, BEtween, and BEyond.

And it was in that moment utterly clear that no matter what any “they” may say, think, or imagine, Gratitude has revived my Life. It has given me a focus. It has reminded me each and every day that it’s neither a thing I DO for others nor for myself. It is a thing with a Life of its own. Somedays I may know about its reach and somedays I don’t even think of it again once it is written, sent, and posted.

There is so much richness and magic in this module’s 25pages. So very much. And what is exceptionally BEautimous to me is that nowhere in it does it prescribe that Gratitude is something to Complete, to DO, or to Achieve. I can’t “get BEhind” in Gratitude. I can’t “catch up” on it.

It is like the breath I just took. Gratitude is simply Me BEing ME…

Forgiveness... It's What I Choose Now

Sometimes I get stuck. Like I've stepped in gum. And trying to get it "fixed" is almost worse than just adapting to it. But stuck is stuck and I really REALLY prefer NOT to BE stuck.

Forgiving is a kind of stuckness. It's like when you're first realising about the gum you stepped in and you're really quickly impossibly MAD that this has happened to YOU!!!

[okay, mayBE that is just something peculiar to me...]

Forgiving is always an option. ALWAYS. I forget this though. Actually, I've spent years without remembering it...

I was outside raking leaves earlier. I was remembering raking leaves in my Life. Remembering a big push thing that the leaves seemed to pop into... Is that a real memory?! I don't know. But it's in there, so what am I going to DO?!

The leaves reminded me of forgiveness, or more accurately, my unwillingness to forgive. I've held on and held fast to BEing "done wrong." To BEing the victim of another's cruelty and unkindness. To the hurt inside me that wouldn't, that I couldn't seem to stop.

What I thought next was how I was generally waiting for someone else to ask me for forgiveness. Like when I was little and thought that husbands had to BE older than wives. That this was a State Law. [yes, I was a wonky little girl with a busy brain] 

Waiting for someone else to change my mind. That's what I was DOing, what I have DONE, nearly all my Life I think...

If I haven't forgiven someone, of course that is BEcause that someone didn't ask me to. Didn't acknowledge out loud and directly their wrongs.

Crazy business this, living inside THIS brain...

All of this is to say that I Now know I've had it wrong. Backwards and inside out and upside down. Those leaves weren't "wrong." I just wanted to rake them up. For me. Period. End of story.

No one thanked me for raking them. Didn't even notice. 

Curious thing, though, Gracie was very happy when I was sweeping the leaves off the patio. She wanted to play "Broom" which has been a favourite game of hers since she was the size of a sack of apples.

Once I started raking she found something I'd picked up the other day on a walk and decided to chew it up some...

So this is Forgiveness. It is DOing what's in front of me. It's NOT about someone else. It is just about ME. 

I could have grown very old waiting for someone to ask for my forgiveness. And you know what else?! Some of the someones I've needed most to forgive aren't even on the planet anymore.

I guess it's simple. Forgiveness is a choice. It is always there. NO. MATTER. WHAT.

I liked this module BEcause it let me sift through a lot of stuff I have thoughtandfelt about forgiving. BEing forgiven. All that... And it gave me more to think on. 

That's always good. Now... to find out if there really is a raking thingie or if I have just made that up like I used to state laws...

Thoughts About Community & Me

A Year With Myself

Module 44: COMMUNITY:Building Your Inner Circle and Enriching Your Ties

In order to be free, I had only to change my thoughts and perceptions about my situation and what I was capable of doing with the resources at my disposal.

~ Tara Lutman Agacayak

Though I wanted to DO any number of things in response to this week’s module, when I sat down to re-read and reflect what was really speaking to me to write about, Tara’s words above practically jumped up off the page insistenting I focus on them.

BEing an agreeable sort with my amusing assortment of muses, I easily capitulated.

First, though, I want to say how clear I am about my Present Life circumstances, largely discovered through this module’s focus on Community[ies]. I have felt like the last one picked, an extra with no place I fit, and oftentimes sorry for myself that my Life is lived largely in Solitude. It’s funny, I seem to have succumbed to the Always-Want-What-I-Don’t-Have Syndrome. When I was living with my partner I longed for time to BE alone. Time for Just ME. Yet when she was off on her own, I simply felt uneasy and afraid. As I BEgan to branch out in my own ways, I always made sure I didn’t cause ripples. Consequently, I wasted a whole lot of precious Right Nows…

This module, along with some other things going on concurrently in my World, revealed a deep and deLIGHTful peace in me. Perhaps I should call it tranquility. And in this lovely state of BEing and Mind I see the depth of JOY in me for Life, My Life, exactly as it IS and as it IS NOT.

I love Community, I cherish the many circles of which I have been a part over my Life’s time. Even Now I often long for deeper connection with others in A Year With Myself. Fortunately, though, I have found places that fit ME Now. Connections that are astounding and real and oh so very ENOUGH.

AND…

I deeply cherish my Solitude. The time I have to DO with as I please. The space where I live, that while tiny and so very different from what I had BEfore, fits me like my smile.

I am NOT disconnected. I am NOT alone. I am NOT lonely. I am Enough. What I have is Enough. What I DO is Enough.

In fact, the community in which I find myself at home, the one that fits me exquisitely is far bigger than could EVER fit in the Wee Cottage and far more diverse than I can wrap my brain around…

Sometimes we learn who and where and what we ARE by knowing what we are NOT, where we are NOT, and what we are NOT. Crazy little system, eh?!

So, on to Tara’s words that are the point of this week’s post.

I spent several of the past 6 years since splitting with my partner looking at what I had lost, what had been taken away from me, and what I hadn’t really wanted to keep but wasn’t actually trying to hang onto. I spent so much time and energy trying to find new places to fit. I wanted to just ease on by the opportunity and fill the missing piece[s] with something else.

Anything else.

The only thing I didn’t DO was try to replace my partner. I haven’t dated or even really thought about another relationship. Oh, well, there was a blink in 2011 where I tried to talk myself into trying something online, but like a very strange and twisted dream, I woke up Very Quickly and let that BE that. A momentary blurring of intention.

I’ve Now moved and created an entire Life for myself and most days I don’t really operate in the tooth-that’s-NOT-there-space her absence left. I no longer want to fill-up what I’d thought “empty” or empty what I thought “over-full” with her and us and the impossible relationship we were trying to keep on Life Support…

I sold my car in April, on a whim, pretty much, and I discover more each day how little I NEED to empty or fill ANYthing. EVER.

I’ve BEcome and am BEcoming someone I really REALLY enJOY knowing and hanging out with. I’ve learned to play well with “others” who, frankly, are all variations on myself. Somedays I am quiet, slow, very introspective. Sometimes in the middle of one of those times I will suddenly start playing with something and get deliciously lost in it for hours.

Without a car to get around, I’ve learned to use the bus, and discovered my Life’s long love of walking. I’ve lost so much excess ME-ness that I Now need clothes much smaller than what I have. But… my budget is very un-wiggly, so I am practising trusting that this matter will sort itself out without ME having to “take it in hand” and “show it HOW” to DO that…

This Year With Myself has been and continues to BE extraordinary. It is my 60^th year. It is so NOT what I’d ever imagined yet is curiously just perfect for me…

I’m learning ways to live within my means and largely have adjusted my thoughts and perceptions to BE more in harmony with the What Is. I chose to let go of a vehicle never ever imagining the possibilities and adventures it would bring to me. Many of which I still only am experiencing in that place where there are no words that make it make sense.

There are many people I would LOVE to BE part of my World, as this module brought me to consider. And yet, there are so many others’ Worlds that I am NOW a part of, and none of it “looks like” what that “looks like” to me. Amazing and deLIGHTfull!!

Trust is one community I am part of Now, that I never was even interested in BEfore. YES. Just Trust. Imagine my surprise…

Enough is another. Oh, how sweet its fragrance.

Play. Write. BEcause I CAN. Three more places I fit, BElong, and spend time.

I have people I wouldn’t know if they were in front of me who are dear and treasured friends.

I spend glorious hours each week reading, enJOYing, and discovering their words, art, and selves. And they, too, find time to read, enJOY, and discover ME.

Imagine that…

I have moments I miss Someone. Someone to hug. Someone wants to and does hug ME. For no reason at all.

So I have learned to hug myself.

It’s an odd community. And it’s mine. Yes indeedie!!!