1. I’m seeking a direct connection to divinity, that which is bigger than me but whose true name or form I do not know, whatever it is that lifts my face out of the dirt. It’s something about wanting to give up, to let go, to relax — to surrender my illusion of control, my resistance, my confusion — but still needing a soft place to land, needing to believe love and kindness are real, solid, and available to me, IN me. I’m willing to risk keeping my heart open, but I need to know I’m going to be okay, even when I’m not. I need comfort.
2. I know who I am. I don’t know why I keep hiding it away, or trying so hard to convince others of it, why it matters if they understand or believe or support or agree to it. I’m not sure why I care so much that I might be making someone uncomfortable or confused.
3. Sometimes the world is too noisy, too fast, too much. I’m still trying to figure out how to be in it, how to show up, but not get run over. My sweet, sensitive, tender heart gets so overwhelmed. My physical body gets tired, is unwell. I want to show up and stay open, but it hurts and it’s so hard. I’m looking for the way I can stay open and present but still protect myself. I want to be here and I want to be well. I want to be all in, to be all the way true to the call of my brilliant heart, but I worry I’m not as strong as I need to be.
One wish: That somehow we are all able to surrender, to let go of the things that bind us, to stop resisting and relax into the way things are, and feel some sense of peace, a little ease, the tiniest shift in our suffering, and that we let love find us, let kindness touch us, take notice of the ways that we are being supported, lifted and lit up.
Sometimes suffering the losses and the unexpected betrayals and break-ups that befall each of us becomes the places where we grow deepest in our capacity to lead an authentic and free life. Often by working our way through our difficulties, our ability to love and feel compassion for ourselves and others deepens, along with the wisdom that will help us through similar problems in the future. And learning how to survive our present difficulties is one of the few things that will help us to know the right things to say and do when others whom we love suffer as well.
I’ve recently been reading The Endless Practice: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be by Mark Nepo…I wanted to share with you one of the gems from the book that I’m continuing to carry in my heart: “No matter how hard we work, the aim and purpose of practice is not to be done with it, but to immerse ourselves so completely in life by any means that we for the moment, are life itself living. Excellence, if we achieve it, is a welcome by-product of complete immersion. But the reward for practice is a thoroughness of being.”
11. This Humans of New York post, “Before medical school I was really into music.” He has the most beautiful voice, like make you want to cry beautiful.
Bodhichitta is a Sanskrit word that means “noble or awakened heart.” …It is equated, in part, with our ability to love. It is said that in difficult times, it is only bodhichitta that heals. When inspiration has become hidden, when we feel ready to give up, this is the time when healing can be found in the tenderness of pain itself.
29. This quote about how being an artist is different from being “a lawyer, scholar, mechanist, typist, scientist, production assistant, or what-have-you.”
If we feel the Unspeakable and then try to speak of what we felt, we sound like fools. But if we feel the Unspeakable and don’t speak, we feel like ingrates. I’m inclined toward gratitude. So, foolishly, I speak.
1. I’m seeking a direct connection to divinity, that which is bigger than me but whose true name or form I do not know, whatever it is that lifts my face out of the dirt. It’s something about wanting to give up, to let go, to relax — to surrender my illusion of control, my resistance, my confusion — but still needing a soft place to land, needing to believe love and kindness are real, solid, and available to me, IN me. I’m willing to risk keeping my heart open, but I need to know I’m going to be okay, even when I’m not. I need comfort.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 