Category Archives: Rest

Wishcasting Wednesday

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from jamie’s post

What do you wish to delight in?

I wish to delight in things that are alive, that make me come alive and feel wide awake: color, strong feelings, flowers, trees, green soft grass under my bare feet, birds and insects in flight, soft animal bodies, fresh and luscious food, movement, music, song, dancing, books, someone telling the truth and being brave even when it’s hard and even when they aren’t sure if they’ll be able to, the constant dependability of the waves and the sunrise and breath, things hand and heartmade, friends, long conversations, open hearts, laughter, his smile, the way he looks at me, the wag of their tails, a deep sigh, love, love, love. Even hard goodbyes, because if you love someone so much that their leaving unhinges you, and all either of you can do is look into each others eyes and cry (but you are looking, seeing, fully present with that person and that pain), and when you hug that last time, you don’t want to let go, it means that you’ve loved, and are loved, and I want that.

I wish to delight in the wisdom, gentleness, kindness, and strength of my highest, best self. She has such power, is filled with such love, and speaks to me with such confidence and clarity, knows how to be and what to do, carries the truth. She sometimes sends me messages through this blog, telling me secrets, encouraging me, telling me she’ll never give up, no matter what. She whispers to me in my dreams, in moments of stillness, by way of my intuition and through the beat of my heart. She knows what’s best, has every answer to every question that will every arise, and all I have to do is listen and trust her. She’ll never lie, never try to trick or manipulate me–she loves me.

I wish to delight in rest and play. I know I say this over and over, but my current approach to life–mostly work, work until I can’t possibly work any more–isn’t sustainable, and is certainly not motivated by love. I want love and joy and mindfulness of the present moment to be as necessary to me, as lovely and desirable as work, task, and toil.

I wish to delight in time and space. I want to be in the moment, experience and appreciate who and what is happening, show up with the confidence Susan Piver describes, “the willingness to be as ridiculous, luminous, intelligent, and kind as you really are, without embarrassment.”

I wish to delight in my physical sense of taste and movement, in my senses. This is a direct connection between myself and reality, the most vivid and immediate way in to the present moment. Eating, moving (“Don’t move the way fear makes you move. Move the way love makes you move. Move the way joy makes you move.” ~Osho), breathing in air and scent, listening and looking at the whole precious world, taking it all in, the beauty and the brutality, experiencing it, even in moments of rest and stillness, connected and aware that I am alive.

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: You can’t do everything. For starters, you have a body that has real limits, edges and absolutes, a soft animal form that needs breaks for rest, nourishment, and maintenance. Your mind cannot insist this frame, this figure, this shape do more than it can do–that only invites illness and collapse. Your mind needs breaks too, to revive it’s creative energy, to day dream and play, to get quiet and still, even though it doesn’t like to admit it. And your heart, bless your heart–it will let you break it over and over again with your bullying and demands, it will forgive you for each and every abandonment, but the unhealed grief that comes from that process will one day knock you flat.

Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. ~Steve Jobs

2. Truth: It’s okay to stop, to rest, to say no. In fact, it’s more than okay–it’s essential. The good work you imagine, the love you long to manifest, will never be fully realized unless you take care of yourself, stop smashing yourself to bits. You will shred yourself, turn to ashes if you don’t lie down and let go, calm down, slow down, surrender.

The love and good and the wild and the peace and creation that are you will reveal themselves, but it is harder when they have to catch up to you in roadrunner mode. ~Anne Lamott

3. Truth: Enough. It’s enough. There is enough. You are enough. You are doing the best you can, can’t do or be any more than that. Even if you never do another thing, it’s enough. You are already light, you are already wise and kind, you are already loved. You are. There’s no test, no goal, no should or have to, no destination other than here–there is only breath, and only this moment. You are medicine, magic, love manifested, precious and brilliant.

We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be. ~Anne Lamott

One wish: That we can all slow down, stop pushing so hard and insisting on so much, and that we, once and for all, finally know that we are enough, already and exactly as we are.

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
“I feel this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong.”
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What’s right for you–just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.
~Shel Silverstein