Wishcasting Wednesday

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What do you wish to release?

I wish to release…

…the grip anxiety, fear, worry, and panic have on me.

…resistance, rejection, resentment, or anything else that keeps me from experiencing my life just as it is, exactly as I am.

…notions of what life should or shouldn’t be, all dreams, hopes, expectations, fears.

…judgements, the way I evaluate and categorize my experience and people into good or bad, fair or unfair, pleasurable or painful, worthy or unworthy, whole or broken.

I wish to release the search for safety, for solid ground, for a happy ending.

…discursive thought patterns, habitual ways of being that no longer serve me, poverty mentality or any sense of worthlessness, and the way I get hooked and carried away by strong emotions, by the stories I tell myself about them.

…the struggle with impermanence.

…the pain, loss, grief, and trauma.

…the suffering I generate, the problems and pain I create.

I wish to release…

…waiting.

…attachment.

…control, perfection, trying.

…smashing myself to bits.

…all the chatter and crap, the unnecessary stuff that is cluttering my space and my self.

…any hope or fear, any sense of should or have to, any self-hate or self-loathing that still lingers.

Three Truths and One Wish

3 Replies

1. Truth: I generate my own suffering. I wear a deep rut in the ground, walking the same path, acting out the same habitual patterns, thinking the same discursive thoughts, allowing myself to be swept away by the same strong emotions, caught up in the same drama, the same old story, over and over, again and again. I am confused and stubborn, clinging to my attachment and judgment, my rejection and resistance–keeping me from life as it is, which is ultimately workable, which is here. But the good news is: because I generate my own suffering, I can stop.

2. Truth: I think I am a rock, but I am gold. I am basically good, inherently wise and kind–it is our fundamental human nature. And yet, so often I refuse to see it, convince myself otherwise. I cause myself so much pain, smashing myself to bits, resisting the magic, the power, the full measure of light and love that is me. When I get quiet, sit still, stay calm and breathe, I can see my genuine self clearly, resting in the spaciousness and wakefulness and compassion that is always there.

3. Truth: Life is tender and terrible, beautiful and brutal. Even so, I aspire to open my heart to all of it, to live fully and wholeheartedly, with courage and kindness. Sometimes, the reality of impermanence brings me to my knees, completely overwhelms me, and I am frozen by panic, broken by sadness and pain–and yet, even then, I know that it is better to be awake, to be alive, to have an open heart.

One wish: That even when we are afraid or sad or stuck, we can maintain an awareness of our worth, our goodness. That even as life changes and things die, we can “find the strength to know we are a part of something beautiful,” (Alexi Murdoch). That even as we suffer and are confused, we can keep our hearts open, courageously manifesting love and compassion.