Simply Showing Up!
If there has been a theme of this year's dark time for me, it has been about simply showing up in life. All the way. Nothing left out. Every infant feels the simplicity of simply showing up in life. What else is there to do when you are in a pre-cognitive state and there you are. Could this be what Jesus meant when he said that we must become like little children to enter the kingdom of heaven? We each begin life by simply showing up, and then we submit to a process of learning to think about things, and we think ourselves up a nice little self. Then we grow it up and, if we can, we make it strong which can often involve a lot of armoring. In the process life seems to become more and more complicated. Have you ever noticed how sometimes the more you think about things, the more complicated they get? But here we are at this wonderful point where are catching on! Mind makes things complicated that are really so simple that it can barely be comprehended! The same simplicity that we started with as infants is still here. Each of us are simply here, being what we are beyond thought. Cleanly, purely and perfectly being our Selves. Once we have caught what the mind is up to, we are already no longer fully fused with it, no longer fully identifying with it. We can stand outside mind's noisy world and see it at work. Suddenly, outside mind's sphere, life is not the complicated mess that mind would tell us it is. Suddenly mind is out of its job fixing the world, manipulating it, and trying to make it fit an idea of how the world "should" look. Mind can relax and serve. Would less get done about the intractable problems of the world if that happened? Well, we can't know, but my best sense is that all would be well. Ghandi told us that we needed to "Be the change that we wish to see in the world." This is something that we can do right now, right here in this moment. We can show up as who we really are. And then we can stay Here--stay showing up as things happen--trusting that life knows what its doing. We can stay Here while we notice the intractable problems and either take an action or not, as we sense our way forward. Our journey that we have made into the world of thought since infancy has not been a mistake. We bring all of who we are with us as we simply show up in the moment, and make ourselves available for what life/love would do with us.
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Speaking my
Peace
The current example from this life involving "just showing up" is around doing public speaking for the new book that is now out. Standing up in front of groups has not been a favorite activity for me in the past. It has taken a lot of sitting with old emotional states from childhood, in order to finally be feeling free of this old un-ease in front of audiences. If you are interested, it has come down to that moment in infancy where I decided to start giving people a version of myself that fitted what they wanted to see rather than to simply be myself (which wasn't good enough). But doing public speaking on the subject matter in "Life Beyond Belief" was just not something that I could do using this a false version of myself. It was either get real with audiences or don't bother to speak. This exploration has turned out to release me into a new experience of relationship in general, not just in front of groups. I still had a lot of energy going into trying to control life as soon as I was with people instead of by myself. It was so innocent- just a sweet little child trying to find out how to be OK in life. And this aspect had stayed invisible until now, until this fear needed to be met. Life is different for me now. Not just in front of groups. The experience makes me want to offer encouragement to those of you who maybe haven't read the book--that life is so amazing the way it is all a setup for our awakening. We just have to pay attention and life brings us whatever experiences will let us see where our interferences are that keep us from fully living who we truly are. By the way, the mountain picture above is on of the "Castle Crags" in northern California, taken in the morning after a night snowfall. Blessings on your new year!
Alice
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For more information about Alice's new book, Life Beyond Belief, Everyday Living as Spiritual Practice go to:
Awake Pub Home Page
Awake Publishing Order Page
Info page
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