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I'm pretty sure that we didn't come to this world to do things, but to experience ourselves while we do those things. The problem is that we believe that the more the merrier. And that's not necessarily true when it comes to living and enjoying life at its fullest.
When it comes to our purpose on earth, I believe that one moment lived well and felt fully, is way more than one hundred moments only mediocrely felt. And so, if that is indeed true, the question that we need to be asking ourselves more, is: how much are we allowing ourselves to experience our lives?
A lot of people want to run away from their lives because they think they're trapped in circumstances that they don't like. But what they're really trapped in, is in the wrong life philosophy. They're trapped in the pursuit of an illusion that will bring something that only exists in the future. They're trapped in the exhaustion that comes from constantly feeling that they always have to do more because it's never enough. And ultimately, they're trapped in the discomfort of feeling inadequate and doubtful in the pursuit of whatever ''more'' looks like.
Running vs. Staying
Today, I encourage you to ask yourself these important questions...
How often do you stop to appreciate the miracle of your breath? How often do you stop to notice the miracle of your body and all of nature everywhere around you? How often do you pause to fully enjoy the coffee or tea that you drink, the friends that care about you, the family that still surrounds you and worries about you even if they're far away in physical distance, and the meals that keep you alive every single day?
How often do you look up at the sky, whether it's a cloudy, rainy or sunny day, and stand in awe of the magic that the universe has created for you to observe and experience? How often do you deep yourself in cold water and instead of complaining, notice the miracle that it is, that you get to experience what having goosebumps even feels like.
What you're really running away from
How often do you stop to observe and acknowledge your fear right before doing something new and jumping into the unknown, as opposed to constantly running away from that fear? As if the fear will eventually lose track of who you are if you run faster.
Have you ever stopped to notice how much you're constantly running in a pathetic attempt to escape the unescapable? Have you ever realised that what you're running away from, isn't external circumstances, but what you feel in those circumstances? As you process these words, did you already come to the realisation, that you can't escape from what you're trying to escape, because what you're running away from, is yourself?
When I catch myself thinking things like ''I want to run away from this situation. I just want to run away'', I now stop for a second to notice, that what I really want to run away from, is how I feel. When I feel like I want to move away and start over, or like I want to leave everything a go away, I now know that that's my brain's old way of trying to escape my emotions and feelings.
And see, that doesn't always mean that you should physically stay where you're at. Maybe you do need to move somewhere else or in one way or the other, change your circumstances. But the decision to do so, must always come from a deeper sense of awareness that at the core, what you're running away from, is how you feel when you're triggered my certain people or situations. And that trigger, is within you. It's not outside. And that when you leave everything behind, you won't be able to leave yourself behind. And that if you want to leave everything and go away, your self and its inner triggers won't go away. And that when you feel like you want a new life or need a new life, what you're normally after, is a new you. A you, that feels different.
Running away from the inevitable
Most people notice how ridiculous it was to spend their entire lives running away from themselves, hiding and running away from people and situations, when it's obvious but also too late. Meaning, when they're either about to die or already dead.
But not you my love. Not you. You're noticing right now. You're awakening right now. And I trust that from today on, you'll allow your soul to guide you and you'll start embracing what life really is about: fully experiencing whatever it is that you do. Being here. Being present with yourself and with your feelings. Welcoming your emotions, and from a place of emotional acceptance, tapping into the inner wisdom that knows what the next best step is for you, from a place of certainty, as opposed to from a place of fear.
Facing the presence of the now
The problem with the seemingly alive human who is in reality dead inside, is that he has completely misunderstood the real purpose of life. He exhausts himself doing things in the hopes of finding that one thing that will bring him a sense of aliveness after he's done with it, and he misses out on the fact that the aliveness comes through in the doing while the doing is happening. He misses out on the fact that in experiencing the doing with his full senses, the doing will transform itself into being, and the joy of a state of flow will finally manifest itself.
The act of surrender to what is
There's inexplicable peace and expansion in the act of surrendering to the reality of the present moment, and in allowing ourselves to experience what the now is bringing to us, without confusing our identity and value, with whatever the present moment or circumstance looks like.
When we allow ourselves to experience the fear, the anger, the sadness, the rage, the jealousy, the envy, the loneliness, or whichever feeling is trying to flow through us, without confusing who we permanently are to what we're experiencing in that moment, then we set ourselves free. That is the life changing moment in which you decide to stop running from yourself, and finally allow yourself to experience the world, knowing, that it can't kill you. Knowing, that the only one who can kill you, is yourself, when you put yourself inside your own inner jail, because you're too afraid to experience the outside world. Ironically, in running away from your perceived dangers of the world to try to save your life, you end up giving your life away and loosing it.
Or to be even more accurate, you end up giving your connection to life away. Because the reality is that no life is only yours. Life is everywhere and goes through all living beings in nature, so there's no such thing as my life or your life. What there is, is the small share of life that goes through us, and our ability to either experience it or not.
What we're really scared of
Funny enough, we think that we're scared of uncomfortable feelings such as sadness, anger or envy. But the truth is, that we're afraid of all feelings and we're constantly running away from them. Because even when happiness tries to flow through us, we're too afraid of that happiness coming to an end, and we push it away before it can leave us. We look for reasons why we don't deserve joy, and in that search, we find them and we believe them.
So we numb ourselves to not feel too much, and at the same time, we lie to ourselves and everyone around us. We tell ourselves and the world around us that we want to be free and happy, while having happiness and freedom available to us 24/7, and still not daring to grab it and experience it, because we know, that to experience profound joy also means experiencing profound sorrow. So in order to keep the sorrow away, we also push happiness away.
Back to basics
And so we're back to basics. Looking at the duality of life and starring at the big fat truth of it all, which is that we can't have one thing without the others. You either experience life at its fullest or you don't. You either allow yourself to truly live by allowing yourself to truly feel, or you keep yourself from truly living by keeping yourself from truly feeling.
So my question to you today is... what's is going to be? Will you dare to live while you're given the chance, or will you wake up to what it truly means to live, when it's time to die?
I don't have the right answer for you. I only have the right answer for me, because thankfully, I have a soul that speaks to me everyday and who I've learned to listen to above all the human noise within and around me. So I'll share with you what my soul advices me to do. It advices me to live. It advices me to feel. It advices me to go all in, to stop doing for doing, and to start doing while experiencing, so that the doing becomes the being. And I'm pretty sure, that your soul might feel the same way.
Love,
Mary.
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