I start my day off with a cup of fresh brewed coffee…..I love the smell, the taste, the heat, the ritual and how the pot makes that inviting gurgle sound I know so well, the memories it evokes…all summoning me to this magnificent pleasure. I’m picky about my beans, the ‘cream’ I use, that it’s heated first, the cup I sip from. I like things the way I like them.
And that is okay in many cases….and in others, not so.
After I’ve fed my hounds, kitties and fish, I take my cup of joe and head back to my comfy bed to sit, back straight and I sit. I let a whirl of thoughts invade my mind. I have a strong and active mind. It needs taming. But I let it swirl about while I sip my brew.
I consider the day ahead, what I intend to accomplish, what I need to carry to the office, my meetings, what I will wear, an offshoot thought of a faraway project, if I need to scoot into the city in the evening and who I might meet, how I need to serve my team…if I need to make a lunch for later, an image of this, an image of that, a memory. Random, scattered, untamed thinking.
And then my cup is abandoned a spell and I shut my eyes, I breathe, I bring my awareness into the center of my circle, (me), (I’m usually way out ahead), and as I bring myself back into this central place, I feel something settle inside me and then I drop my awareness into my heart. A few errant thoughts work to invade, but back I come….to my heart.
As I focus on my breath and where I am in the circle of me, there is a peace, a calm, so very unlike the way I whirl about most of my days. I call this home. This is home. I feel a peace, a quiet and a confidence that I have all that I need. I need little else when I remember and practice this.
After readying for work, off I fly on four wheels, going through in my mind what needs to be covered at our team meeting, I park, pull out a needed umbrella for this rainy morning and trudge toward the pretty wooden doors of Carl House, carrying my loads of parcels and computer. I pull out my phone as I walk inside to record some ideas I have for stories I want to write and then by 8:50am, I can feel my neat, confident circle vanish. A miscommunication with a team member and too much assuming, shifting my energy in a heartbeat with this first conflict and disappointment of my day.
I next climb the 2 flights of stairs to my office, lugging my pounds and pounds of bags, (no need for bicep curls at the gym with my daily bundle), and work to answer my phone as I nearly drop my load of goods. Yet another intruder, a threatening government agency working their muscle and subtle powers of intimidation on me, (their job). Now my breathing is wrong. I’ve not been taking full breaths during these last challenging months and suddenly, the knots on my shoulders feet like hot, heavy irons and my buoyant energy from a mere 30 minutes ago has sunk to the elevator bottom and I am mired in yuck, dark, stringy, stinky muck. And it’s not even 9am!
So what’s missing…what am I not doing? What is bringing me to this off kilter manifestation so regularly of late? And I mean REGULARLY. I’m undone more often than not undone. I consider the culprits…..projections, feeling the need for safety, answers, control, to understand, to be understood, not having my expectations met. All of the above…and more!
EXHAUSTING! So what is missing?
Tonight I remembered. Surrender. So easy to do in my bed, where I am quiet, safe, uninterrupted by life. I’m finding that as I sincerely surrender, (and to me, it’s to God, the Universe, ‘All that Is’, he, she, them, it…..I don’t care…..call it what you will). This is not a surrender of giving up, no, not at all, it takes more strength for me to surrender than it does to muscle through ALL the ‘stuff’ I find myself sorting through in any given day. Oooh, my mind muscle is strong, seasoned in this sweet irony.
BUT, as I come back to ME, invite the guidance and support which is available to me in every moment, I find that place again, my breath, a center…and inspiration comes, an answer if I ask, in time. It has nothing to do with me driving this particular bus….I’m not the driver, it’s not up to me.
And how challenging for a ‘driver’ like myself, driving my will, ideas, my strength and inspirations, working to orchestrate how each turn is made, how each flower will blossom, each relationship might unfold. ME! The believer in magic, getting so confused with surrender and push. It happens. It’s easy I find to get confused.
Push me, pull you, push me, pull you….the merri-go-round of life.
But tonight, tonight, I re-remembered. When I release the need to ‘know’, to ‘control the outcome, but allow, (a beautiful word), I can feel the deep sadness and disappointment which follow me daily, dry up and my shoulders drop a solid inch, my breathing returns and I’m reminded of the very possibilities which I espouse.
We know everything, but merely forget. And the guidance that is available to us in the unseen, can be felt if we’ll but tune in, it is there, this I know. I’ve felt it, channeled the guidance, experienced the results, and worked the messages received into plenty.
The only thing that’s missing at times, is ME. The power of me. The power of home and all that is available if I’ll just sit there and let go the driving wheel. No hands…just trust and heart.
And how difficult as we’ve all been hurt, trusted wrongly perhaps, been bent over plenty of whipping posts or been thrown under a beer truck or two. And, it hurts. If we are open to friendship, love and possibility, it can hurt.
I think perhaps that is what I am here to learn on the planet, to keep my heart open, regardless of what happens around me…to tune into me, where all the answers, truth and guidance is found. And oh, the things that manifest if I’ll but remember, trust and practice.
‘Let go Dorothy, let go’. A good man that Oz!
There is NO place, like home.
BB Webb