Life can certainly be complicated sometimes. We have the capacity to know and learn so much, but sorting through the information available to us is its own particular challenge. We long for that one clear voice that stands out, ringing like a bell from amidst a clamoring, chattering room of dissonant voices. The one that says, Here is what you need to know. Here is what’s indisputably true. Just know this one thing, these few simple things, and you will have your answer. You will have the peace of mind you seek.
There is no denying that we can never completely escape the quantum complexity that can make life and decision-making so incredibly challenging. We can’t be certain how to navigate conflict in a relationship, what to choose as a major in college, or even figure out which toothpaste brand to buy. There are so many choices—so many directions to take!
Read MoreNovember has thus far been a beautiful opportunity to release into yin energy state, which is very much the opposite of my instinctive tendency to fill my life as full as possible with pursuits and activities, fearing always that if I am not creating then I am doing nothing meaningful, that if I do not stay active and engaged, I am losing invaluable opportunities which may never come again. That I can't ever take a break because I will miss something critical.
I am turning away from that more and more as I realize that my need to heal, and that it, me, the act of becoming, is more important, and that ceaseless frenzy of energy I have been trying to engage and output runs counter to my personal needs right now.
Releasing, stepping away - it is so difficult, because our culture does not encourage it. We are encouraged to fill our lives fully with activity, from working all day to binge watching television at night as we reach out unconsciously for food and drink to fill our bodies. When stressed, there is a pill to take or a tea to drink. Even meditation is a "thing" to try. A skill to learn. These learned ways of processing our world are shaped through the values our culture espouses and spreads from generation to generation, person to person, all enshrined in the lush promise of commodities and possessions: That we must seek them, must seek fullness. We are afraid of being without.
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