My birthday is approaching, and I think it's fitting to spend these last few days of my 25th year with a bit of reflection.
It's been a road since we moved up to Oregon. It's always a road... Bumpy... Smooth... Sharp inclines and unexpected turns at times... Other times the way seemingly stretches on, placidly, with no change in sight. Sometimes I'm cool with where I am, and I relax a little, venture a look from side to side, and take a satisfied breath in with the view. Other times I'm knitting my eyebrows and craning my neck to see ahead, desperate to know what the future holds, chiding myself back into presence. Chiding never works.
Along this road there is an ever-present uneasiness that has a tendency to dance around me as I make my way. Like a hyped up little kid, it skips around, to and fro, as I go about my business. It hangs back and quiets down when I distract myself with work, food, TV, what-have-you. Sometimes it gets louder and more annoying than the distractions, and I let it get to me. Other times, I'm patient with it and I give it a good pat on the head and let it be. The point is, this uneasiness is always there, and I think it's a good idea to address it while I'm in a nice and patient, pat-the-cute-thing-on-the-head - kind of mood.
As I sit and reflect, I realize a lot of my mental energy is devoted to, for lack of a better way to put it, trying to be a good person. I try to do well at my job. I try to be a good wife. I try to be a good daughter. I try to be a good samaritan. I try to be a good citizen of this world so I can contribute something positive to it. All this effort is well and good, until the trying turns into over thinking it, and that turns into stressing.
Then, instead of trying to be a good person, I'm stressing about being a good person. The stress contributes to second thoughts and self-doubt, and if I let that get to me, well, nothing good comes out of that: I tremble before work and find myself asking my husband, with a nervous girly giggle, if he loves me. All of the sudden, the whole "trying to be good" thing is out the window, and I'm nursing the wounds I've created by doubting myself by seeking love and affirmations outside of myself.
It's ludicrous, and a dangerous net to catch yourself in. It may start with a good intention. You want to do well. You want to be good. But the moment you let your monkey mind jibber-jabber in your head about the "correct" way to do things, what would make others happy, what would make you look good in the light of others, your mind goes on a rampage and develops superficial fears and desires on which the ego feasts. The ego, being concerned with self-image in the light of others, grows fat and takes over. That's when you lose sight of yourself, and the good intention you started with. When you forget you, and concern yourself only with that which is outside of you, uneasiness is experienced. You experience uneasiness because you're not living for you any longer - you're living for your ego, which lives for what others think of you.
So the key is that you can't forget about yourself. You can't forget what sparked your good intention in the first place. Perhaps I want to be a good person, wife, daughter and teacher because I simply love people and I want to give to them. It's dang easy to get confused and convince yourself that what other people are thinking about you is the only way to gauge how you're doing. That's not the only way, and if you try to gauge how you're doing by relying on what other people think, you'll drive yourself and your relationships into the ground.
My advice, which I think I feel comfortable giving, because this is my life-exploration right now, is this: before you engage in your work and relationships, first connect with your self. I'm going to go further than that. Fall in love with yourself.
If you can't experience love for the most important person in your life - you - there's no way you can bring true and honest love into what you do and who you're with. If you can't bring good, honest love into your work and relationships, there's not much you can get out of those things - aside from a dose of inexplicable uneasiness. Partaking in life's activities and forging relationships with others without loving yourself first is like trying to enjoy food without tasting it. You keep eating, and scanning your plate for what's next while you're still chewing, thinking and hoping the next bite will satisfy.
Forging a loving connection with yourself eliminates self-doubt, which shushes the chatty part of your mind that tries to tell you to feed the ego, who tries to convince you that you don't matter, only other people and what they think of you do.
How do you love yourself? Be present. Stop. Seriously, just stop. Stop trying. Stop thinking. Stop stressing. Stop reading. Close your eyes and take a big. Full. Breath. Fill up. Fill up the lungs, feel full; feel it reach capacity. Hold it in for a moment and notice silence. Notice sounds of the room, of outside. Notice that you can control your breath. Allow that thought to empower you. Let it out. Relax. Relax jaw. Relax neck. Relax shoulders. Realize that you are enough. Realize that everything you could ever desire in life is already within you, beneath the layers of thinking, stress and self doubt - it's here, with you, right now, waiting for you to put the protesting ego on the back burner and accept.
Only in the silence of the present moment can we feel the love for the self. Only in the present moment can we feel our strength, our capacity, our vitality, our joy. It's a natural tendency to move about life mindlessly, forgetting about what's going on inside our hearts and minds. It's a good practice to remember to remember yourself. Only when you remember you, can you shed uneasiness, live fully and truly bring goodness into your world.
The key to loving your life is loving your self. The key to loving yourself is finding your way into presence. I will close with a quote from Deepak Chopra:
The only moment that never ends is now. The most important activity in your life is what you are doing now. The most important people in your life are the ones you are with now. The most important way to create your future is to be present now.
Turn your attention from reading this, to the one that's reading. Be aware of the listener.
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