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What Do You Do When the Ride Is Wild?
With so much going on to knock you sideways and dampen your energy, how do you keep going? How do you find equanimity and grace? How can you keep your heart open?
You've made it through two recent full eclipses. You have more and more demands on your life: whether it's living through your teen's angst, aging parents, work demands, or the horrors in Kenya, Syria, Palestine--on and on. If you are like most of us you feel barraged from all directions.
This is when you need embedded ways of shifting--embedded so you can draw on them effortlessly, memorized so your body will do them almost automatically, practiced enough that you know they work.
It's the most challenging times in my life that have taught me the importance of having practices I can draw on when I am too tired to think, when I have too much on my plate, when everyone wants something from me right away. Now is one of those times.
"Practice Makes Perfect"
This old adage is true. Humans revert to what they know. So when a person has rejected their childhood religion--but never replaced it with some other form of spirituality--they are likely to revert to the old ways on their deathbed. Likewise, we return to our old habits under stress. Whether your habit is worry or self-blame, overthinking or feeling not enough, stress and crisis will bring up your old, familiar responses. Right?
The good news is: you can change this. You can learn to change your energy, which then shifts your attitude and response.
I experienced this--once again--just the other day. I got an enthusiastic email from a potential workshop sponsor. It was a great gift, and a great opportunity. BUT, what did I do? I focused on one out of many things she was suggesting--a fee that was not what I wanted, not quite enough. I knew this was a crazy response, because I really wanted to work with this woman.
A few years ago I would have been stuck there. But I have learned and embedded many practices to help me shift my energy. So I went outside and did five minutes of Qi Gong to re-center and reconnect. Five minutes, and my whole attitude shifted. Everything felt fine, because it really wasn't about the money in this circumstance. Reconnecting reminded me that my intent is the experience, the community, and sharing my passions in a new place.
Repetition Changes Outcome
In a conversation the other day, I explained with great passion how repetition of an energy-shifting practice takes you deeper into your inner authority. This means, I said, that the practice--something like Energy Alchemy, a hard workout, meditation, or Qi Gong--helps you expand, connect beyond your small self, and even experience some ego dissolution. As you repeat a practice that helps you shift, your body remembers. Your spirit and heart remember that they feel better when you do it. This fuels a trajectory: your response to your life, your circumstances, and the demands on you become radically different than if you don't do the practice. Your experience and your perception change. And then in a crisis you can access the tool that works, just like I did.
The questions really are: what's the cost of being stuck your whole life? Do you want to evolve into who you were meant to be? And where will you find the guidance you need, the support to keep going, and the courage to move towards your true self, the courage to become?
Blessings of the burgeoning spring,
Meg Beeler/Earth Caretakers
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