Cazitudes

Reflections - JQ17

JQ17 - Does your faith allow you to accept what you don't always understand?

Hmmm.  I must admit that this one has always been a bit of a churn for me.  What is faith?  What is belief?  Without the colour of institution or tradition? When I looked at the core meaning of the words in definition, turns out they are slightly different views with very different expressions.  Truth.  Let's go on a little word trip, so I can expound on what I mean...

faith (n.) - a complete trust or confidence in someone or something
                    trust (n.) - reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc, of a person or thing
                                        reliance (n.) - confidence
                    confidence (n.) - belief in the powers, trustworthiness or reliability of a person or thing

belief (n.) - an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists
                     acceptance (n.) - the act of taking or receiving something offered, favorable reception; approval
                     reception (n.) - the act of receiving, to take into one's possession (something offered or delivered)
                                                 possession (n.) - ownership, territorial dominion
                                                                                dominion (n.) - sovereign authority

I could drill down further, and I am sure it would circle back upon itself to the start point... though the divergences one could travel, through the meanings, would make for an interesting sidebar meander.

Back to my thesis.  As I ponder and consider the depth of the meaning of the words themselves, a certain energy emerges.  One passive, one active.  One giving over personal power, the other resting in it.  One turning over to another, the other recognizing self state of being.

The bridge between the two is confidence, I suppose allowing an individual to actively take up both expressions.

I personally would rather take up the energy of belief.  To accept is to actively choose, with sovereign authority; there is an interactive play in belief, a sense of co-creation.  Something I subscribe to.

My experience with faith is somewhat tattered and betrayed.  My belief, however, has been enduring through many a tribulation.  So, I suppose in order to answer this question I shall need to swap out the word 'faith' for 'belief.'  [If I were to remain my energy in the term 'faith' as I've described it above, this would be a very short journal entry - the answer is 'no.']

Does my belief allow me to accept what I don't always understand?  Yes, resoundingly.

I believe in the power of now.  I believe in this endless, eternal universe and the synchronicities that abound through divine expressions.  I believe in connection and interconnection, that none can do without the any. I believe love is the universal currency, limitless.  I know I do not understand many things -- things are not always as they seem, and so - and my belief in the higher, greater good and the eternal streams of existence and expression allows acceptance of that which I do not (yet) understand. 

Eventually that which is not understood comes to light with clarity, even grace. That, I believe without hesitation; I've experienced it, I experience it.  That is the eternal thread of life.

In my personal view, faith can become a rigid dictate, vastly influenced by external opinion; belief is dynamic and evolving and pliant to those open-minded and willing to examine with forward thought and consideration.

I recognize many will take issue with the point of view expressed.  That's okay, I believe they are privileged with such option!

And, so.  Yes.  My belief allows me to accept what I don't always understand; I believe that truth and understanding is always in motion, revelatory as I, and when I, can comprehend it.  And, life is.  Life is...

 

"Man is made by his belief; as he believes, so he is."
     ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe~

Reflections - JQ16

JQ16 - What will you be remembered for?

I want to be remembered as one who helped others discover
how to transmute their personal fears into their personal empowerment;
to be remembered as one who held space for others
to discover themselves in all their glorious potential.
I want to be remembered as helping others heal and be their better selves...

Reflections - JQ15

JQ15 - How do you see your future if you don't change?

Well.  It's simple, really...

Untested.  Undiscovered.  

Unspent.  Undone.

Uncertain.  Ultimately, unlived.

Is why I've stepped off the perennial hamster-workwheel... time is the only currency we cannot regenerate in this dimensioned span of earthly animation we have right now.  Once it's gone, it's gone, this iteration of 'me.'

Time to bust patterns and discover expanded boundaries of experience.  To test and discover, and spend that time to full-value.  To do and see and hear and feel and taste and touch and reflect and express and, with determined certainty, live.

Every year a different one - with new places and new people and new ideas and understandings, new wisdoms and expressions.  Evolution of expressions... immersed in moments of is, not in thoughts of could-be.

So.  If not now, when?  Change is the best kick-starter to adventure I've discovered in life.  Truly.  It's as good as a rest...

 

Reflections - JQ14

JQ14 - Do your mistakes become lessons or guilt?

So, reading the accompanying image, one could read into it a tone of delivery - it could be a defiant f%$#-you tone, no apologies, or it could be a whisper of airy wisdom, couched in resignation.  Or maybe a matter-of-fact-that's-how-life-rolls delivery.  Or in anger, wrapped up in a big dose of shame, ribboned with guilt.

Or, it could be a launchpad declaration, gently confident with another comment on the end that says, "and even so, I will share what I've learned and hopefully you can dodge the ditches that I dwelled in."

Me,  I choose the ditch-dodging opportunity to share from my mistakes to those who'd like to listen.

My mistakes used to bind me up in guilt, worn like a disabling straight-jacket around my emotions.  I lived in fear - of judgment, of being 'hauled up on the carpet,' of 'being called out,' of 'being found wanting,' of 'not measuring up.'  I feared my mistakes would disqualify me from acceptance, of being ousted by the tribe.  

The cloak of guilt is so heavy, it immobilizes the soul.  Makes it hard to breathe.

I lived that whole walking on eggshells gig for years.  "WHAT IF THEY FIND OUT THIS, OR THAT, OR THIS ABOUT ME?"  I made some doozy mistakes... doozies!  Didn't cost just me, but also my kids, my family, a cost of time and truth and trust.

My mistakes all caught up to me. In a frenzied jump'n'dump.

Ka-ploof!

Busted!

Funny, when you come to the end of yourself, you begin to see and understand that your mistakes actually paved the way to your personal victories.  That you began to discover your personal potentials and abilities, to be all Sister's doing it for herself!  It's a tremendous and soul-inspiring realization, when it hits, just like the stockpile of mistakes did...

Ka-pow!

My life's amazing!  And I can do, and be, as I wish!

Mistakes mean very simply that I am living, I am trying, I am continuing - there is no mastery without practice, without risk.

I will continue, I'm sure, to make mistakes.  It is my heart-hope that they are far and few between, that they are benign, and that I 'get it' faster, deeper, with more compassion and awareness than I've done to date in life.

Life and living, it's for the live and living... may our mistakes feather out the wings of our capacities and potentials, that we bear brightly as we learn higher and better ways!

And Life is...

Reflections - JQ13

JQ13 - Do you understand that surrender is letting go, not giving in?

Learning this truth took me half my lifetime (and maybe a little longer) and a raging internal battle that wouldn't cease until life laid me flat out in the middle of the proverbial crossroads - my world had to come apart at the seams for me to stop railing and get still, to stop the incessant noise of anxious cranial fret and get silent.

I had to be ground to an emotional halt before I could find the heart- and mind-space to get real.

I had to have my heart shattered.

I had to come to the end of myself and recognize I wasn't in control.

I had to stop hiding, stop pretending, stop fixing, stop fighting.

It wasn't until I realized, fully, that the only one hurting me, the only one disappointing me, the only one crushing me, the only thing keeping me locked up and chalked up was... myself.

I was holding on to illusions and false understandings. I was being driven by external expectations, my own and others. I realized in the middle of my deepest eviscerations and disappointments that I could just... let go.  

Surrender.  

Say, 'enough.'  Simply.  Enough.

I watched and felt my heartache and heartbreak be as it was.  I watched my secrets surface and felt them, watched their power dissipate as I gave them no more stock.  I watched my fears realized - and I realized I was going to survive them all.  I watched my dreams return to two dimensional rest.  I stayed hours in the emotional mire with all of it, motionless.  I said, 'okay.  And so it all is.  Enough.'  

I let go.

I had no idea what that would entail; it did not bring about immediate relief, nor did it fix anything around me.  It did not make my world rosy, nor did it imbibe me with immediate emotional healing and strength in those moments of realization and release.

It did free me.  From the mental prison own self-driven illusions and assumptions.

When I finally, finally understood that things are not always as they seem and I surrendered to the unknowing truth and the incompleteness of my understanding, I was unshackled.

My descent was complete, my assent to an authentic version of me was started.

From the moment of my personal shattering to now is a growth and awakening I would not trade for anything.

I know now that surrender is letting go, not giving in.

Giving in would mean my boundaries were diminished, my essential self was less than.  Surrender means I know my essence and my worth and that hanging on to anything less than best for me would keep me bound.

There is no freedom in giving in.  That freedom of soul is something only ever attained by the act and art of surrender. 

It's a personal path and sojourn; it's found as one passes through the dark night of the soul; it's worth every ounce of experience getting there...

Reflections - JQ12

JQ12 - How often are you silent enough to hear God?

Not nearly enough, nor often enough.  Silence to hear, for me, is such a rarity that I think I've forgotten what it is like.  It has been so very long since I've had a pocket of silence.  So long, in fact, that I have chosen to relinquish my current career; I have tendered my resignation from the corporate life.  As of the 21st, I will no longer be in a job.  By choice.

This is scary and exciting and outlandish and necessary and something to anticipate.  I have chosen this change; there is power in that.  I could spend a great deal of time thinking about what it is I'm giving up as I step away from this career.  Or I could focus forward on what it is I want to create in my life.  The alchemist must give up a bit of gold to find the Philosopher's Stone, as it goes.

With this rescinding, I will have time for silence.  I will have time to sit and ponder.  I will have time to sweep out the years-long clamour and contention and corporate conundrums.  I will have time to think ahead, get creative, plot a personal path, write, read.  Ah, yes.  Read. To nourish the soul.

I can focus on studies, finish up this psychotherapy preparation, get my designation, get busy doing what I love:  help others transmute their fears to self-empowerment.

And the path to my personal fulfillment is one with a stretch of silence - enough silence that will allow me to hear the voice of the Divine speak.

I look forward to establishing a daily morning practice, uninterrupted or distracted from worldly matters, to sit.  In silence.  And listen.

And here is to the next chapter, the next season, the next adventure.  It's time.