Too much to do: exploring your passions

I have what I like to call an empty calendar allergy. It's stronger than an aversion, more like a compulsion. Even as I'm spinning in circles (like a Sufi dancer, I hope--enlightenment / ecstasy to be obtained in the process), hoping for some downtime, it's almost impossible for me to accept HAVING it.

There's too much to do, so little time. As Lynnette pointed out in her comment yesterday, we can have quite a laundry list of 'passions' to occupy us....and how do you know what the 'one' is? Maybe it's like knowing 'who' the one is when we meet him? Maybe it requires trusting your intuition to pull you in the right direction, no matter where that direction leads, accepting life as an exploratory adventure as much as a well-lit path with a certain destination.

It's not about drifting. It's not about learning to like something. It might be about trying something, just to discover it consumes you. I gave rock-climbing a try last month. I'd been dying to do it for years--I loved the memory of clambering up rocky hills and bluffs as a kid, loved living near the Rockies as an adult--mountains within reach, so beautiful it almost hurts to have all that rising up in you and in front of you. I truly love mountains. Although apparently not enough to move to one. Same with forests. Love being amid the trees and rocks of a northern woodland. Not crazy about hanging out in the woodlands of Florida (remember that fear thing? I really am okay never facing how I feel about reptiles. They have their place in the world, and we / they should not be occupying it together. Just sayin'). Yet, I live in Florida, because of all the things I love and want to do / be / whatever...most of them sit here. If I won the lottery (I understand...playing increases those odds substantially), I might not live here, so I guess part of what I care about is my job.

But back to rock climbing. I wanted to climb. I could see myself doing it, even though heights terrify me. This, perhaps, is key--if you are willing (or anxious) to try something despite your fear, and not because of it (in other words, it's about the doing, not the facing of the fear), that's a good sign it's something you should do more of. But that doesn't make it a passion--makes it something worth doing. Rock climbing? I liked it. Will do it again. A passion? Not to the extent of consuming my life. Not something I'd take vacations to do, although I might make it part of one spent doing something else. See the difference?

I think we'll be looking at this more deeply--it seems like a lot of people have a lot of things they care about, and spend a lot of time doing...and it seems to divide their energy. Some of the people I admire most have one or maybe two deep passions, and it consumes their life. Not saying that's good or bad (might depend on the person), but it's definitely worth talking about.

Opening up and taking in

Hat tip to Jennifer Todd of Just Breathe Orlando for making me see chakras from a different perspective. She's doing a series of classes on the chakras, and I've missed all of them except last night's on the brow chakra (aka the third eye). There's definitely something for me to explore there--a new way of looking at how our lower chakras (lower on the body, I mean--that is, root through solar plexus) open to place us in the world and in our reality. If you're in the Orlando area, check her out.

I'm also in the middle of a book called Advanced Chakra Healing (the author escapes me at the moment, and the book is in another room). It's part of why I went to Jennifer's class last night.

While I spend a fair amount of time talking to people about their passions, and what living their truth means to them, I sometimes forget to check in with myself--I often end up drifting into things that are good, are helpful, aren't 'me.' One of the paths that turns me on is energy work. I have a hard time seeing how I can use that as anything more than interesting fun (emphasis on 'I'), so it gets shoved to the back except for almost daily Reiki on myself and when requested by others. Journeying is another love. A lot of the journeying I do for healing (of self and others) includes energy work, which is probably not typical for shamanic practice, but seems to be just right for me. So now I'm consciously checking in with Jennifer's work, and the work laid out in this book, to ramp up how I combine the two practices--it feels right, so I think I'm onto something.

'nough about me, though--how about you? Do you see a glimmer of what you could really love to do a lot of?

Intent: be selfish

Today, do just one thing that means everything to you, whether it means anything to anyone else.

Fear and consequences

"You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

I don't know the context of that line, so I'm going to make one up. I don't think it's the same as saying you have to face your fears--really? Stand outside in a lightning storm just to prove you can?

But I do think that when it comes to making your life take a path that means something to you--when it comes to creating a life of passion and meaning--you cannot let what scares you hold you back.

Unfortunately, I think a lot--maybe most--of us do exactly that. We are afraid to be great. Afraid that if we do this, that we will be expected to do it more than once--and what if once is all we have?

Once might be enough, you know. Harper Lee changed the world with To Kill a Mockingbird.

But worse--what if you never try? What if trying once led you to a place where doing exactly whatever it was you were meant to be doing was all that was in front of you? What if the gods were just waiting for you to be right there to shower you with blessings beyond imagining--you just had to be standing under the right waterfall thinking the right thing?

What draws you--what creates the path in front of you--is always important, or you wouldn't be doing it. I've said it before--paying the bills is a strong motivator and a great reason to do whatever it is you're doing. But somewhere in your life, immerse yourself in what matters most.

The one(s) that got away

Regret for the things we did not do is inconsolable...or so I've read.  I suppose that depends on whether you feel regret--or perhaps, whether you can instead let go of it and recognize (among other things--I'm typing VERY fast this morning, so trying to keep it simple while I eat breakfast and rush off to work) that just because you didn't act on an option in front of you--even one that made all your senses sing--doesn't mean you made a bad choice.

I was proofreading an interesting computer book the other day (yes, actually interesting) and remembered the classes I took in college and kind of wondering whether if I'd done something with that, if I'd have ended up doing something interesting, important, and lucrative.

Then I remembered that 99% of the time I find computer manuals really, really boring, and I'd have to know the boring stuff to get to do the interesting stuff. So in the end, that was easy.

But some choices aren't so easy. I suggest that when we feel regret for something we didn't do (or did, for that matter), that we sit with the question 'what if' for a few minutes. See how it feels to have lived that choice. If it feels really, really good, maybe that's a sign to do something about it--there is very little in life that is too late to do (major league baseball and other people's spouses or jobs being among the things you probably should just let go of) -- but was your passion really to run WalMart? Or was it to own a successful business, supplying whatever it is that you think WalMart supplies? Was it to be curator of a great museum, or was that a cover for fear of an archeology degree and digging in the dirt (or vice versa)?

It's easy to let go of the choices that "might have been" if you concentrate on "what do I really want now."

No teacher but myself

Wednesday's post came from a section in Pema Chodron's book where she's discussing teaching the dharma to yourself. And then I opened Spiritual Liberation to this: Beckwith talks about opening ourselves up to Spirit (having an 'existential encounter'), to filling ourselves with "fire from heaven" and listening to the messages of Spirit in cultivating particular qualities (or fill in the blank with any message you like, I suppose—if you're looking for clarity on a life path, for example). And then observing throughout the day where we stand. Asking ourselves, he says, "Where is my consciousness?" I think we forget—I know I do—that although the teacher is helpful, sometimes even necessary to provide us with some idea of where to go and what the path might look like along the way, we don't really need an intermediary of any kind—no teacher but ourselves, no tool of divination but our own willingness to sit on the cushion and check in.

Starting where I am ... wherever I am

"Each time you're willing to see your thoughts as empty, let them go, and come back to your breath, you're sowing seeds of wakefulness, seeds of being able to see the nature of mind, and seeds of being able to rest in unconditional space. It doesn't matter that you can't do it every time. Just the willingness, the strong determination to do it, is sowing the seeds of virtue." (Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are, p 86)

Finding random bits of wisdom

Michael Bernard Beckwith is one of those shining lights of truth and magic. Every once in awhile, I actively remember that and go pull my copy of Spiritual Liberation off the shelf and open it randomly, seeing what Spirit pops me with. Sunday, I did that, pulling off the same shelf Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are and Gregg Braden's The Divine Matrix ... looking for random bits of wisdom to post this week while I sort some things out and decide if anyone but me is interested.

So I opened Spiritual Liberation to this: Let us not make excuses for ourselves. ....Gandhi....the Dalai Lama, and other emissaries of peace...are all ordinary people who have responded to life in an extraordinary way. Their mothers weren't virgins; they didn't arrive on the planet by special means. ... It is not necessary to don monastic robes or clerical collars...to be counted among the growing number of spiritual revolutionaries. ... Start Right Where You Are [header] (Spiritual Liberation, pp 124, 125)

Huh. Here I am in the middle of a periodic reevaluation of what's going on and how (or whether) I'm contributing anything to the spiritual well-being of the world (and beating myself up over the lack of progress on several things over the past couple of months), and I open this book at random to find a heading staring at me that is similar to the title of the next book in the stack. And it's a great reminder: Start where you are. Not being a terribly accomplished quantum magician, I'm pretty sure I do not have the ability to go back and change anything. I have to start where I am. Truthfully, I've started from worse places, so I suppose that's an improvement.

Blaming it on the weather

I'm blaming it on the weather. Note the date of my last post: Groundhog Day. Nearly six weeks ago (I've been counting). During that time, it has continued to be cold and icky and windy, and....really, what's up with that? I LIKE winter in Florida. I LIKE being able to open my windows and turn off the heat and air conditioning both. I do NOT like two solid months of what we've had for the past two solid months.

It's thrown me off balance, off track. Which feels like an excuse, and not a good one. The last time I felt this knocked off balance (by the weather, at least), it was the fall of 2004. You know, after three hurricanes in six weeks.

So Saturday night, driving to an event where I was doing tarot readings, I was talking to myself in the car (out loud, which is the only way that counts...just thinking a conversation isn't the same thing): I refuse to be defeated by the weather. Not sure that matters, now that it's finally starting to warm up. But more than that, I've decided to take my own advice. In my creativity workshop, I tell people: when you can't be creative—when it just isn't flowing—do it anyway. (Whatever 'it' happens to be.) Even if you can only do a little—since I'm generally talking to writers, the advice is to write 100 words a day. Because the doing will bring about the creativity and spark to do. So it might be a week of 'random bits of wisdom,' but I'll blog. I went to the farmers' market Saturday, in defiance of my (overscheduled) calendar. Went for a hour-long walk yesterday (my intention is to walk for an hour each day—I did it on a treadmill at the gym, I ought to be able to find the time to do it without the drive!). And I opened myself up to some random intersections of truth (more on that issue another time) to propel me along the path. Whatever the weather.