How many of us are scurrying around, glorifying the busy schedule and saying yes to everyone but ourselves? And if we were to fully analyze this, how many of us are doing this to escape time with ourselves? A dreaded window with no one to be with to distract us from the real reality, that it all comes back to us. All of it. Both lightness and darkness.
We want to share our experiences with others in the world, yet the only permanent way to regain center and allow forth our evolution is to first master the silences and moments alone. Develop a strong and disciplined inner world, then, share that with the external.
When we take the time to allow the stimulus we receive on the outside to integrate into a full response on the inside, we give our souls the most nourishing ground to grow from. This is how we transmute the experience into an expansion and continue to become whole.
This is how we understand, neutralize triggers and clear away any karma so that new and better things can be received. Once something is understood, it changes.
If we are walking around, turning left and right before our heads even catch up, we accumulate scattered energy and further fragment its pieces all around us. Like a drunken sailor on the inside, the Soul struggles to walk straight while the Mind on the outside controls... Just a little bit more, one more effort, go, go, go! Don't stop, you made promises, you have commitments! Get up like a soldier, stop questioning and do your day. Just like yesterday, just like tomorrow. Go faster, and ignore the problems.
And at the end of it all, we lose ourselves. We lose the lessons, the whispers, the mirrors reflecting back the gifts of insight so that we can evolve. But life evolves around us anyway, there are Greater Forces at play, and they will catch up to us if we do not know how to stand strong and firm in our need to ground. In our need to put ourselves first.
Getting there is uncomfortable, nobody enjoys the racket of the mind when they first begin to meditate, or be alone. Few enjoy getting to know their habits so intimately, and discover that perhaps they are human. Addicted, sad, needy, lonely.
Those are the parts we need to understand and love. Love and transform. We are nobody and somebody just like everybody else, and just like everybody else we deserve to be happy within. And we become happy by creating the peace we need and deserve when we understand what is getting in the way. Then we can release it, and call in the good stuff. Then we can appreciate it and not attach to it when we receive it from others.
Some people receive validation from the external, perhaps by wearing flashy clothes, highlighting aspects of their bodies, overperforming or people pleasing. When challenged, the problem also remains outside of them. And it is a shame, there's a whole University of life they are missing on!
Some others instead have found the way to receive validation from the internal. Here, no matter what they do or wear or say, they are aligned with their true sense of value. They know the only source of joy and pain can come from within, and they defend it gracefully.
H.H. Tenzin Gyatso, the XIV Dalai Lama of Tibet once said, "To be aware of a single shortcoming within oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in somebody else."
Start small, take a nap if you feel overwhelmed, try a meditation. Remove one thing from your calendar. Spend time with yourself to understand what it is you believe you are getting from others in all of this noise, that you can give to yourself. Approval? Control? Happiness? Don't forget to give yourself permission to feel guilty at first that you are 'escaping a responsibility'. Of course we need to function and be useful members of society. Life moves, and you move, even when standing still. When we find stillness, the Universe surrenders. Everyone will be okay without you for a little while. I promise. Taking a step back from the busy currents of life is the only place to charge into the next change, and serve others better.
