I’ve been thinking more lately about awareness, being fully awake spiritually, and the struggle I often have between things I want to start doing regularly and old tendencies/habits or perhaps a rebellion against doing what I think I “should”. Sometimes just when I have had a few really positive ideas and experiences and think that I’ll make that a regular part of my day, some part of me seems to resist. I may spend the day doing all house work, doctor work, playing Mahjong on the computer, and/or reading fun books ... but not exercising or seeing friends or walking or meditating or writing. (I’ve even had times when I went outside to meditate, and found myself walking away to do something that crossed my mind, and needed doing, without consciously deciding to stop meditating.) It feels a bit like having a part of me that doesn’t want to be “made”or told or coerced or pushed or forced into anything, even if it’s something I know is good.
Perhaps it means I’m approaching it wrongly, that it’s not best to make a list or schedule of things. On the other hand, all the people I’ve read and seen who develop a deep spiritual life or a balanced way of living write or talk about setting aside time in a habitual disciplined way for things such as meditation/prayer, exercise, writing (or whatever creative endeavor they engage in). But I clearly see in me a resistance to that. I think as I write this and feel/think about it that the process of inner feeling/vision/calling or discernment (asking/praying about each choice) feels better – I get a ‘yes’ feeling about that. Perhaps it has to do with my tendencies to want to do things well (perform) and be approved of, and if I make a list it feeds into those tendencies, while if I feel at each moment I’m more aware on the spirit level.
I’ve been thinking about the “shadow” self, that unconscious area we don’t accept or are unaware of or are afraid of, that Carl Jung wrote about. People who write about it say that often if we’re annoyed or angry about something in someone else, we should look at ourselves, because we often have that trait within us. Also I think if we admire or want some quality someone else has, we probably have that trait (at least to some extent) in ourselves, probably unrecognized and undeveloped. We often project our struggles and concerns on the people around us. It’s illustrated in the basic way we see the world and what we tell ourselves about it.
Sometimes I have the sense of really, truly encountering the world or another person without my own baggage and preoccupations interfering – a true connection and flow. The other day I was taking about a 45 minute slow exploring, meandering, experiencing walk in a park area I’m not usually in. I let myself wander wherever I felt like, and stop and look and feel. I saw hummingbirds, an owl, fat sparrows, mockingbirds, a jay, flickers, and a bird I don’t know the name of; small animal trails in the grass; many plants and flowers and trees; rocks; sun and shade. There was a numinous connection, and I felt refreshed, reborn. Sometimes when I’m with a patient or friend I totally forget myself and my attention is focused on them and I sense/feel what’s going on for them, and connection and communication are full and effortless and feel very good to both of us.
Then there are times when I’m aware of myself, almost like I’m playing a role on the screen of my life, aware that I have 10 other things I need to do, and I’m not truly being there, not truly connecting, not truly loving. Times where I’m resisting, retreating, wanting to close off, move away, numb out, escape.
So how do I wake up, become unstuck, untrapped, aware?
– become able to sense clearly, reflect and choose rather than just moving along in a realistic dream (following the flow of the world’s way, my family’s way, my friend’s way, my way, my ideas of the right way)?
– not automatically turn down the road the way I usually go?
– re-member (make myself anew)?
– inquire, feel, listen, be, choose, follow fully; with the right timing, right attitude, in full love, in full awareness, in Spirit, in body, in heart, in mind, in right relationship?
It feels like part of the answer is to retreat in a positive way, spend a minute or an hour or a day or a week to re-nourish and re-ground myself so I can truly perceive and care and love. And part of it is prayer, praying to the Holy Spirit, who moves in all things in this world, to help me sense the movement of spirit in and around me, so that we move together, in love and harmony and beauty and truth.
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