I seem to be going through a massive letting go, a releasing of something big in readiness for a new way of being. I am stripping everything away, everything I thought I knew is dissolving into a soup of uncertainty, of not knowing, of present-ness. I will have to totally trust this process otherwise I will crumble. And yet, even if I crumble that will be part of the process too. I have been holding on for dear life, yet dying too in these constraints.
It feels like the world is moving very fast – not the physical, hurried pace of this physical reality – but on a deeper level, on a consciousness level. I can either go with the flow of this river or suffer trying to go against the current. It feels as if I am being taken somewhere. I can go kicking and screaming or I can go gently, willingly, with curiosity. I can allow myself to be swept along in it, with it, to where it needs to go. Trusting that I will be taken care of.
I am having to let go of everything. Physical possessions, ideas and concepts about how I should live my life, people who I ‘follow’, relationships, the routines and methods I have set up around me to protect myself, to make myself feel safe. Little I read is resonating with me, I am in information overload, and I am more and more having to simplify my life, be present, live each moment for its own sake. Any knowledge I have is slipping away, not seeming relevant or up to date any more.
I am almost ready to drop my business. The business that was never meant to thrive because I set it up from a place of needing money rather than following my heart. I am not quite ready. But I feel that it will drop me somehow. That my energy will leave it completely and I won’t even have to make a decision about it.
All this is very scary. Very uncomfortable. I feel very vulnerable. I have only my inner resource, by which I mean Life itself, to give me solace, reassurance, acceptance of where I am at. Nothing else can give it to me. No books, no people, no symbols, no material things.
I am also having to relinquish any idea of clinging on to ‘proof’ of who I am. I have wanted for a long time to make some sort of enormous recording of my life – my journal notes, my art, my blog, my book. I have had an obsessive need to collate them all, control them, express them in one big package that is ‘My Life’. I think all of this is part of the holding on, trying to find some security. But now it feels as if the rug is being pulled from under my feet, that I am going to have to stand on my own two feet, but with the support of the Universe, not the material things that are only signposts to our living. There is nothing left to hold on to, whether people or objects, or philosophies and concepts.
I have a new understanding of timing and flow. I can try and figure out what to let go of, when to take action or when to stay still but it will all happen when it’s meant to, despite my planning. There is nothing I have to do with any of my thoughts, nothing I have to work out or analyse or direct or control. Things will happen when they happen. There will be endings and new beginnings regardless of any input on my part. I simply have to follow where the energy takes me.
This may seem all very passive. Yet it feels like a strength to be vulnerable and open and unknowing, to sink into Life and what it wants from me, through me, for me.
Am I stepping into Life, or stepping out of Life? Such is my uncertainty that for now I can’t
even tell the difference.
There are no rules. Ever. They only exist in our own minds although they can seem as concrete as the buildings around us. My thoughts are telling me that I can’t write these words. That I can’t write. In. This. Disjointed. Way. (ha, ha). But they are just thoughts, ephemeral clouds that pass through and go on their way. I don’t have to listen to them, I certainly don’t have to heed them.
There can’t be rules because everything is changing in every moment. What was true a minute ago may seem nonsense now. What inspires now may bore tomorrow.
Rules are simply a mental tethering of a concept that we construct to help us live with uncomfortable feelings. Of uncertainty, insecurity, fear, panic, hatred, sadness, disappointment, helplessness. Even the good things such as joy and bliss and happiness.
And most of these feelings come from thoughts about the future or regrets about the past. Neither of which are now.
I have now frightened myself with the thought that there are no rules! Because I want to explore living without them. In total trust and faith and knowing that I will be looked after, that all my needs will be met. I thought I had gone some way to doing this, following my inspiration even though my mind is screaming at me to get a job. A year ago I told a friend who was going to India for 6 months that I couldn’t visit because I didn’t have any money.
But I am still here, and the money has come in. In trickles, in dollops, sporadically or regularly. From little photographic assignments, a generous partner, the disposal of unwanted items, surprise gifts and from card sales. I am writing a book, something that I have only dreamed of before, without knowing how or if it will be published, and I have ideas for a second. But at the back of my mind has been the constant fear of how I am going to earn a living without getting a conventional job. A job that restricts my freedom and drains me of my life-force. A job that makes me follow another’s inspiration rather than my own. A job which dismisses my ideas and self-expression as inappropriate or self indulgent and suppresses my natural curiosity and exploration of life.
I want to write. And I can’t not write. Even if it comes to nothing. Even though nothing ‘comes to nothing’. If it takes me in a certain direction, if it reveals insights to me, if it allows me to release what needs to be said and heard by myself, regardless of whether or not it has an impact on others, then I have done my job. Physically expressing the essence of my individual character out into the world.
I have been very aware that I have not posted recently and that my contribution to this blog has been erratic and inconsistent. Which would be OK if I was comfortable with that. But I have been bowing to internal pressures that say I should show up more frequently, that I am somehow lacking by not posting more regularly and that I ought to get into a routine which, over time, will become an automatic habit.
These pressures, although felt very keenly in my internal world, originate from the outside conditioning of books, articles and podcasts or from generally accepted cultural and societal expectations.
Everyone knows that in order to be more productive or have most impact we have to establish a practice that delivers, consistently.
But do we?
In the past, in an attempt to introduce some discipline into my life I was constantly creating daily schedules in the hope that giving equal attention to various projects would result in me achieving more. But the reality is that I can never stick to rigid prescriptions and, like a school timetable, they leave no space for what wants to emerge.
Since I made the decision to follow my inspiration, to be led by what moves me in the moment, I have found that my daily structure can be even more chaotic than it was before. Yet I still sometimes feel bound to follow a set of rules, even the simplest, most heart-based guidelines on what is the ‘right’ way to do things.
This process seems to be one of constant revision, an ever more subtle fine tuning of what it actually means to follow one’s own internal direction and impulses, to be absolutely free of outside influences.
I can be guilty of too radical a rejection of other’s input in pursuit of the lofty ideal of only following my own heart, but I think I am finding a kinder way of striking the right balance. I can still be open to information and ideas, be inspired by what I read or watch or hear but I don’t have to use it to fix or change the way I work or play. I don’t have to follow another’s blueprint, or adhere to hard and fast rules that have been ‘proven’ to promise success or fulfilment.
If something resonates with me I can allow it, absorb it and fully immerse myself in it, but I do not need to use it or reproduce it in order to produce an expected outcome.
All great artists, whether painters, sculptors, writers or dancers will have aspired to become like those that went before them. They will probably have surrounded themselves in their icons’ works, they may even have at first copied their style, but at some point their own explorations and experimenting would have taken them to new levels, to a new form of self expression and an individuation unlike anything that preceded them.
To be pioneers we need to break from existing trends, create new rules and forge new directions.
And this includes the pace at which we go.
It may mean we are subject to intense bouts of activity followed by a resting. A space for inner processing and digesting of outer forms.
We can not force the timings or control the impulses. We can only show up, take action when we are moved to, and be patient when we feel empty or uninspired.