LETTING GO

In Aikido there is a practice called rondori, in which multiple attackers come at you from all directions, over and over. Some days life feels like that. Whether the things that show up are opportunities, challenges, or just there, it can feel a bit overwhelming, and once you get behind its hard to catch up. In rondori part of the practice is to select your opponents in an order that works for you, taking enough initiative to control the flow rather than simply reacting. Sometimes we can also do this in life, until that one thing shows up from your blind spot and throws you on your ear.

The egoic mind in its sense of isolation feels like this, that it must be always watching, anticipating, controlling, or it will get rolled under. This is a pretty tiring way to live your life. Between being alert and not getting down time we get worn out. You want to take a break, but the mind worries that when you take your eye off things something will pop up and bite you, or things might just fall apart when left on their own.

Spiritually we know that we live not as isolated egos creating and maintaining our world for our safety and survival, but as souls that are part of the web of life. No man is an island. We are a part of a larger whole. If we take a nap, the world is still there. If we take a vacation the world carries on. Our family and co-workers can usually be trusted to keep things going until we get back. Not everything has to be done right now, but will often keep until tomorrow. In fact letting things wait often allows time for them to resolve on their own, or for someone else to step up to handle them, or for the perfect piece of information to show up that shifts the whole matter.

Remembering that we are not alone, but part of an organic sentient web of life we can cultivate trust; trust the universe, trust spirit, trust our dance partners that we can step out for a bit and not have the whole world come down around our ears. Feeling the force we stop thinking and know what we need to do and the flow of the rondori is effortless. Trust that your higher self can see which things you really need to work with, and in what order, and know that if you miss one piece someone else will pick it up.

Allowing yourself to let go of the swirling world around you, you can find yourself; not as a reflection of all the things on your to do lists, but shining out from your own interior. Dropping into yourself you refresh, retune and learn how to express your soul in your piece of the weaving. Living from spirit you avoid being overwhelmed; breathing in and out, into Self and out into the world, you are centered and the rondori flows. May you find the grace to trust the rest of the universe enough to let go and find yourself.

(© 2/11)

BENEATH EXCITEMENT

Have you ever had the experience of wanting something and being anxious about it showing up. When it comes in sight, you become excited only to have it fade away again? It might have been a job, a house, a relationship. Perhaps you got what you wanted, only to have the excitement fade over time and the anxiety return. This time it went well, but what about next time?

Several years ago after a past life regression session that had gone well, I felt the need to relax and ground. I went for a walk along Boulder Creek. Standing on one of the bridges over the creek, looking down into the water I felt myself drop into a deep calm place inside. The level of ego or mind that experiences excitement was quiet and I felt myself standing in a place of certainty, of graceful being.

I knew that being excited over something that had gone well was the other end of the polarity that feared it might not. Excitement, as I usually experience it, is only the relief that something feared has not happened. Standing on the bridge I was in a deeper place underneath the excitement, and the fear, where neither one existed, and out of which they both arise; as the waves on the surface of a lake disturbed by the wind.

In walking a spiritual path we learn to step out of, or into, our fears. To work through them, expand beyond them, let them go, or give them space. We know that when they arise we can loose our sense of self, our balance and our space, and we slowly learn how to gain these back again. We may learn how fear can block our hopes, our ability to manifest or to receive, but what about our excitement?

When we get what we want, it seems a natural thing to become excited. It is good to have gratitude, to validate oneself, to find joy and happiness. But the excitement of the ego is none of these. It is just as ungrounded as the anxiety out of which it grows. It takes us out of the present and into the future, planning what comes next, how all our dreams will grow out of one accomplishment. Taking you out of your center excitement takes you out of your power. It is not sustainable, and the dream can fade again. Like Icarus we fly high into the Sun only to melt and crash back to Earth.

The next time you feel the excitement of accomplishment, check in to see if you are relating to it from that deep place inside, where you are already certain and whole. Have gratitude and validate yourself. If you find the nervous energy of adrenal driven excitement, breath deep and drop back into your Self. Call in joy and certainty and finish manifesting your dream from that space, before you have drifted away on the winds of ego imaginings and loose your dream as well as your Self.

(© 2/11)[read the full version @ http://www.wholebeingexplorations.com/archives/beneathexcite/ ]