I'm half-way through my Charlotte Sabbatical, and if I'm being super honest my life hasn't looked all that different from my treehouse home in Dilworth, minus extra pool + ocean time, of course ;)
I still wake up precisely 4 minutes before my alarm goes off, I'm still carefully planning my grocery runs outside of busy hours, Fizzgig is still getting older, Disney movies are still my refuge, and the revolution/evolution is STILL happening.
One of the not-so-fun emotions I've been spinning around in lately is "helplessness". Ya know, when it feels like the universe is mocking my meticulously curated goals and plans, I laugh/cry at quotes around manifestation, and am exhausted from being used as a political pawn....I promise I'm ok AND the thoughts can rapidly swirl with so much uncertainty.
In one of the books I'm currently reading, The Surrender Experiment,author Michael Singer reminds us that "The universe has been around for 13.8 billon years, and the processes that determine the flow of life around us did not begin where we were born, nor will they end when we die. What manifests in front of us at any given moment is actually something truly extraordinary - it is the end result of all the forces that have been interacting together for billons of years. We are not responsible for even the tiniest fraction of what is manifesting around us. Nonetheless, we walk around constantly trying to control and determine what will happen in our lives. No wonder there's no much tension, anxiety, and fear."
Of course, we always have choices, which can alter our life's direction. We have desires of the heart, and free will to move towards these desires, and even trade our voices and fins for legs, or begin an epic quest. It's when we get so fixated on the outcome that we cause ourselves unnecessary suffering.
Singer proposes a question "If the natural unfolding of the process of life can create and take care of the entire universe, is it really reasonable for us to assume that nothing good will happen unless we force it to?"
When I struggle, it feels like treading water in the middle of a tumultuous ocean with no shore in sight. When I release the struggle, at first it feels like sinking and it's scary. But then...just like inFinding Nemo, there's a deeper undercurrent, a softer and more authentic current, one that takes me right back home.
When I am able to zoom out of my I-centered, ego-driven story, there is a magic that occurs. I'm able to see more of the bigger, less linear, picture. Suddenly, ease is felt, life has that extra sparkle, and I have the energy to discover what's just beyond the river bend.
All of this whimsical talk is the result of sitting with the feelings, stories, and chaos. "The work" is usually the montage part of the movie, but in real life there's no catchy song that fast-forwards through the muck to the good stuff. There's a maleficent beauty in coming apart completely.