Expectation vs. Intention

Well, it’s been one week since I said farewell (for now) to the corporate world and started my journey into entrepreneurship. I add (for now) because I am learning to let go of extremes/ultimatums and am actively working on shifting my mindset from black and white to one of more fluidity and living in the gray (i.e: uncomfortable) zone. In this one week of entrepreneurship I have already learned the importance of being flexible and letting go of rigidness and expectation to actually allow for the authentic unfolding of a vision to occur (and also because quite honestly I have never created my own schedule before…...lots of growing pains). Plus, a part of my own personal vision and passion is to add healing to the corporate world so saying saranara forever  / fuck you corporate world isn’t really appropriate.

This idea though of expectation is one that has been front and center as I venture down this new road and the reason is because I have found myself frequently falling into its quiet, but very powerful trap. Expectation can be tricky and it can be sneaky. It shows up in unexpected (you see what I did there?) ways and often the only way that you realize you have fallen victim to it is when it has not been met and you are in the throws of disappointment and/or anger.

In the physical realm this has shown up with the expectation of myself to just naturally “know” how to be an entrepreneur. Having never been one before in my life and only functioned within pre-existing structures, I have naturally expected myself to just know how to build my own schedule for the entire day despite having never done that in my life. You see where this is going right? Yes, breakdowns and meltdowns. While I know I was meant to be an entrepreneur there is still a natural Unfolding that must occur; there is a process; it is a sacred journey which much of the time is out of our control so I capitalize the ‘U’ in Unfolding to emphasize this importance.

In the emotional and creative realm this has also shown up in a big way. As I work through my desires, visions and the impact that I want to have, I find it is easy to slip into a place of survival, comparison and ego. It’s easy to want to create from a place of “does this look good?” and “will I look good doing this?” rather than from a place of authenticity, vulnerability, and service. It’s easy to slip into the world of expectation because honestly it’s where many of us live from, myself included.

Expectation is a mind based reality. It is a masculine energy often defined by rigidness and a harsh black and white / right vs. wrong mentality. When we live from expectations, we often live in disappointment…..disappointment in ourselves and most definitely in others. We begin to see the world as “what is going wrong?” vs. “what is going right?” and “what am I grateful for?”. When we live in this reality we spiral; we experience more anxiety; we don’t feel fulfilled; we are disconnected from ourselves and from others and more than anything we live from fear instead of from love.

As I go through this journey and am able to catch myself in this trap, the word “intention” continuously pops into my mind. When I am in my head and on a spiral of fear based thoughts circling around “how am I going to do this?”  “what will people think of me?” “Am I good enough to do this?” “DOES THIS LOOK GOOD???” I come back to this word. I breathe and I take that sacred pause. I come back into the body. I put my hand over my heart and I ask the questions: What is my intention? What am I committed to? How can I be of service? How can I move more towards love? This is where the magic happens. This is where the Unfolding occurs and where a business can be an extension of our soul’s mission and not turn into another “job.”

This is not just a one time occurance, sometimes I must do this hourly and I realize more than ever that this is not just for the entrepreneurial journey but for the journey of life. Why? Because when we can learn to live from intention we can really free up the stress in our lives that we create for ourselves. We can loosen the grip that we *think* we have. We can let go of many of the things that seem to trigger us. We can actually begin to scratch that annoying itch of discontentment that so many of us feel because when we come from intention our lives start to become a lot more fulfilling.

Finally, we can be more present right here, right now with ourselves and the people in our lives which is really the only place that life is happening.

The Cheesecake Factory Menu Syndrome (Analysis Paralysis)

I generally like to write about themes that keep popping up in my life as there is generally a lesson hidden, or not so hidden within them.

Lately The Cheesecake Factory has been coming up in conversation which may seem random but allow me to explain to you why it’s not.

Have you ever been to a Cheesecake Factory? If you have then you probably know the fear of looking at their menu. If you’ve never been then let me tell you…...it’s panic inducing. Not only is it at least 20 pages, it has over 250 items and is spiral bound.

Spiral bound.

Their menu is a novel.

And while I have an issue with having a novel for a menu, the bigger problem is that everything on the menu sounds halfway decent. Amazing? Eh, maybe not everything. But would I eat a fair share of the choices? Yeah, probably.

You would think that having that many options would be exciting but really it’s cause for a panic attack due to some severe analysis paralysis. I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty of it but there is an entire page dedicated solely to eggs. I love eggs but I don’t need 19 different options. So, unless you get the same thing every time, I don’t know anyone who can make an order decision in less than 15 minutes (it takes that long to even scan all the contents of the menu).

I seriously dread this menu. It’s most likely why I avoid this place like the plague but as always, I don’t think it’s a random coincidence that CF (Cheesecake Factory) and this concept of analysis paralysis has been coming up.  

You see, right now more than ever we live in a world of options which, much like the CF menu / novel, seem great. But as with the menu, with so many options often comes overwhelm; we freeze up with all of our perceived choices and question if we are making the “right” decision. We never feel fully satisfied with our choice because we want to do it all and are often left wondering if something (someone) else would have been better.

And while analysis paralysis is an uncomfortable feeling, the more insidious and impactful consequence that seems to come from option overload is that we are creating a society and people that don’t know how to truly commit. With endless job boards and more perceived exciting career opportunities, we struggle with committing to jobs for long periods of time (or at the very least staying content with them). With dating apps we can struggle with really getting to know someone or really giving them a fair chance if they don’t blow us out of the water on the first date because of the possibility that there is someone better just a quick swipe away (or again, if in a relationship, perhaps feelings of discontent increase because of perceived “better” options) .

With hobbies, there might always be something that is more fun and interesting and more “you.” With the creation of Pinterest, the options for anything hobby related is quite literally endless (another app I actively avoid because I know overwhelm is inevitable).  

I’m not saying any of these things are inherently bad because they’re not. They can be doorways for amazing opportunities and foundations for ideas, relationships and anything else we are looking for in our lives. What I am finding however is that when options increase so does the likelihood of completely freezing due to overwhelm or just being less committed. Either option can lead us to feelings of being stuck and/or having less fulfilling lives and experiences.

As always I speak from personal experience as I am someone who is prone to overwhelm and often struggle with fully committing to things because of this Cheesecake Factory syndrome.

I find myself jumping from one option to the next as so many of us do; chasing the initial thrill and excitement that the beginning phases of an opportunity bring or at least what we hope it brings. It’s easy to jump because when we jump we don’t have to confront the journey of what it truly means to be committed. When we commit to something whether it be a job, relationship, hobby, healthy habit or a side hustle we are also committing to ups and downs; leaps forward; inevitable setbacks and the death of the other options (you can read more about my thoughts on avoiding death here: https://www.biancagabrielle.com/blog/2017/6/23/our-resistance-to-death)

We have to wrestle with the personal demons that arise when the contrast of what we will hope happens is juxtaposed with the reality of the process that actually unfolds and that is when many of us throw in the towel. We assume that the next option will be better; less confronting, easier…...and maybe it is but what we sacrifice when we habitually jump is our own personal growth; what we can discover about ourselves and what we can actually work through given the proper time, energy and dedication.

As I will continue to say, what we resist will always persist. Changing up our lives and exploring new possibilities is not a problem and can be exactly what we need at certain points in our lives; however, if we refuse to confront something in one instance by running or blaming it on someone / something else saything the situation or the person is not “right,” we will most likely have to confront it down the line at another point in time.

Having options is great but if you continuously find yourself lacking clarity, feeling stuck, jumping around in aspects of your life and not really feeling fulfilled, it might be worth asking yourself, “what am I avoiding?” Or if you are avoiding committing to something in your life, asking yourself “What am I unwilling to confront about this situation or myself?”

It might also be worth looking into how you can make your life simpler; reduce your options whether perceived or real; give your brain a break. Our brain can only handle so many options and the more we give it, the more we will get stuck ruminating in our heads and depend less on our gut and intuition which is where our real clarity will always come from.

………...Oh, and also don’t go to restaurants that hand you a novel to pick out your food order.

Living by "The Shoulds"

Lately I’ve really been noticing the word “should.” I’ve been noticing the prevalence of it not only in my own thought process and vocabulary but in the vocabulary of others…...and the more I have been noticing it, the more curious I’ve become. So curious in fact that I went and looked up the definition in the dictionary. The top couple of definitions of it go as follows:

1. To express obligation or expediency

2. To express futurity from a point of view in the past (LOL what?)

3. To express a request in a polite manner or to soften direct statement

So based off of the above, when we use that word we are either 1.) Guilting ourselves or someone else, 2.) Making no sense / confused what tense we are speaking in (without really even realizing it) or 3.) Being passive aggressive

Not so coincidentally, I was talking with my roommate about my thoughts on this word and he told me a story he heard on a podcast the other day where a son was speaking with his father and trying to explain the definition of ‘should.’ His father, a man who doesn’t speak English, struggled to understand the meaning of the word and the friend realized that there was no way to actually translate it to his father’s native language.  

You’d think with such a confusing, borderline rude, word we’d try to omit it from our vocabulary, yet ‘should’ is foundational in many of our daily speech, mindset and thought processes.

So then why do we use it?

I believe it’s so rampant because it’s actually a perfect embodiment of the prevailing thought process of our culture which is one of constant grind mode in order to gain any form of success. To the depth of its core, the word is an embodiment of the masculine energy that infiltrates the foundations and messages of our society and most aspects of our lives.

For the sake of clarity, when I say “masculine” energy I’m not referring to the physical energy of a human man but rather to the spiritual / emotional feminine and masculine energy (yin and yang) that all things are comprised of.

So when I am referring to the rampant masculine energy of our society I am referring to the energy of pushing, striving, strength, logic, drive, busyness, doing and being goal oriented / analytical. While these things are not inherently bad traits to have, when they are the prevailing energy and not balanced with the Yin feminine energy (receiving, emotion, creativity and intuition to name a few) we run into problems (you can simply look at most companies, leadership and overall politics for reference points of overt / out of balance masculine energy).

I mean really, how often do we usually feel good after saying ‘should’?

I know for me, it is often followed by a sigh. There is a heaviness with ‘should’; a sense of guilt…..and when there is guilt there is an automatic disconnect happening between the head and the heart. Many of us are stuck living in our heads throughout most of our days, trying to filter through layers of personal and perceived pressures and expectations and ‘should’ fits perfectly within those layers. It contributes to the internal struggle within most of us of deciphering what we really want and what we think we should want (or alternatively, what we think others want from us).

Many of us, myself included, live our lives (or at least aspects of our lives) out of alignment; out of our natural flow. We can find ourselves so caught up in trying to keep up with life that we don’t take the time to listen to what we really want or need. We live a life we think we should be living based off parental, societal or just personal expectations and many of those expectations are unrealistic or just not our truth. We look up at ourselves and our lives and don’t recognize the person reflecting back to us or we have no real connection to the life that we are leading.

So when we live from a place of ‘should’ we are not living from any sense of joy, authenticity or connection. This is not to say that anything we are referencing as something we should be doing is inherently bad. We often hear or find ourselves saying things along the lines of “I should workout”; “I should eat better”; “I should meditate”; “I should do_______(insert activity you have unsure/mediocre feelings towards).

Even if these actions are potentially beneficial for us, if we are constantly guilting ourselves and approaching the things in our life from this place, how can we ever live from our hearts? Live from a place of joy? A place of empowerment? Despite the positive effects some actions may have on our lives and our well-being, is it really as impactful if we don’t actually feel good doing it? Furthermore, if everything always feels like a chore will we actually even stick to it?

If it doesn’t feel good to say whatever it is you want to say after ‘should’ then it might be time to reconsider if you actually want to be doing it. If it’s something that will contribute positively to your life then maybe it’s time to reconsider a different way to approach it that will make you feel alive and excited by the possibility of fulfilling that action.

Lately if I am able to catch myself I like to replace ‘should’ with ‘want’ and then I sit with it. I give myself a sacred pause. I find that ‘want’ gives me and my body a clearer access point to really discovering what it is I actually want to be doing in that moment. It can be confronting to begin to decide if you want to listen to the ‘should’ voice since many of us have been programmed to do so but just like starting any new habit, it takes practice.

So today notice if you use ‘should.’ If you do, take a pause and notice how it makes you feel. Do you feel empowered when you use it? Or do you feel a heaviness? Does it excite you to do whatever action is coming after it? Or do you dread it?

If it’s something that actually would benefit or contribute to your life in a positive way (i.e exercising or eating healthy) can you reframe in a way that makes you feel good? That actually makes you excited to do it?

The Holiday Emotional Shuffle

It’s been awhile since I have written for reasons that I won’t go into for this post and man have I missed it…..but I’m back at it as we are WELL into the holiday season.

The reason I’m jumping back in now is because holidays can be an emotionally complex time for me as I know they can be for many people. Between family drama, overeating, over drinking, over spending and over planning, the holidays can be a trigger for so many of us. We can get lost in the shuffle of this time of year and stress and anxiety can spike. I know personally for me, I can get lost in the hustle and planning of everything and seeing everyone and my self-care habits can get pushed to the side and I become disconnected to what's really going on within. 

I like to think there is something behind all of the chaos and rushing around because usually when I stop and pause and actually stop trying to get through everything on my to do list, emotions begin to emerge. Portals begin to open. I will have these moments where I find my heart filled with so much love and gratitude and just sheer wonder at how beautiful life can be and then sometimes I can have a wave of sadness and grief so intense it stops me in my tracks.

I’ve been on this journey of making space for the full range of human emotions long enough to know not to dismiss or push them aside but also not to overly question the seemingly extreme shifts that can take place within (sometimes) short amounts of time.  

When you are an empath, a highly sensitive person or even just…...you know…...a human being…...emotions are not always black and white and they are often a world on their own. They can be messy, overwhelming, heart opening, heart closing, devastating and everything in between. They must be honored and explored when necessary but at the same time we must not get caught in the (negative) stories they can so often feed us because just like everything else in life, they too shall pass if we allow them to.

Knowing this and when I take the time to actually listen to what's going on in my body, it’s not a mystery to me why I can have my heart so full of love to the point where I feel like I could explode one moment and then sadness in another. When I allow myself to be fully open and in pure joy and gratitude, which is often amplified during more pointed moments such as the holidays, grief and even sometimes fear seem to always live in a similar, if not the same, space. It’s almost like when one portal opens, so does the other; when we give space for one thing, we give space to the other; as one heals so does the other. 

For example, during this past Thanksgiving when I looked at my parents as we were all in the kitchen doing our annual elaborate feast, I had so much love and joy in my heart knowing how much, despite the ups and downs in this life, we always seem to get our shit together for this day. I smelled all the familiar smells, laughed at the “which pie do we get?” argument we have every single year without fail, heard Matt Lauer in the background narrating the Thanksgiving Macy’s parade and I basked in the familiarity of it all (note: this was written before his firing from NBC for sexual harassment). When I could remember to do so, I allowed myself as much as possible to stop rushing around and be in gratitude that these things and this tradition are still present in my life.

At some points however, and I don’t usually see this as a bad thing anymore, I feel a sadness creep into my heart. It’s usually when I do actually stop moving at the speed of light to get things checked off from my to do list. Sometimes it’s an almost nostalgic comforting sadness like when I think of memories from holidays from previous years before; a kind of sadness that doesn’t pierce the heart but more surrounds it like a soft blanket reminding me that those moments may have come and gone but the love that surrounds them is still there.

I remember my family who are no longer physically here, most vividly my grandparents; I think of past relationships that have come and gone; of past loves. I think of all the people who don’t have the luxury of having a Thanksgiving (or whichever holiday) dinner or anywhere close to a joyful tradition, whether by choice or by circumstance. I think of all those who didn’t make it to Thanksgiving this year and this is usually when the soft blanket of sadness turns more into a tight grip of grief and pain and the tears pour from my eyes......and I don't stop them. 

Finally, I think about the cycle of life; my own immortality along with that of my family’s. As someone who is very sensitive to the concept of both death and time (albeit as life goes on I have begun to understand time as a man-made illusion), I sometimes find myself wishing I could press a pause button. I think about how I never know how many of these moments I have left or the people I love have left. I don’t dwell in this space forever because there’s really no point but really understanding and feeling the true impermanence of it all often takes my breath away. I understand impermanence in daily life but the holidays always seem to be a portal for me to feel both the sadness and the beauty of it on a much larger and deeper scale.

I think to be human is to learn sit and live in the dualities that we are so often faced with and to be ok with this gray space of uncertainty. Love / joy and sadness / grief are chambers in the same heart and sometimes opening one can lead the way to opening the other. As we give more space to the more uncomfortable emotions such as grief and sadness, we ultimately give ourselves more space to experience deeper and more profound moments of joy. 

Instead of pushing away what's coming up for you and ignoring what is going on within, this season give the gift of being present with yourself. Be present with what comes up, don't push it aside whether it be stress, anxiety, overwhelm, love, joy or grief. Take a pause. Put the phone down. Stop the to do list. Sit it with, be with it. Cry if you need to. Feel it all the way through and be kind to yourself. Ask yourself what YOU need and take care of yourself so you can actually be present with those in your life and feel the gift of giving and receiving love, which is truly the essence of the holiday season. 

Less Doing, More Being

Every day, day in and day out, we push ourselves to do more and to be more. We constantly look to how we can achieve more and for many of us on the road of self-development, we are constantly looking to how we can improve ourselves.

And yet we are exhausted, disconnected, burnt out, forever in grind mode. We feel we are on a hampster wheel with no way off. We are human beings but we have forgotten that whole "being" part and yet that is the missing piece for so many of us. We must learn to listen and trust the store-house of wisdom held in our bodies.

We want more answers, more connection, more clarity, more peace and more authenticity in our lives but that won't be found in our never ending to do lists or getting caught up in the nonsensical tape recorder that is our mind.

It is found in the body. It is found in stillness. It is found in rest. It is found in nothingness. It is found in simply being. Seems so simple yet we resist it. So just for today, give yourself a break. Find some time to be alone and in silence. Put your hands over your heart and breathe into it. Focus on the rise and fall of your breath and trust that you are ok. This moment is enough and you are enough.

The Fear of Failure

The fear of failure is strong within many of us *raises hand.* Endorsed by a culture of misguided perfectionism, we get stuck in our heads about making the "perfect" decision and we put immense pressure on ourselves to do things just right.

And where does that get us? It makes many of us sick with stress both emotionally and physically and even more tragically, it keeps so many of us stuck and from achieving our dreams. We have so much to offer this world and yet we hold ourselves back.

So what's the truth? There is no "perfect" choice because there is no such thing as failure. We think there's some almighty "right" and "wrong" decision that will lead us to the perfect path but the reality is there's just choices. And then there's feedback from those choices, learning from that feedback (if you choose to do so) and moving forward with new information that will bring us and our lives more into alignment of what we do want.

It can be a profound mindset shift that can not only ease our rampant decision anxiety but also offer us the space and freedom to create more and dream bigger. We can begin to release the shackles and burden of perfectionism and fear of failure so that we become liberated enough to actually begin creating the life we do want.

So what would you do if you knew you could not fail? How could you bring more compassion into your past, present and future self/life knowing you have never been and never will be a failure?

Less Striving, More Living

We spend so much of our time either trying to plan out our lives or we are in speculation about them. We are constantly thinking about the past or worried about the future. We wonder what we could have done differently or we constantly wonder how we can make ourselves and our life better.

There's nothing wrong with setting goals and and making plans to achieve them but we are often so busy living in our heads trying to "figure out" ourself and our life that we often miss out on actually living.

What if we dropped all of that just for today? What if we looked up from our phone or computer and got present to our bodies or the environment surrounding us? What if we stopped trying to figure it all out and realized that everything right here right now is exactly what it should it be? What if we could relax for just a moment and breathe into knowing that we are in the right place at the right time?

So many of the answers we seek lie in the moments when we are not trying to figure it all out. They are in the moments when we are connected to the life happening in front of us. So try taking a moment today to get present to yourself and your life. Feel your feet on the ground, actually listen in the conversation you're having, really taste the food you're eating. Be an active participant in the life happening around you instead of the one you are imagining in your head.

The Black Emotional Experience

For the most part,  my family laughs a lot and we love hard.

We crack jokes constantly and we are extremely loyal.

We have a rich, complex history and we take pride in who we are.

We stay connected through technology and make best efforts to see one another as much as possible for being spread across the country.

But with all that said, I still find that sometimes we don’t *really* know one another. As with any family there are secrets and there is hidden pain; there are the people and the lives that we think we know and then there are the people and the lives that are purposely hidden from our view.

And without making broad stroked generalities, I find that often to be true about the black (and more generally, people of color) emotional experience: it is often hidden from the view of the world, the view of friends and family and most painfully, the view from ourselves.

This is not to say that non-people of color (i.e: white) don’t have this experience as well since being disconnected and out of touch with our own internal states is not contained to certain races; it is a very prominent and rampant human phenomenon especially in this current day and age when we we can hide behind the sometimes misleading images and updates of social media.

This was not written to minimize others’ experiences because we are all working our way through this thing called life, but this is focused on the black emotional experience because it’s one that I find is not talked about nearly often enough.

And why is that? Why is it not talked about? Why are we (and once again this does not pertain to EVERY black experience) so comfortable with cracking jokes, having fun and keeping things “100” and so uncomfortable with discussing what’s really going on with us?

I can’t say I really know the absolute truth to those questions but I like to believe it has something to do with the fact that historically the black experience has been shafted, minimized, unrecognized or just flat out ignored. History has told us that our experience does not matter, our emotions do not matter and our lives do not matter and that history is still very much alive in the context of today’s society and within our present day selves.

I believe that the fear of being seen as weak runs deep in our blood from the days of our ancestors when being seen as weak could literally cost us our life or the lives of the ones we loved. Historically we had to work so much harder than the white population (and still often do) so while we may have been in deep physical and emotional pain, tears and discussions of our emotions were not always a priority when survival was far more pressing.

Today our landscape is different. I’m not going to say that we are not in danger like our ancestors because if we weren’t, “Black Lives Matter” would not even be a thing and we wouldn’t see black men and women being carelessly slain/assassinated across our TVs and social media.

But we have progressed. We have moved forward in leaps and bounds despite the odds that are sometimes stacked against us. We are successful. We are proud. We are strong.

……...But many of us have not moved forward emotionally. The pain of our ancestors is quite literally still running through the blood in our veins. We have not yet broken the cycle and so we continue to live our lives partially hidden. We laugh and joke and try to ignore that heaviness in our heart; that sinking feeling in our stomach; the anxiety that keeps us up at night.

We do not speak of anxiety or depression because it is deemed as weak and yet mental illness is as prominent as ever; its prominence continuously kept alive due to the fact that it is so often suppressed. The shame and secrecy surrounding it keeps it stored deep inside of our cells allowing it to replay over and over again throughout our various lineages and lifetimes. It has no place to go; no outlet for healing; no way to be released (This was a strong contribution to my own breakdown I experienced in 2012).

And so we often suffer in silence only letting a few, if any, know our truth; know what’s really going on with us. We may have all of the success of the material world but our inner worlds are often a mess. We may have all the money we could desire, a great job, friends who love us but what does that really mean if we don’t know ourselves? If we don’t allow others to know us? No, not the facade that we put out into the world and on social media but the real us?

Until we learn to break this pattern of hiding, shame and secrecy around the black emotional experience, it will continue to live on. We will continue to live our lives not fully self-expressed, fruitlessly trying to mask or fill a void that can only be filled by the willingness to be vulnerable with ourselves and with others…...and we will continue to pass it on from generation to generation.

So what does it mean to heal? What will it mean for us to break this pattern?

To start, it doesn’t mean we must air “our dirty laundry” to anyone who will listen to us. Nor does it mean we go around confronting and yelling at anyone who we believe has wronged us.

It does mean that we begin to stop and actually take stock of how we feel (a novel concept for some of us); it means breaking our habitual pattern of suppression and denial as I believe it often manifests itself physically in the many diseases that plague us; it means allowing ourselves to feel whatever it is we need to feel and not making ourselves wrong for feeling it; it means giving ourselves permission to cry, to ask for help, to reach out, to let someone into our worlds.

It means owning our shit. It means stopping the stories that habitually run our lives. It means taking responsibility for ourselves and learning to validate our experiences as we cannot expect others or the world to do that for us. We are often our own worst enemies and expect ourselves to be “stronger than that.” What if we redefined what “being strong” meant? What if we had it mean having the strength to know and accept ourselves exactly as we are in any given moment in time?

And you know what? It means validating others. It means giving them the same acceptance that we want for ourselves. So often we judge others for the same shit that we have not accepted within ourselves and so we continue the cycle; the cycle of judgement, resentment, suppression and denial.

This is not where our healing lies; it rests solely in the realm of vulnerability and acceptance.

So let us have the courage to take these steps; let us have the courage to break these cycles. Let us give ourselves the gift of healing and the gift of a life fully lived, fully loved and fully expressed and let’s have THAT be the new pattern not only for ourselves but for the generations to come.

Although this is geared towards the black experience, let this ring true for all of us. Let us all take these steps and begin to set a new standard for our existence: a standard of pure love. 
 

The Path of Spiritual Growth Ain't Always a Pretty One

Just a gentle reminder that sometimes spiritual growth, or any growth for that matter is not always cute.

Sometimes with all the beautiful images on social media and/or in other media channels of doing yoga on the beach, meditating on a cliff, being surrounded by various crystals and reading angel cards, it's easy to think that this is what growth (or at least the path to it) looks like.

These things aren't wrong by any means. I 100% have a picture of me both doing yoga on a beach meditating in a scenic location (hint: I'm not actually meditating since I'm posing for a picture) and I own both crystals and angel cards.

What I'm saying is that for many of us these aren't the defining moments that we look back on and we can see THAT is when growth was happening. Why? Because a lot of times growth isn't pretty.

It's often those painful moments when we find ourselves curled up in a ball crying our eyes out and we think there's no way we will be able to move through this yet we allow ourselves to feel whatever it is we need to feel ; it's those moments when we feel completely lost and confused about ourselves and our lives and we are praying for clarity; when we feel fear and anxiety consuming our bodies yet we take another step.

No, it's not always those eureka moments of clarity and inspiration. Those generally come after you've gone through some ugly shit and have gotten to the other side and those are your reward.

It doesn't always have to be painful and ugly and all the pretty stuff can certainly be tools on the path of growth and awareness but never discount the moments that bring us to our knees or the moments that people don't show us on social media. These are the moments we usually look back on after the storm has passed and we can see that the pain was not wrong; that it was there to teach us; to show us where we can learn to grow; learn to accept; and learn to love.

Our Resistance to Death

Death.

It’s something I think a lot about and I know most people would find that odd or morbid which actually goes perfectly hand in hand with our culture’s thoughts around death.

We as a culture cannot stand the idea of death. We don’t like what we are confronted with when some aspect of it is presented to us. I am not referring to actual physical death yet that’s what our avoidance is based on; our fear of our own immortality. We welcome new beginnings but run away from the end yet cannot happen without the other.

We literally do anything in our power to avoid it, the most obvious form of this avoidance being the oversaturated market of “how to look younger” products and procedures. From gels to creams to lasers, we know no limits to how far we will go to try to stop time. Ironically, with the more extreme surgeries, some end up losing their lives and confronting death quite literally which is the one thing they were ultimately trying to avoid in the first place.

In a far less dramatic but still very familiar context we can also experience death in the form of breakups, romantic or otherwise. We hang on when something deep down within us, that’s not anxiety speaking, tells us we need to let go. Yet we hold on, fearful of what it will mean to not have this person / relationship in our lives. And when we do manage to finally end it, most of us do not treat it for what it actually is, which is a death. It is the physical and emotional end to something significant in our lives. It is traumatic for many of us yet we try to rush through the motions “to get to the other side”, never truly honoring the grief of the transition.

Instead we carry that pain around within us until there is another transition that will open the portal to a new opportunity to heal our previous and current pains; or alternatively, never allowing ourselves to be open to these various portals, thus keeping our hearts closed and skewing our filter of life.

But our resistance to death is not always so obvious; in fact most of the time it happens in far more subtle ways and on much more of a consistent basis.

In her book When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron quotes Trungpa Rinpoche in his lecture titled ‘Death in Everyday Life’:

“We are raised in a culture that fears death and hides it from us. Nevertheless, we experience it all the time. We experience it in the form of disappointment, in the form of things not working out. We experience it in the form of things always being in a process of change. When the day ends, when the second ends, when we breathe out, that’s death in everyday life…”

In something I am currently experiencing in my own life, we also experience death when we decide to put ourselves out there in the world in a big way and must see and feel the old parts of ourselves die. We do this so that who we are meant to be can rise forth from those ashes and we can take the steps to fulfill our purpose in this short time that we have on Earth.The old and new can only exist in the same place for so long until we decide that we can no longer hold on to the old as it is exhausting and no longer serving us. But we avoid letting go of who we were because not only is it terrifying but it gets us present to the uncertainty of where this “new” will take us.

We as humans do not like change so we try to keep a death grip on keeping things the same, including ourselves. We also fear what others will think about this change so we hold on, not wanting to experience the possible repercussions of not having others’ approval. Yet, by not allowing the “old” within us to have the death it is meant to have, we are inadvertently experiencing a different kind of death; a more sinister kind of death which is one of unlived dreams and the unfulfillment of the next stage of our evolution; the denial of our full, true and authentic version of ourselves.

But this is all part of the natural cycle of life, this constant process of beginnings and endings; of life and death…….death of course being the one we try to avoid. This is one of the core principles behind mindfulness. Most of us see it as bringing present-moment awareness, increasing focus and helping with anxiety but rooted underneath all of that is this acceptance of death. We watch the breath and we let it go. We experience the beginning of a moment and the end of a moment, its death, and we learn to not grasp so tightly.

If we allow ourselves to release this struggle with death, to reverse this fear and not only allow it in but actually welcome it, our lives will begin to change. We will not cling as tightly and when we loosen that grip, we begin to release our struggle. We let go of the control we think we have and so desperately try to hold on to. We actually allow ourselves to be in the flow of life; the natural flow of our own evolution. We ultimately give ourselves and the world the gift of being all we can be and making the impact that we want and can make.