Surrender
Coronavirus has meant that I haven’t swam in months.
It was warm today in Helsinki. So I decided to go to the beach.
I took a few strokes, but didn’t really swim. I found myself watching the waves coming at me, feeling into what that was like. Feeling the forcefulness of the sea.
Though the air was warm, the sea, not so much. So it worked as a mild cold exposure thing, waking the body up, allowing in the cold, breathing to release and move the warmth within the body.
In the end I faced my back at the sea, watching the beach. I realized that this could be yoga – sitting tall and giving in to the impact of the waves, not doing anything particular with my body. How I still needed to exert force just to stay there.
I’m actually afraid of meditation, I notice. The older I get, it can get more intense to allow it. I’m somehow getting more intense, more willing to use my power in the world. So when I meditate, I have to deal with this forcefulness… within myself.
Impact
I’ve been thinking about having impact. I don’t really value impact in and of itself, say, as something that a businessman or employee should do for security or power.
However, there’s another kind of having impact. The Penetrating Reality kind. The kind where you want to have an effect because it means owning up to your own power.
(These two kinds of impact can and do sometimes occur simultaneously, sure.)
Not from a place of using power as a means. But simply being in contact with the life force that is in you anyway. Deciding to direct it in a way that’s… The good you want to see in the world.
And more… Not even what you think you want to see in the world. I’m talking about pushing through reality using your heart.
It is the heart that knows what you really want. Your analytic mind is typically in the way, more or less. Mine is, anyway.
Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door.
Kyle Chandler
The impact I want to have? Returning myself to my roots of organic creativity. Actually integrating into practical personal reality what I value the most. And then letting that shine forth, inviting others on that same adventure
In practice
Our societies are made of structure. Societal structure, which is bound to the structures of our minds, and which our minds are bound to.
There’s nothing bad about structure. It’s necessary, and it provides stability. For the same reason though, structure tends to stagnate.
What are the structures you are integrated in?
Is there a way to work within those structures, those minds, those humans, in a way that allows breathing in life without exerting force? That allows challenging people exactly where those people feel most alive being challenged?
When were you entirely spontaneous the last time, in a space where you felt you really could allow what’s real, right here, right now?
If you wish to practice allowing spontaneity in your right now, you may want to try meditative, open-ended inquiry. I offer classes where we explore this exciting meditation-in-connection in depth.
Opportunity quote source: todoist.com