dailydatewithgod

One of my most influential mentors, when I got into recovery, said something to me repeatedly which lets me know it is important.  Even if she had not repeated it, I still would be recalling it today. While I do not remember it verbatim, the essence of what she said was, “you won’t risk what you can’t recover from.”  There were so many things I did not believe I could recover from in life that I was not willing to risk. When I was in my disease and busy self-loathing and trying to blot out my existence little by little, everything felt risky to me.  I lived in so much fear I was unaware of how much it had become incorporated into my way of being.  There were many things I simply did not know how to do in life, so my choice was to bide my time and hope somehow it got better. Deep inside I knew there were more options.  My belief and relationship with God provided experiences to show me otherwise but they didn’t stick.  My heart was so closed off there was no space for it to land.  In my mind, there were some things I was willing to risk but not if it involved potentially disappointing you or going against what I thought was expected of me.  I was afraid all my stories of who I was on the outside were true of the inside so I could not risk settling down long enough to explore the truth of who I am.  Bringing oneself to a breaking point of discomfort and pain has a way of putting things in perspective.  As I moved into my journey of recovery and developed an open relationship with God through our daily dates, I began to see through the smoke and mirrors.  My actions changed which changed my perspective. Slowly I began to see I was more than who I told myself I was, who others seemed to think I was and that I was not my circumstances.  The heart invites mystery and risk.  As I learned to open my heart to God, get to know the truth of who I am, and stop looking to the world outside me to define me,  my willingness to risk increased.  I could chance to let others in closer.  I could try things out and make mistakes without believing I was a mistake.  I was willing to risk doing things that might make me look like I didn’t know what I was doing or a fool. There was a space in my heart where I was no longer trying to house food and self-loathing.   In this space, my understanding of God in a variety of forms provided the belief that I could risk discovering who I am and who I am being. It is a risk I take in big and small ways every day trusting that no matter what happens I believe God and I are strong enough to recover from the outcome.

We do this funny thing when life does not meet our expectations.  We look for someone or something to blame.  We think maybe it is ourselves, the weather, the actions or attitudes of the other people involved or some universal lesson we are being asked to learn.  Do we ever consider that conditions are what they are because it is what they are?  Maybe there isn’t someone or something to blame.  What if the conditions we are experiencing are the conditions we are experiencing.  Nothing more, nothing less.  I read a saying on the wall of the dentist office when I was a kind which has stuck with me for years: Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it.  We think life is the conditions we are faced with.  Really life is what we do with those conditions.  How we react, what we make them mean, and who we become as a result of facing the conditions, is how we shape a life.  My perspective for many years while I never would have admitted it, was of a victim.  I just could not seem to cut a break.  Life was unfair.  I followed all the rules. I was a good person. I worked hard not to disappoint people and color outside of the lines.  I believed in God. How come bad things still happened? Before I got into recovery and was able to take an honest look at how I had been living my life, I used to want a God who would rescue me.  Isn’t that what it means to be a savior?  Not that it was a phrase I used often, but I was familiar with it.  Only when I started on my daily dates with God did I begin to shift my perspective.  Life is not about the conditions.  Life is about who I am becoming.  I do not need God to rescue me from the conditions of my life.  It is my life.  It is why I am here.  I need a God who breathes life into me when I am walking through the conditions.  I need a God who stands with me as I develop the courage to face the fear conditions or the joy conditions. I need a God who does not define me by my conditions but by the depth and breadth of my heart.  I need a God who reminds me of who I am at my core.

We all encounter situations and even people we find perplexing.  There is some confusion or something we find troubling.  We may feel anxious or uncertain.  Yet, rarely do we stop to ask ourselves why we feel uncomfortable when we are faced with quandaries.  Life is full of mystery.  In fact, there is actually more in our day to day experience of which we do not know than the reverse.  We like to convince ourselves and we fall for the illusion that because something is familiar it is known.  We are applauded for being right and able to demonstrate how much we know. We get letters after our names and are impressed by others who have letters after their names.  Yet, if we are really honest with ourselves, we recognize it is the discomfort and the desire to not have to take full responsibility for our lives which leads us away from quandaries.  Instead of embracing them we look to others to tell us what they are about.  We think all we need is to know the answer. All we are getting in their response is their version.  Imagine what we could discover about ourselves and how we see the world if we chose to take hold of our quandaries.  Life is about growing.  If we are not learning, we are dying.  Literally, our minds will shut down an area not being used to incorporate something new.  Thankfully our lives are full of opportunities to use these quandaries which come to us, which we do not necessarily seek out.  If we opted to look at them as an invitation to engage with the very essence of being alive, we might not be so anxious.  But maybe that is why we are anxious.  Rarely do you hear the story of someone on their death bed saying they wished they had stopped living life to the fullest.  Usually, they regret not making as much time to be involved in with others (who are full of quandaries). I am not interested in my gravestone saying she had all the answers.  I want it to say she lived in the questions.  We all get to do that when we listen to our heart’s invitation to step into the mystery by facing the quandary of the moment and discover more about ourselves in the process.  Our minds balk at the notion of unknowing and see it as a defect.  Our hearts see quandaries as play places and opportunities for new breath and new life.

In high school, I worked in the theatre crew.  Aside from building and painting sets, we were responsible for setting up all the props for the actors.  This way when they followed the direction in the script for the scene and it said they were calling someone they had something to pick up instead of using their imaginary phone in their hand.  Having the props on the stage made the story more convincing to the audience.  The props which were not specifically indicated in the script themselves were in many ways things we take for granted as being there.  As a team, we had to read the script and collect all the items ahead of time to make sure the behind-the-scenes elements were ready to go. Plays are make-believe so the audience would have gone along even if they used their hand for a phone, but why not have a prop to make it more real if you can?  We have props in our lives which support us and make our lives seem more real.  Many of these props we take for granted.  It is not until they are missing that we realize how much support we receive from them.  Many of the props we are responsible for making sure to be present in the scenes of our lives but some just happen to be there when we need them the most.  I was recently traveling and began to reflect on all the props someone thought to put in an airport or on the plane which allowed me to execute my travel plans with ease. I could be a star in showing up for my event because behind-the-scenes all these props were in place. For all our individuality, we realize how very dependent we are upon other people and systems to have what we need in place to pull off the scenes of our lives.  It is humbling when we recognize how much support we get to live out our lives from others. Clearly, there are behind-the-scenes forces working so we can show up and be ourselves.

In the world of technology where I work and where we all live, slowness is the equivalent of death.  It means something is wrong if the web page is not loading fast enough, we do not get a response to our text message right away, or we are in traffic.  We have a dual relationship with slowness.  It is arbitrary on a lot of levels because it only exists in comparison.  The technology we are using is only slow in comparison to how fast it was another time.  At the same time, we want time to move slowly so we do not age so quickly.  How then do we find a place of peace with this idea of slowness which we cannot seem to escape?  In my experience, the best way to make peace is to find a way to be grateful for it.  Just like elements of our personalities we do not want to sit with and claim as true for us, we can start by slowly recognizing where slowness benefits our lives.  Most of the time, the only reason I want it faster is so I can get it done and move on to the next thing.  What might it take to be able to be present in the moment I am in versus rushing to get on to the next one.  Perhaps life is giving me a gift in the slowness whether it is my computer, traffic, or a painful experience in my life to learn more about who I am and the people who are in the experience with me.  Maybe slowness is my invitation into my heart where the voice of my mind pushing me to the next thing goes mute.   Deep down I trust the process of life and while I will most likely never understand it, I recognize it is conspiring for me, not against me.  When I remember the truth of what I know within me, I can relax into accepting the slowness I am experiencing at the moment.

Even when we think we know how things are going to turn out, we don’t really know. We imagine based on past experiences, we plan, we prepare, and we cultivate all kind of things through our action and intentions.  Among all our intentionality and action are all the crumbs that get dropped in between.  Crumbs like the random thought overheard on the train, the misstatement made in a public forum, a word on a page, the energy felt in a building, the smile of the sweeper in the airport, or the flash of color from the stoplight.  All of these crumbs of life that fall around us can become seeds within us.  We cannot plan what or how God might end up on our lap.  Before we swipe the seemingly unimportant element of our clothing, we are invited to pause.  We can check-in and ask God, do you see a crumb to be discarded or seed to be planted? 

Within the context of living, we rely upon ideas.  Ideas engage our mind, we create images through ideas, and we learn about each other through the expression of ideas.  Sometimes we get very attached to the ideas we have about anything and we remind and repeat them to ourselves.  This turns these ideas into beliefs.  We form ideologies based on familiarity.  Yet often we forget to stop and question the ideas we encounter.  It is easier on some level to just let them incorporate into our understanding of the world because we know the person who shared the idea or they have an authoritative title or presence.  Yet many of the ideologies by which we live are not ones we have chosen.  Our identity becomes tied to ideology and we fear to take a closer look because it might mean seeing ourselves different.  God invites us to bring our hearts into the exploration of ideology.  We are given the opportunity to explore without being so attached to what the outcome of the exploration might be when we involve our hearts.  Life is about learning and I have found that I can either learn to live in the questions of my life or continually be flummoxed by the breakdown of ideologies I see as defining who I am, yet do not align with my heart. How often have we stayed wedded to an ideology which caused pain and strife in our relationships because we do not want to risk the vulnerable experience of exploration?

Sometimes we try to insert ourselves into situations where we are not a good fit.  We are asked by others to get involved and do not feel we can decline the invitation or directive. We have strong feelings positive or negative about it and want to be involved.  It is so easy for me to think because I have strong feelings I must do something about them.  But does the role I am playing fit with a way I can best be of service? Does what I have been asked to be a part of fit with what I am effective in life? Am I trying to make myself fit a situation because it is all I know and I fear to chart new waters? Is something no longer a fit for me and I am afraid about what it says about me that it no longer fits? We know change is inevitable yet we fight so hard to hold on to how we see ourselves fitting in the world and are used to. We lose the willingness to find new ways to fit.  When we slow down and take the time to listen to our hearts, we take the necessary step in determining where we fit best at this moment.  Our heart is guided by an in and an out breath through which we connect to its wisdom to notice how are lives call upon us to fit here today but maybe not fit tomorrow.

Often when I hear someone talk about doing some sort of soothing, I feel uncomfortable.  It sounds like an amelioration of weakness or a coping for something gone wrong.  In my critical mind soothing is a compensation for the bad end of things.  The dogooder in me is convinced that there would be no need for soothing if the right amount of preparation occurred beforehand.  Unfortunately, life is not that clear cut.  Fortunately, this perspective on life is not one that dominates my reality anymore.  I was so afraid of making mistakes that the mere notion of doing something to soothe myself or others after something has gone wrong scared me.  It would mean admitting I was wrong.  Unfortunately, this caused me to seek out unhealthy forms of soothing because life can be harsh.  I sought soothing in food and sugar because I did not know how to handle life.  Strangely I sought soothing in making my feelings wrong and turning off my heart.  God offers us a different kind of soothing. A soothing requiring us to go within.  I have learned in my recovery and on my daily dates with God that by paying attention to the prompting of my heart and taking a breath I can experience soothing.  A soothing which places me in the moment.  A soothing that makes room for whatever my experience is in the moment without judgment.  When I allow the soothing of my heart and invite its perspective by first taking a breath, I do not need to hold the same harsh perspective the critical judge in my mind is holding.  It is not a weakness to seek soothing in our lives, it is part of the deal.  It is how we find peace and balance amidst the dual nature of our reality.  When we listen to our body’s speaking to us we will know how to find healthy ways to experience soothing.

We readily accept the idea that when other people around us are sick we may catch what they have.  Why is it we do not think we energetically catch what someone else is transmitting as well? Is it not just as likely we can be impacted by the presence of others?  How many times have you noticed someone walk in a room?  For some reason, they caught your eye?  Is it their look, their presence, or something you heard them say?  The more interesting question is why are they catching to you?  Are you fascinated or irritated?  Our hearts whisper to us from our interactions with others, even in seemingly unimportant situations.  When we notice what goes from catching us to getting us caught up in it or them we might want to take a closer look. Sometimes when I ride the train to work I will look around the cabin and see who is there.  There are some who catch my eye more than others.  Is there something in them I recognize?  Is there something that reminds me of me or that I can relate to about them?  Am I caught by their presence or their presentation?  Are they someone I might engage in conversation which would be kind of taboo considering how no one talks to each other?  When we notice what or who is catching to us we can take life’s invitation to notice what is being woken up in us and what it might have to teach us.