I hit a big wall last week.
I’ve been pushing on myself to do this and that – pushing nonstop for a while if I’m honest. In retrospect, the wall hitting didn’t come as a huge surprise.
Tuesday night, when I stopped and considered, I let my awareness go to wherever the push originated. I realized there was no single origin but a trainload of events.
I think the whole I-moved-cross-country-during-a-pandemic-changed-my-life-moved-my-business-bought-a-house-was-forced-to-upend-my-website-and-I-am-alive-to-tell-the-story thingy has caught up with me. Plus, on Tuesday, I had a small eye surgery thingy. All is well and since I had one of the founders of the procedure sitting by my side (that would be my Dad!), I got through just fine.
But, Lordy goodness, I think the poking at my eye part was a step too far.
I couldn’t think. I couldn’t formulate sentences. I couldn’t do much more than stare at the boob-tube and crochet.
I did make a beautiful lapghan for my stepmom to have as she recovers from a serious leg fracture. I did have several epiphanettes about courses in 2021. I did feel myself somewhat restored on Thursday when I got out for a hike on a beautiful afternoon after five days of cold and rain.
But I also had to fight myself to let go, rest, and restore.
Maybe you feel a push in your life as well?
Maybe you’ve come to a level of exhaustion which has you in the midst of your own wall hitting?
Maybe you feel this push going on forever into the unknown and the unknowable future?
What I know for myself and for most folks I’ve been connecting with lately is that time has compressed.
After the experience of the last six months, looking into the next six months is totally unpredictable.
Just a year ago, we collectively had a better sense of the “next six months.”
Right now, even the next 30 days is not filled with clarity.
And Holy Moly! Even the next 24 hours is dicey.
For me, my push comes from old habits of expectation, anticipation, and prediction to find certainty and security.
If the compression of time puts 30 days out into question, my inner push only intensifies, magnifying the specter of the unknown and the unexpected.
With contagion a real presence in our lives, time compresses, uncertainty blooms, and our tendency to give lip service to “live in the moment” becomes apparent.
In moments like these, I ease the trouble of my soul by questioning my fear and my worry and my concern.
What is the source, the foundation of my fear?
Do I accept this fear as reasonable guidance for my life?
Last Friday night, while beginning to crochet a second blanket, I heard the voice of my push suggest this new perspective: your timeline has irrevocably changed.
Hmmmm? What the heck does that mean?
I crocheted several more rows while the TV spun more story.
Here’s what played in my heart and my head:
My timeline shift is directly experienced in the compression of time.
How I organize my life is a result of a step forward into a new way of being because of this shift.
My wall hitting was/is me shifting awareness of where balance, alignment, and resonance are for me now.
Every moment of my I-moved-cross-country-during-a-pandemic-changed-my-life-moved-my-business-bought-a-house-was-forced-to-upend-my-website-and-I-am-alive-to-tell-the-story is me present to the motion of the moment – even those moments when part of me reacted or resisted.
No doubt, these are trying times and we are all struggling.
Not so much because we are failing, but because we are shifting timelines, integrating physical and spiritual in new ways, and connecting with self and the world within new and powerful approaches.
More crocheting helped me analyze and begin to incorporate all the experience, confusion, and tiredness. Saturday brought the energy to get rid of almost all of the moving boxes left lingering in my new home.
Here’s what I’ve been saying to myself in the last couple of days:
Embrace your inner push.
In the quiet space of your heart and mind, allow the new emerging energy of your soul to bring you restoration and peace.
Time is now.
Peace is What Is.
Restoration is found in the message of my push: the experience of time itself is shifting.
In the shift, a new me emerges.
A quote from Lao Tzu helps clear the head cotton from the wall hitting:
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Then this question helps me find the trajectory of what I might be:
How does my inner push point me towards restoration and peace?
Bottomline: the wall hitting of my inner push is helping me find my own path of peace within the new me.
May your push lead you to your own peace and your own newness!
For a deep dive, begin here: What is Spiritual Practice?
