The life we took for granted is no more; the next step hasn’t revealed itself. As we navigate this transitional phase, what inner transformation is brewing? What shape will our lives take when we emerge from hibernation? As spiritual teacher, Stuart Mooney said in a recent talk, “Humanity has taken a time-out and we have the opportunity to push the reset button to be more in tune with natural law.”
Aligning with natural law means living in the present. During times of transition there is tremendous support for awakening to a new way of being, to align our intentions and actions to bring more light and awareness into our lives each moment, each day. But what does this really mean?
As we live with more presence, our perceived flaws can come into sharp focus. I recently read a quote by author, Ann Patchett, that applies not just to writing, but to living our lives with awareness. She talked about the “grief of constantly having to face down our inadequacies” in the process of writing. She said that she couldn’t write the perfect book that existed in her imagination, but that she could write the book that she was “capable of writing.” She said, “Again and again, throughout the course of my life, I will forgive myself.”
Maybe we can’t be the person we aspire to be–live up to an imagined ideal of ourselves–but we can live the life we are capable of living. Growing into more light means becoming more self-aware, and we may not like what we see, which, as Ann Patchett says, can be painful. Living our truth requires facing our “inadequacies.” Can we forgive ourselves, accept that this is who we are capable of being right now and know there is a certain perfection in that?
Ann also wrote that she had to be willing to “kill” the imaginary, perfect book in her head in order to actually write the real one. It was painful, she said, and it may be what stops many aspiring writers from actually writing the book they believe is inside them. To live our authentic life means to step out of our mental imaginations of how we think things should be, and step into what’s there in the moment. And what’s there may be grief, fear, anger. Can we make room for all of it, feel it, allow it, embrace it? Maybe that’s what is meant by self-forgiveness. And as we grow in awareness, it becomes apparent there is actually nothing to forgive.
Those of us on a spiritual path have the opportunity to allow this global crisis with its pain and uncertainty to propel us forward on our journey of awakening. My spiritual teacher in India referred to the process of facing our inner demons head on as “letting the tiger eat you.” As we evolve on the spiritual journey, we develop an increased capacity to rise above the human tendency to avoid suffering, to resist life. In psychology, we call this “expanding the window of tolerance.” But there is a difference between merely tolerating what is, and living in the awareness that includes everything that arises, without the need to push anything away.
There is a tendency, especially for those on a spiritual journey, to judge ourselves for not living up to our ideals. It’s important to remember that being thrown off course and coming back to center is an essential part of life. Like a guided missile, we are constantly straying off-course and realigning ourselves with our highest intention. And sometimes the course corrections can take time–even years. No need to judge ourselves for it, but when we do, can we embrace the self-judgment as ‘what is’ in this moment, rather than something to resist?
We’re always adjusting to a new reality–not just during an obvious transitional phase like this global pandemic. Nothing is ever static; we are continually in transition, adapting to the ever-changing nature of our lives. Do we ever really know what will happen in the next moment? Each moment is brand new. The spiritual masters tell us we are the unchanging witness of the continual changes, the screen of awareness on which everything appears. The purpose of the spiritual path is to awaken to this reality. Our challenge now and always is to discover the unshakeable peace the sages tell us is who we are at the center of our being. Life is always presenting us with the opportunity to cultivate living in our deeper, limitless nature, free of self-judgment and the need for forgiveness–the only safe place.
BE WELL.
