Mary O’Malley – I invite you to open to an amazing truth…you are sitting on a planet that is being held by nothing more substantial than space as it dances 65,000 mph through an ocean of space, which goes on forever! Take a moment and let that in. Then open to the truth that this beautiful planet, which is our home, is surrounded by more stars than there are grains of sand on every beach of the earth!
Through these mind opening truths, I am inviting you to shift out of your everyday mind and recognize you are a part of an amazingly huge, astoundingly creative and truly awesome unfolding called life. And it is a lot smarter than you. For heaven’s sake, it created the DNA molecule out of stardust and took a cell that was so tiny you couldn’t see it with the naked eye and multiplied and divided it into the body you are sitting in as you read these words!
Tapping into the creative intelligence of life, I’m also inviting you into the radical notion that your life is for you. It is not a series of random events you must control in order to be happy. It is an amazing adventure where every moment is offering you one of two things: it is inviting you to open into this living moment, which is your home or it will put you in the exact set of experiences you need in order to see all the stories you took on, which keep you separate from the joy of truly connecting with life again.
Rather than trusting life, most of us narrow it down to struggle. We wake up in the morning ready to grumble, judge, control and resist life. We are lost in the illusion of being in control because we are run by fear – we worry about not being enough or being too much; we worry about being accepted and are afraid of being rejected; we become upset about 5 extra pounds, or the length of the stoplight or whether our headache means we have brain cancer. All the while, we are being held by the Earth as it dances through oceans of space.
In relationships, we defend our positions, making other people, political parties and religions wrong. We fight over imaginary borders, throwing our world into chaos. In the youth of our species we are like adolescents with a lot of focus on ‘me, me, me’ without much access to the deep compassion of our hearts. If you doubt this, just watch the power struggles and judgments that are happening in most countries, relationships and almost everywhere on social media.
Now imagine what it would be like if more of us would grow up out of the kind of mind that judges, compares and endlessly tries to make life be a certain way. This growing up is all about discovering that there is another way of being with life. It’s called relaxing into life. It is all about engaging with it exactly as it appears rather than trying to make it be a particular way.
This may bring up fingerlings of fear inside of you because it has been a long time since most of us have trusted life enough to show up for it. Pema Chodren, the deeply wise Buddhist nun and world-renowned author describes enlightenment as the willingness to relax into life!
What would it be like if, just for today, rather that struggling with life you were willing to cultivate moments where you simply open to the natural unfolding? You lived this way when you were very young, and you can relearn how to live this way again as you use your mind to connect rather than constantly control.
So, for just this moment, as you are reading this blog, open to the flow of your life. Lift your eyes from these words and see the space you’re sitting in as if you have never seen it before. For you haven’t. Every second it is changing and evolving.
Now, close your eyes and listen to the music of your life. Allow the sounds to come to you as they arise and then pass away. Both seeing and listening to this living moment of your life can help you to recognize that the millions of moments of your life have brought you to this moment and it is the only moment that matters in your whole life!
As you get more deeply into your day it can be so easy to forget this. Don’t try to be here. That is just more struggle. Instead, notice how much you hold your breath. It is a guarantee that if you are holding your breath you are resisting life. The more you bring your attention into being curious about what is happening right now i.e. your breath, the more your natural inclination to be here for life will grow.
It won’t be easy. Your fear-based mind will, over and over again, move you back into the world of thinking and its addiction to struggle. But know that a moment here and a moment there, where you are with life exactly as it is, will make a huge difference in your life. It will allow your body to relax and your mind to quiet down. This makes it easier to connect with people, animals, plants, rainbows, sunsets, monarch butterflies and even yourself without needing anything to be any different than what it is.
Now imagine what our world would be like if more people really showed up and were present for life. I believe that life is an unfolding process and more of us are growing beyond our adolescence and into our maturity. Because you are reading these words you are a part of this maturing and you can make a difference. Be willing to cultivate moments of pure presence and know every moment you are fully here for life you are a part of the healing of our planet.
SF Source Mary O’Malley Aug 2019