It’s woven into our origin stories, our desire to define things. Our minds are our greatest asset and weapon. In naming something we feel we know it. In labeling it we confine and control it. We lead with the mind and therefore create dominion over our environment. We invent new ways to interact with our world through the problem solving facets of our mind. We create a world boundaried by a past/present/future create by and for the mind, therefore creating our own torments by being unable to alter the past and working to solve problems that don’t exist in a future that may never come to pass.
We lead with our minds and never allow ourselves to stop long enough to realize there is another way of doing things. We lead with our minds and then wonder why we can’t connect with our feelings, can’t feel authentically about things, can’t feel at all. We lead with our minds, seeing all possibilities as equal, making constructs in our minds to will the lives we imagine into being, all of which crumbles into dust as soon as we stop all the willing. We find problems and resolve them only to find the same problem in a different place and yet another problem occurring while we’re problem solving until we are not living, but patching holes in the fabric of a reality we understand but don’t truly live in.
What terrifies us most is what our soul yearns for, to lead with connection. We call it being authentic, being vulnerable, being real. Whatever name the mind creates to label it, in the end it is about the wisdom of feeling. Feeling the life within us and around us without attempting to control it. Feeling the truth of things and being able to act with it, not despite it. Feeling the draw to a partner, a child, a lover, a friend, which demands that we be as raw, as honest as they are being in the moment, and allowing ourselves to follow that feeling with action. It is feeling ourselves breaking open to a new reality within us and not withdrawing or trying to duct tape ourselves back into a more understandable or controllable shape. It’s being an adult, a human with no safety net, returning to that place of infinite possibility of the toddler learning to walk. To fail, fail often, feel every failure and yet keep going. It is about leading with connection, to ourselves and with others, in order to feel that which we are: grace.
“A reality we understand but don’t truly live in”. Oh.My.God. You should get a prize just for seeing the difference between understanding and living. 38 years on this planet, and it never occurred to me, but now I see how obvious it is. I’ll keep it in mind, it will guide me very wisely! Thanks so much, Teri!