I want stuff, who doesn’t want stuff?
Now let me be the first to say, my immediate “go to” when I want something, is my spiritual bag of tricks.
I’ll chant, meditate, intend, call out, puja, homa, divine in, and use every tool, practice and resource I have out of thousands of hours of experience to clear out the pathways blocking my mojo to the picture of life I most desire it to be.
My altar is my mental, physical + emotional pharmacy.
My heart is my one-way highway to my highest life.
When students, friends, lovers come to me for help, we pray, plead, let go, invoke and call in whatever it is for which they are searching.
But: if and when we are doing this correctly, it inevitably brings up the pain of being somewhere other than where we want to be. It’s in embracing this pain that the alchemy happens: that Catch 22 of: the only way out is through.
Any action in running away from this pain, or dismissing it, whether that’s a full on breakdown or just seemingly annoying persnickety running thoughts, is like using rubber cement to hold back a tidal wave on the other side of a dam. It may seem to hold, but not for long.
Pain gives you depth.
IF you find the Grace to meet it.
If not, we remain shallow, selfish, closed mother***kers. (Pardon my French. I’m a lil’ passionate about this.)
Let me explain what’s stirring this in me.
I just returned from vaca where I have breathed in the book “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed. It’s exceptional. Go buy it immediately.
I have a major lady crush on her. Major. It’s advice to other people’s letters written from a woman who has lived her own extremes, and the wisdom she offers is so profound, honest and no-holds-barred, while simultaneously being loving and generous beyond measure.
I want to be her; I want to be her best friend; if I were into ladies, I would want her in my bed.
Because in dispensing her wisdom and sharing her own story, she acknowledges people’s pain, but not for one split second, ever, does she say: it should be different than this.
She wholeheartedly embraces the truth of their moment and in this sweet embrace, no matter how tragic the situation, she in turn celebrates life. By championing for it. By championing for whatever is happening and how we have the choice for how to react to it.
Cheryl’s (can I call her Cheryl?) attention and sage insight is undeniably sexy.
People who are sexy have a hunger for life. ALL of life.
And I don’t just mean sexy as in “you would want to sleep with them,” (although, hands down I find the most intriguing, soulful, passionate people– those who choose to meet with struggle head on and rise above it, are the most delicious to sleep with…)
I mean sexy as in you love yourself. You love your life enough; you love others around enough to rise in compassion, with grace, when things are ickiest. This is spirituality.
Those of you who’ve been reading or studying with me know it’s been a particularly challenging summer. I’ve used every last inch of myself in the last month, in a myriad of roles stretching from martyr to blackmailer.
And although it doesn’t happen often, there have certainly a few moments when I’ve questioned “why.” Why can’t I just be golfing with my dad like my friends on Instagram? Why isn’t it my time for babies yet? Why does it have to be so hard?
And even with the questions, there is an internal knowing that it doesn’t matter why; it’s just the way that it is. And reading someone like Cheryl reminds me: it’s to bring out the best me. Or as my yoga teacher says, who recommended the book to me, it allows me to “do me.” “Do me” in the way that I choose to do me.
Which is to say, no matter what: I take responsibility for what happens in my life.
Because that same internal knowing tells me:
this is making be bigger.
Bigger for when I have to deal with my own future children’s’ struggles.
Bigger for when people come to me with awful, heart-breaking, psychotic, horrifying stories of abuse or loss or injustice and I can honestly tell them: I understand, I’ve been there; trust me, we got this.
And whether that’s:
*a silly douchebag breaking your heart because he doesn’t know how lucky he had it,
*or wanting to strangle your wife or baby when parenthood seems like it’s too much,
*or feeling like you’re not in the right life, stuck in a job that doesn’t feel like your true purpose:
How you show up for all of your life is what grows your life.
Let go of where you’re not. Not at every waking second, but certainly sometimes. I’d say, try for more often than not, if you can, sweetness.
Be sexy. Choose life.
Choose your life.
And how you want to do it.
It’s all we got.
x
margaret
