Tag: expectations

Joy to the World and Pass the Eggnog!

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, My OdysseyLeave a comment

 

I don’t know about you, but this time of the year can be stressful for anyone who celebrates the season.  In fact, there are days when I feel that Ebenezer Scrooge had it right before the spirits ever got a hold of him, particularly the part where he tells the gentlemen collecting for the poor that “I wish to be left alone!”

Just think of all of the things that you are ‘expected’ to do.  There is the holiday decorating and the baking, the gift buying and wrapping and party planning.  Then there are the concerts and end of school performances and recitals and drama productions and work parties and neighborhood celebrations, church celebrations and the addressing of about a million greeting cards and all of this in the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

With so much to do and so little time to do it in (not to mention even less time to actually kick back and relax) is it any wonder why so many people get so stressed out?

Here is a question for you.  With all the expectations attached to the holiday season, is it possible to live authentically; to be exactly whom and what you are in spite of everything that you are expected to do?

The answer, of course, is yes.

No, this doesn’t mean that you have to become a Scrooge and lock yourself away behind walls of cynicism for the duration of the holiday season. What it does mean is that you take a good hard look at those responsibilities and activities that you have agreed to take part in and ask yourself whether or not they bring you joy.

If they DO bring you joy, then by all means keep them!  Yes, I know that baking four dozen cupcakes for your child’s end of school winter holiday party may not be a joyful experience in and of itself, but the look on their face when you walk into their classroom with the cupcakes may be worth every moment you spent in the kitchen.

On the other hand, if you find yourself dreading the very thought of attending one more Messiah sing along, then don’t go!  There is nothing that says that you have to say yes to every invitation issued during this time of the year.  There is nothing that says that you have to bake all of your sugar cookies from scratch.  There is nothing that says that you have to reciprocate every gift you receive with another of equal or greater value.

What it takes is weighing each agreement that you make; every invitation that you accept against how much joy it will bring into your life.

Does that sound selfish? Perhaps in a way it is.  After all, at this time of the year especially we are encouraged to think of others first; to put our own wants and needs aside in order to provide for the needs and wants of others.  But what never fails to astonish me is how anyone can expect that a person can keep giving and giving without every running out of energy.  It can’t be done.

In order to care for others we must first take care of ourselves, and one of the most effective ways to do this is to pay attention to our joy.  If everything that we do comes from our heart and brings us joy and happiness then each thing that we do for others – which we WANT to do for others – each thing we do for someone else that brings us joy will be magnified tenfold.

It won’t be how much we do, but the quiet intent; the joy inherent that will fill up our lives, and our hearts this holiday season and every day of the year to come.

 

 

The Empty Shell

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, My OdysseyLeave a comment

“You can’t ask a butterfly to scrunch herself back into her chrysalis or to go back to being a caterpillar just because you’d gotten used to her like that.  What’s worse is when you try to get her to go back because you fear the freedom given to her by her wings.”  ~SSHenry

There are some experiences; some moments in time; that change your life forever.  Perhaps for you it was a major life event such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one or a close call that shook you right down to the foundations of your soul.  Or maybe it wasn’t a large event at all.  Maybe it was something much more subtle such as a kind word spoken when it was most needed; the touch of a lover’s hand or a breeze that not only ruffled your hair but stirred up something deep down inside you that simply could not be contained.

I’ve had many life-changing moments.  All of us have.  Sometimes it seems as if these moments come so thick and fast that they threaten to overwhelm you.  At other times you feel as if your entire life is on “pause” and all of the moments having stepped out for a drink or something.   At some points in your life it is as if the moments of realization and wonder and change are so few and far between that you’ve pretty much forgotten what they are like before the next one begins to play itself out and have to remind yourself what exactly it is that you are dealing with each time you encounter it.

My most recent (and not surprisingly most profound) life-changing moment to date came the moment that I walked into my house after a two month absence and realized that there was no way that I could go back to being the person I had been when I walked out that door eight weeks earlier.

The details as to why I ended up gone for two months (illness in the family) or what happened while I was gone are not important.  Yes, I had some interesting experiences while I was off on my own for two months dealing with unexpected issues and meeting people I might not otherwise have encountered. But what really matters is that for two solid months I was detached from the life that I had been living up until that moment.

For two months I was separated from all of the small niggling everyday details that we label “reality” and which demand our attention and catch us up in layers upon layers of drama and expectation; layers that we gladly pull around us like a cloak and call “life.”

For two months I was free of those layers.  Getting rid of them was not pleasant. They got stripped away from me rudely leaving me rather raw and feeling as if I had been flayed alive and then washed down in salt water and I felt as if was being completely inundated with issues and problems and responsibilities that I really didn’t want to deal with at that moment in time.

But the point is that for two months I was not just a wife.  Nor was I just a mother or a daughter taking care of her own mother.  For two solid months – I was me.

Just me.

I was not free of obligations or responsibilities (caring for a sick family member brings with it its own responsibilities and expectations).  But for two months I was free of the obligations and responsibilities and expectations in which I had wrapped myself up for the last 22 years; those responsibilities and expectations that come from being a wife and mother and homemaker extraordinaire.

For two solid months was completely and totally myself.

It dawned on me as I was driving home, to wonder just how I would ever be able to go back to living my old life.  But when I pulled into the driveway and saw my house for the first time in eight weeks; when I walked through the door and took one look around me, I knew that it was patently impossible.

I can’t go back to the way things were; ever.  The person who lived that life is gone.

I could feel the shell of her; that old me; waiting for me around every corner.  “Come on” she whispered, holding out the old life as if it were a soft but comfortable pair of sweat pants. “Don’t you want to slip back into this?  This is where you are comfortable.  This is where you belong.  Life doesn’t get any better than this.”

“Oh yes it does sweetheart” I whispered back “you have NO idea!”

You see, the old life has a lot going for it.  There are many things that I would like to keep and incorporate into my new reality, but not if it means having to go back to being the person that I was.  The person I have become cannot possibly fit into that old skin. Not without giving up who and what I have become.

It would be like asking a butterfly to scrunch back into her chrysalis.  Or better yet, to turn back time and become a caterpillar again.  It’s not going to happen.  I could pretend, but I’m tired of pretending.

I am simply going to be myself.

My whole self.

I will start again.  Here.  Now.  As myself.  If that is not enough, or more likely if that is too much, then so be it.  I have wings now baby. There’s no reason for me to go back to crawling when I can fly.

The Hive Has You!

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical Mussings1 Comment

Forget the Matrix.  It is the Hive that has you!

Ah, the idealization of bees. What a simple life they live; born with a purpose etched into their very fabric of being, a bee never questions its lot in life (well, not unless it’s a Disney bee, but that’s a whole different breed).  It simple does what it does, devoting its life to the hive and never questioning what it is that it was meant to do.

But when it comes right down to it, it is hard to be a bee. For one it’s a short life.  The lifespan of the average honey bee is only 28-35 days.  That’s it.  That is the lifespan of a worker honey bee. From the time the adult bee emerges from its larval cocoon a bee has roughly a month to live, and what does it do with its life?  It collects nectar which is turned into honey or pollen which is then turned into bee pollen or royal jelly.  The honey is collected to see the hive through the winter; the bee pollen and royal jelly is to feed the young bees that will soon be taking over the jobs of the current crop of workers.

From an individual perspective the bee doesn’t do much with its life at all. But from the hive’s perspective, the life of each individual bee is incredibly important with each bee’s role as a worker vitally important to maintain the life of the hive, and there is nothing that is seemingly more of an anathema to today’s humans than the thought that they might be living the life of a bee; working for the greater good of some larger group purpose and without the benefit of developing an individual identity or having a life to show for all of the hard work that they do.

There have been science fiction movies made about hive mentalities; horror stories where a person is absorbed into a larger consciousness and looses their independence and individuality, becoming a mindless automaton with no thought in their head except to conform to the expectations of their society.

There is just one problem.  We are already there, and most people don’t see it as a horror story at all.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have the illusion of freedom and independence and individuality; lots of choices of things to buy and entertainments to pursue and even of religions to follow; but just try doing something outside of the accepted parameters and see just how far you get before you are removed from the hive, or at least banished to the fringes where you don’t have the opportunity to take part in the active life of the community.

But even the thought of a society that has relegated us all to the status of worker bees; locked into our lives and expected to work tirelessly as productive members of society until we drop and are replaced with others; even that is not the true horror. The true horror is that we’ve chosen this. No, we haven’t just chosen it.  We’ve created it.  We wanted it.

We wanted it so badly that we willingly established rules and regulations and political procedures to keep it in place; we’ve created an education system that encourages young people to give up their individuality and creativity in exchange for economically productive jobs that they detest but that will pay the bills.  We’ve encouraged a society where productivity and usefulness is measured by one’s paycheck and one’s purchasing power.

It would be different if, instead of a hive mentality, we had chosen instead to establish a system of community; a society where each individual is accepted and valued for their uniqueness and their contribution to the richness and diversity of the whole.  In that sort of a society working for the good of the whole is not something to be feared; it is not something that will strip you of your energy and your individuality and leave you lying all alone in the mud when your economic usefulness to the society is at an end.  Instead it will encourage and promote individuality and creativity as the building blocks of a truly productive society; one that values all of its members for what they bring to the table, regardless of how large or small of a role they play.

Then again, just because we’ve lived in the hive does not mean that we have to die there.  Maybe it’s time for the bees to leave the square boxes of hives and designated Queens that have been provided for them by societal expectations and to establish the kind of thriving bee community that would make Disney proud.

Bringing Your Reality Into Focus

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” ~ Lewis Carroll

If you don’t know what it is that you want, then how can you expect to ever get it?

Think about it; how many times have you felt that your life is not living up to your expectations; like there is something missing; something that you should be doing or that you should have and you can’t quite seem to put your finger on what, exactly, it is? How many times have you gotten the distinct impression that you are ‘settling’ for a life that contains less that you are capable of containing?

Like everyone else, I’d had this feeling myself; this vague, unfocused impression of a larger life; a template of my life if you will that existed just under the surface of reality; the life that I was always meant to live and that I could be living if only I knew how to bring it into my reality.

I’d daydreamed about the kind of life I wanted to have; the people and things that I wanted to be in it; but it always seemed like no more than a dream; wishful thinking all vague and unfocused; unfocused that is until the day that suddenly it all made sense.  In a blink I understood what it was that I’d been missing.

I still remember the moment vividly;   I was sitting at a coffee shop, across the table from a woman that I had just met. A complete stranger until fifteen minutes earlier, she’d been pouring her problems out to me for the last quarter of an hour and I’d been listening; curious as to usual about what it is that seems to inspire people to just start laying their problems out for me, when something she said snapped my consciousness into focus;

“I keep waiting for something to interesting to happen to me but nothing ever does,” she said, sounding rather forlorn.  “I keep getting the impression that I’ve, you know, just settled for something less than I should have.  That there really should be more to my life – I just don’t know what, and if only I could figure out what it is, then everything would fall into place.”  She sighed and took a sip of her coffee and went on to talk about other things, none of which I remember because my mind was busy being astounded.

Heaven only knows that it wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone say this.  In fact, I’d thought this myself on more than one occasion, but for some reason when that woman said it that morning in that coffee shop with the sun falling across our table at that exact angle, everything snapped into place with a crystalline clarity that took my breath away.

Having a vague idea of what I wanted was not enough you see.  Simply knowing that there was something bigger that I was supposed to be doing with my life wasn’t enough to bring that purpose to the surface.  Simply wanting my life to be better was not enough to make it so.

It was like I’d been spending my life creating an impressionist painting; a series of lines and dots and splotches of color; people and places and situations and experiences all randomly splashed onto my canvass; adhering only to the vaguest of outlines and without any but the vaguest impression of what it was that I was painting.

I’d been missing focus.

In those few minutes; the handful of minutes between the words spoken by this virtual stranger and the time she and her extra large mocha latte walked out of the shop to go on about her life, everything I’d ever read about visualization; about manifestation; about creating your own reality all of it finally made sense.  In order to live the life you were always meant to live there is one thing that you have to do; bring that life into the forefront of your awareness and bring all of your focus to bear on it.

Of course this is easier said than done; you have to be able to determine what, exactly, constitutes the kind of life that you want to be living and then be able to hold it in the forefront of your awareness, but once you have gotten to the point where you can keep your focus on what it is that you want to manifest in your life, you’ll be amazed at how quickly things will start falling into place for you and just how quickly the life you were meant to live becomes a reality.  There is just one important thing to remember – don’t focus on what it is that is missing and treat it as if it is missing.  Focus on it as if you already have it in your life; give thanks for it.  Tell yourself how glad you are that you have this particular thing in your life, then watch as it becomes a living breathing part of your reality.

Curious as to some ways to bring your own dreams into focus in your reality?  Try some of the following ideas, you just might be surprised at how well they work:

 

 

 

 

                       

 

 

 

The Magic Web

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

We live in a magical world.  If you don’t think so, just look around you; look at the intricacies of a spider’s web (Her mother dies giving birth to her – so how does she know how to create that? Where do the designs come from?) Look at the glory of a sunrise; at the intimate dance of sunlight and shadow across the surface of a pond; at the delicate ecological balance of life taking place just beneath the surface of that water.

Truly, mysteries abound.  The secrets of fierce nuclear fusion that give birth to the life-giving warmth of our sun, the cycling of our stars and the complex combination of interlocking chemical and biological systems that make up the human body.

But probably one of the most amazingly mysterious and magical concepts is the fact that each of these mysteries; each of these intricate layers of creation is connected to everything else around it.  Like the spider dancing across the strings of her web; we too are connected to everything around us.  We share our energy with that spider.  We dance to the sinuous music of the wind in the trees and in our hearts burns the same fierce brightness that fuels the sun itself.

You don’t believe me?  Go out into your yard before dawn some morning; go out in your bare feet and feel the dew on the grass beneath your toes; close your eyes and let the silence soak into your skin; feel the stirring of the wind; feel the power of the earth soaking into the soles of your feet.  Listen as the birds begin to welcome the first rays of sunlight; then open your eyes and watch as morning breaks and then tell me that you are not connected to everything around you.

It’s just that sometimes there is so much to take in.  Sometimes it is too much to take in.  Sometimes it feels that if we try to take it all in our hearts will burst with the sheer beauty of it.  In fact, chances are that the last time you truly took the time to let yourself connect to everything and everyone around you was when you were a child; when you could still comprehend the vastness and the mystery of it without needing to understand why.

No, for most of us there comes a time when our openness and willingness to accept our connection to everyone and everything becomes too much to bear.  Usually this occurs when someone or something within our web lets us down; when we can no longer see the beauty of the connection because of the pain of disappointment and dashed hopes; when even trying to see this connection hurts us too much and we withdraw to a safer, less vibrant level of reality where it won’t hurt so bad because we are no longer as open to life.

And it doesn’t end with our first step away from openness.  Most of us spend our lives narrowing our connection.  For most of us, our webs of connection to the world around us get smaller and smaller over the years; our connections fewer as people and circumstances fail to live up to our expectations.  And instead of dealing with the pain we simply narrow our focus; spinning smaller and smaller webs until finally the last filaments of our once glorious web drift away in the evening breeze because of our neglect and we sit forlorn on the fencepost; alone and unconnected and waiting for the end.  But it doesn’t have to be that way.

That talented spider with her delicately spun web does not let a little thing like a disappointment or discouragement –or even failed expectations keep her from maintaining her glorious web.  She spins and spins and spins and spins again.  And even when her web is broken by struggling insects; by gales of disappointment; by the careless actions of others; she quickly re-creates her web, continually opening herself back up – yes, to the pain and the disappointments – but also to the beauty and the wonder that caused her to choose that particular place to spin a web in to begin with.

So what is keeping you?

What is keeping you from re-spinning that web; those connections that you had in childhood; those connections that bound you with awe and reverence to the wonder and the mystery that surrounds you?

The only thing that is keeping you from once more opening yourself up to the joy and beauty that could be yours is your fear; the fear of disappointment; the fear pain; the fear that once your web has been torn apart you won’t have the strength to spin it out again.

Funny thing that, because the spider doesn’t even question whether or not she has the strength; she simply chooses to spin; stretching herself out to catch every subtle drop of beauty and possibility that is her birthright and accepting the pain as part of what it means to be alive.

I’ll Meet You There

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about

~~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Can you imagine it?

Can you imagine a world where we’ve stepped beyond the need to classify things as “right” or “wrong” and instead live so completely from the heart that we are in total synchronization with the universe’s plan for our lives, even if the life we live goes completely against social conventions?

What couldn’t we do?

What couldn’t we be?

How much of the misery and despair around us results from people trying to be something they are not? How much of it stems from living up to our societies expectations of what we are supposed to be?  How much of it results from people giving in to the pressure of friends and family to be “responsible” and “practical” to put aside their dreams in order to “grow up?”

I have asked this question before and gotten answers that, taken together, amount to this:

“But people have responsibilities.  We have obligations.  We have jobs and families that are depending on us.  Our communities, our societies expect us to behave in a certain way.  To just run off in pursuit of a dream; something that may or may not pan out; to pursue our own happiness regardless of the cost; that’s not being responsible, that is taking a risk, and not just with our own happiness, but with the happiness of others.”

Well, here are some questions for those who would hold this to be true:

Do you not also have a responsibility for your own happiness?

Do you really think that you can ever be truly happy as long as you know that you are not living up to your potential?

Do you really think that those who love you would not applaud you for doing what feels right and becoming the person you were truly meant to be?

Do you really think that it’s better to put away your dreams and be responsible, but to always know down deep in your heart that there is more to you than what you have settled for?

How much has the human race lost because someone with a dream responsibly put that dream aside in order to live up to their own or someone else’s expectations?

And finally (yet most importantly), what does your heart tell you that you should be doing?  What do you find your innermost soul yearning for? Are you content or do you find yourself seeking for something else; something more?

It is only in the deepest part of your heart that you will find the answers to these questions, and only there that you can find the strength to answer them honestly and then take whatever steps are necessary to bring your life into alignment with your soul purpose.

It is not an easy thing to do.  And no, it does not mean that you have to leave your family or give up your job or shirk your responsibilities.  This is something that goes far deeper than that.  Of course if you are honest with yourself; if you truly want to bring your life into alignment with your soul purpose; if you commit yourself to living from your heart then things are going to change.

When you can finally be honest with yourself and admit that you are not living from your heart; that your life is not in alignment with your soul purpose; when you finally commit to living authentically and are open to what your heart is telling you, things will change. It can’t be helped.  But you won’t have to force them.

As you listening to the promptings of your soul; as you learn to act on the instincts and impulses that it sends to guide you.  You will find your life becoming richer; deeper; more authentic than anything you could possibly have imagined.  But you will also find that many things that you thought were important; many things you thought you couldn’t do without will start to fall by the wayside. Desires, wishes, plans, ideas, beliefs, friendships, relationships; each and every one of them will be subjected to the same test of authenticity.  Some will survive the test.  Others will not.

Regardless of what does or does not change, your life will never be the same again.

And one day, one day you will be able to walk past the concepts of rightdoing and wrongdoing; smiling at them as you pass them by, and find yourself in that field where the person you have become will be able to lay itself down and bask in the wonder of what it truly means to live authentically.

And there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.