About Being...
Blue Buddha
Acrylic on paper
by sweetmango
...So my computer decided to shut down on me a couple of weeks ago, out of nowhere. I was mid way through typing a sentence and it just shut down and try as I might it refused to restart. At first I was annoyed with this unexpected turn of events, my course that I am studying is delivered online, I am already behind in that due to life and parenting. But, the thing is this, after the first 24-48 hours, I was secretly thrilled with the whole malfunctioning computer thing! I really was. I got to immerse myself into life 100%, no study, no distractions via the Internet, NO PRESSURE! I just lived. I just lived my life like I used to around 10 years ago and you know what? I miss that life. I miss just BEING, I seem to be doing far too much and not being anywhere near enough. I think that we all do this, we all wander off track somewhat and day after day we get caught up in the turmoil of doing so much so that we forget to live and we miss out on the things that make life, well......LIFE.
Dont you just feel sometimes like life is this big old river, yes we have all heard that analogy before, but again we forget to apply it with direct reference to how we are living (or not as the case maybe). For the past couple of years my 'river' has been rapid after rapid until the day that my computer broke down and it was like finally the river had spat me out into an eddy (calmer water that allows you to leave the main current)....and I liked it, really really liked it. Life, if you are not careful can have you running so fast that every decision is made on the run, with no time to reflect, no chance to weigh up options....or does it? You see in the end it is not life that has us running but ourselves, our own choices, the lifestyles and community that we immerse ourselves into, that is what places us in these precarious rapids that suck our energy as we try to negotiate them.
So it has me thinking, again.....how do i want my life to be? what does it look like? how do i spend my days? my nights? what am i aiming for?.....before i jump back into this river of life, where exactly am i aiming? We need to be mindful in our navigation, sometimes we just get so used to navigating that we lose sight of where it is that we are heading and instead we expend all our energy fending off rapid after rapid and suddenly we might realise that the destination we had in mind wasn't what we were really after in the first place, that perhaps it was other peoples lives or wishes or societies expectations that had been directing us.
My computer stopped working and funnily enough so did I and in that moment I remembered who I really am, what it is that I really love. I remembered it when I was weaving a fairy crown for my baby girl using green weeping willow branches that my children collected on one of our walks. I remembered it when I started really focusing on my body as I started working out again. I remembered it when I planted a vegetable garden with my kids. I remembered who I am. Now my mission is to weave myself into life. It sounds simple but it is deceptively tricky because we must dodge the opinions and expectations of others and we must also ask ego and its fearful litany to step aside.
Yet, it is strangely exhilarating, we have the whole world laid out before us, waiting for us to do whatever we choose, that is the key though.....Life is about doing whatever we CHOOSE. It sounds so simple when placed upon a paper as a word, but when it comes to creating that life in day to day reality we are tripped up by so many obstacles....or are we? Are we perhaps frightened so frequently that we make choices to avoid what we perceive to be scary in order to feel safe, even though the price of that perceived safety is that we are in fact living the scariest life we can....a life that we never really planned?
I realised something the other day, by that, i mean that i realised it on the deepest level...
I was talking to my eldest son, the one who has a smile that melts souls (it really does) I was talking to him about how schools fail to teach us how to live, really live, how to understand ourselves and how to pursue happiness and that in reality this is a travesty. So it is up to us to teach our children how to be happy in this life, really fulfilled and happy. I am adamant that this knowledge be passed on in a real and tangible way so that our kids dont get lost and wander upon a lonely path. I have come to understand that my real role as a parent is to look for my children's passions, their natural talents and allow them to grow into these.
My role as a parent is to help my children discover who they are and then help them to love that person they discover...
...and if I am to do that effectively I first of all need to fine tune myself. Our destinations will always change and alter,sometimes ever so slightly, sometimes on a larger scale and that is just the way it should be. The trick is to not hold on too tight to a destination out of fear, instead hold it loosely and make your way toward it, knowing that at some point you might come to realise that it wasn't exactly what you were imagining it to be. So you take a moment out of your hectic daily life to have a meeting with yourself, maybe several meetings, and you start to ask the right questions of yourself so that you may clearly see your direction once more and then head toward it without the fear of the unknown holding you back.
Anyway, I digress, my computer broke down and I had it fixed and now I need a meeting or three with myself.
How about you? Are you due for a meeting?
Thinking of you all
xxsm
P.S
For those of you whose first thought is .... but we always have to do stuff that we don't like..... well yes we do, that is just life....or is it? Is it really how it needs to be? Read more...
