Elizabeth DiAlto asked on Facebook, “Are you over-consuming and under-integrating?”
That post plunged me into an emotional roller coaster. In my hunger to see around the curve in the road of life, I’ve spent the last few months looking outward to books, teachers, and courses for the answers.
Denial : Absolutely NOT! Everything I’m reading/researching is wildly important.
Anger : I am LEARNING here. I’m not doing ANYTHING WRONG!! THIS IS ALL IMPORTANT FOR MY WORK AND PERSONHOOD. LEAVE ME ALONE!
Guilt/Shame : Oh my. I am doing this exact thing. I am not, in any way, walking my talk about making space.
Acceptance : I see this truth. I see myself scrolling through Facebook until late at night. I watch as I grab one of five books on my night stand. I remember putting my headphones into my ears to listen to another book on Audible. Sigh. *turns head to sky*
Recognition : Ok, I see this. I know this. I’ve been here before.
Curious : What am I actually feeling right now? What’s showing up?
Acknowledgement : Oh, anxious. I feel anxious. I want to see what’s coming next. I can’t see what’s coming next. I’m afraid that I’ll never see what’s coming next. I’m reaching for content so that I can escape the discomfort of not knowing.
Over-consumption claps a wet blanket over your inner knowing, it muffles the wisdom of your inner teacher.
THE DANGER OF LOOKING TO OUTER TEACHERS FOR INNER KNOWING
In the midst of my over-consumption trance, I was rocked when Glennon Doyle Melton and announced their split from their respective partners.
Their individual posts reflected their truth and a part of me cheered for their courage. Yet another part was deeply sad. I wanted to see them create their life, their art, speak their truth, and have happily ever-after love lives with no waves to rock the boat. I can hear my ego screaming, TELL ME IT’S POSSIBLE TO LIVE THAT LIFE, exactly that, and don’t ever change, pleaseandthankyou.
No shock here, but I’m not Liz Gilbert, and I’m never going to walk her path. I have my own to follow. I KNOW this, deeply, but when I’m in the frenzy of scrolling through Facebook, it’s like I forget. My brain starts to see itself in other people’s lives and I forget that my path is unique, different, and here for it’s own reasons. Yours is, too. When we constantly look outward for our reality, there is no space to listen to what our life is calling us to do.
There is no one else here that is meant to touch the lives you are, to do the work that calls you, in the way that you are meant. But only you can know that. It is up to you then, to heed the soul’s voice.
Listening to your soul is not for the faint of heart.
SURRENDER TO THE LABYRINTH OF YOUR LIFE
This week a client asked: “Jess, I feel like I’m going backwards. How could I be back here?”
I get her panic. We want to think that we have worked through it all and that we can move on and never feel it again. This blog post by Martha Beck’s compares the journey of our life to labyrinth. “Yes, you’re meant to move forward, but almost never in a straight line. Yes, there’s an element of achievement, of beginning and ending, but those are minor compared to the element of being here now.”
The practice of walking the labyrinth allows us to release the frantic desire to get to the “end” because the end is actually going inward and walking back out again. However, before we hear the answers, we have to trust that we are asking the right questions.
BEFORE YOU CAN KNOW THE ANSWERS, YOU MUST TRUST THE QUESTIONS
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. – Rainer Maria Rilke
This last month has had me focusing on asking the right questions so that I can hear the quiet whispers when my Soul says, “That’s it.”
One of the Qs I’m asking these days is about SoulSpeak. “In what ways does SoulSpeak want to grow and evolve?”
If you are questioning right now, before you head to intention setting or getting clear on your desires, I invite you to go back to the questions. What are the questions that are rising up in you? What are you asking for? What is your life asking of you?
What questions are you asking of your Soul? What’s rising in you?
Will you share yours? It can be uncomfortable to sit and listen, but it can have profound influences on our ability to trust ourselves. Respond here and tell me or join and share with us there.
In deep listening,
JESS
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1 comment. Leave new
Hi all, I just wanted to share a simple and very effective tool for clearing out the clutter and making space to turn inward when needed. I’ve been using the Freedom app for about 6 weeks now – you can set very specific time frames for blocking social media across all your devices, or any place on the web where you know you spend too much time with not much to show for it. Facebook was a huge distraction for me because I work alone, and well, it gets lonely, so I felt I needed the connection during the day. I already know that I absorb other people’s energies, both positive and negative, but I always thought this was something that happened in physical space. I knew that too much time on FB could make me feel awful, but it took a long time to understand that a large part of that was because I was absorbing people’s energies virtually, too. So if someone posted “I HEREBY DECLARE THAT IF I FIND OUT YOU ARE A TRUMP SUPPORTER CONSIDER YOURSELF UNFRIENDED AND I DON’T NEED TO GIVE YOU AN EXPLANATION!!!”, I was absorbing the anger in that statement, even when it wasn’t directed at me. Those types of angry, take-a-ethcial-stand declarations happen a lot in my circles. No wonder I felt scattered, awful, bummed and unfocused when I thought I was just bantering with friends or keeping up with life circumstances. I also have a business so I can’t delete my account (nor do I want to – there are of course some benefits). So Freedom for me is perfect because I don’t have to rely on willpower. Now I have a small window on Tuesdays where I update my business page and check in quickly to see if anything major is going on in the lives of loved ones. And that’s really it. It’s enough for me.
My energy, focus and clarity about my own needs have increased 1000% since adopting this new habit. It helped that I was on vacation in Canada back in August with limited phone service, so I did have a forced weaning-off period to ease into it. I have been amazed at how much more fluid (rather than harried) my days are, and I am working on an exciting new business project. And I don’t have to engage in all-or-nothing thinking – I still use social media, just very sensibly and without allowing it to steal my time. If a friend is having a real crisis, I think (hope) they know they can reach out to me via phone. Also listening to a podcast that reframed social media time as a form of addiction was a sobering motivator for me.
Anyway, the link is below if this is a possible solution that speaks to you. Thanks again to Jess for holding this space.
https://freedom.to/
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