I have been on a year-long journey of druidism as part of a continuation of my own spiritual path. Many of the lessons include reflective questions. This week two of those questions were:
What do you want freedom from?
What do you want freedom for?
In my ponderings, I could see how fundamentally these questions were part of a deliberate shift in orientation between moving from and moving towards. I appreciate the altering of perspective. So often we are in a 'moving from' mode, knowing very well what we don't want; not really able to articulate what we DO want or taking the steps towards.
We see what we prime the brain to see. Tell your brain to look for blue Toyota Corollas and it will happily point them all out to you. Focus on what you don't want, and your brain can easily show you a thousand things you don't want. How much more powerful is it to ask our brains to focus on what we do want instead? To focus on taking steps towards.
There is something inherently intimate about stepping towards. I think about in relationships how we can turn away or towards and what vulnerability and courage it takes to move in closer. How the act of turning toward can create profound shifts in perspective, communication, and experience.
As my thoughts meandered around these questions this week I kept hearing this line from David Whyte poem (Sweet Darkness) in my head "anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you". It is easy to find places of non-belonging. It is easy to notice all the ways we don't fit in. There is a constriction in focusing on all the boxes that are too small, and all the skins that are uncomfortable. Conversely, there is expansion in noticing where we do fit, and how we can inhabit our bodies, relationships, and environments in ways that say YES!
My invitation today is to ask yourself what you want to move towards. If that question is hard, take some time to think about what creates joy, where your places of belonging are, and when/where in your day you feel energized. If that question is easy, a tag-on question is: What small steps can I take today to move towards?
The full David Whyte poem is below (because it is just too good not to share):
Sweet Darkness
When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also
When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your home
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
Whyte, D. (1997) House of Belonging. Many Rivers Press.
Comments