I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about peace. Not the kind in the world…I’m sure those are very noble thoughts, well worth the thinking, but mostly I’ve been thinking about peace in myself. As I was going through the old picture box I found a magnet I must have purchased at some point that says: Peace.
It does not mean to be in a place where
there is no noise, trouble or hard work.
It means to be in the midst of those
things and still be calm in your heart.”
I read this magnet very reassuredly that day that it was in the box.
You see, being calm in my heart in the midst of chaos is what I’m best at. I thrive on chaos.
Not the kind of chaos I’ve had recently mind you, but give me a noisy crowded room, a day filled with back to back commitments. Right smack in the middle of all of that is where I feel the most calm.
When I read that quote by our good friend "Unknown" the other morning, I snapped it right up on my refrigerator, patting myself on the back all the while, thinking: “well, if I can find calm in midst of this shit-storm; when there must be other people, the ones this magnet was made for, who can’t even find it in the midst of noise -- well then I must be doing pretty well!”
I’m sure I didn’t fully realize the reason I was buying this magnet at the time but as I’ve re-read it a few times a day it finally hit me that somewhere deep inside I must have known I was buying it for the reassurance factor. On the same gut level that the relationship people were talking about, I knew this magnet was a bit of an ego boost.
I just finished the book Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses. I feel certain I’ll have more to say about this book but one of the immediate things that stuck with me is how the author spent years, the entire book really, sure that if she kept practicing she could become perfect at yoga. The lesson in the end was of course that the journey is the lesson. It’s not about perfecting a pose, perfecting your family, or even being perfect yourself. It’s about showing up and pouring yourself into the activity.
Of course these things that we spend a lot of time ruminating on never come alone. So the other night I finally picked up a book of meditations that a friend sent me months ago (I would almost feel bad admitting how long it took me to read this book, but it’ll be months before she gets on here to see my admittance and somehow that makes me not feel so bad). So anyway the forward in the book instructed me in a very self-important way that I should just open it to any page and what I read would “speak to me”. So more to test it than out of any belief that that would happen I started the reading the first page that fell open...
The meditation was entitled “Improvement” One of the lines I really like (yeah, yeah it spoke to me. Of course!) says that “for too long I have felt I had to be wrong or bad in order to make a change….When I come from a place of loving acceptance, then the positive changes I desire come to me so much easier.” “Life seems to flow much easier when I make peace with myself on an inner level.”
I can’t quite believe that the world has conspired against me in this grand way of tiny things. As I type I realize there is so much I need to sort through about myself on this subject. So much to make peace with about why it’s so hard to be at peace. Really, this could take us all week J So… see you tomorrow? Same bat time, same bat channel!
No comments:
Post a Comment