to be 100% where i am

I have not written in this blog for well over a year; I am inspired to do so today and I recommit to posting a minimum of twice per month. This blog is not for the sake of teaching anyone a lesson or venting or anything like that. This blog is to express my human experience to my community (that’s you) and grow together from our expressions.

I’ve moved cities in the past few months and although my landscape has changed, it seemed that not much else about my life changed. Same friends, same wife, same family and same relationship dynamics with them all. I’m realizing though that actually they’re NOT the same friends, wife, family. People change constantly, that’s a fact. From my perspective though, I’d made them the “the same” because deep down, I wanted it all to stay the same. Comfortable, predictable, tolerable.

I often say the Baptiste adage, “I’ve never arrived.” i.e. I’m never done growing. What I’m discovering and must own up to is that although I’ve paid that saying, and other similar ones, lip service, I haven’t been 100% in it. 99%, sure, but never all 100%. Way, way, way in the depths of my subconscious, I was viewing things from, “Actually, I’ve done enough work, I’m so tired of coming apart.” In hindsight, I can see how that 1% was subtly sabotaging me and my experience of life.

Sometimes I slip into self-shaming in doing inquiry work, and for that I remind myself that putting on appearances is simply part of human nature. Wearing a mask or putting up a show is many times necessary to complete a task. Sometimes it is the best we can offer in that particular moment. And for me, looking back on how I had been wearing this mask of “I’m doing the work,” I can only acknowledge myself for doing the best I could at that time. Lots of work was actually done, too! I came from where I was with no ill intent.

And NOW that I realize all of this… I can come from: “Wow! This is a moment of creation! Of shift. Of total possibility.” The fear of coming apart even more than I have in the past is now unleashed from its hidden cage. And I can rejoice in the idea that that fear is now unlocked and free! I rejoice because courage and bravery can only happen when fear is let out of its cage; now I can ride the exciting and empowering sensations of thrill and vitality! YEEAAAHHH!!

I’m happy to assert my friends, wife, family are constantly changing and therefore give me constant work to do about creating the most powerfully updated relationship with them possible. How scary is it that people change all the time and how thrilling is it that nothing is ever boringly the same?! I commit: I am 100% for never arriving and always striving, not just for my sake, but for ours.