Cosmic Flow

I float and I sink and I rise back to the surface.  I am a deep current.  I move to the rhythm of my heart.  My pace changes as I fall in love and lose myself in myself.  Nature guides my direction as I navigate through dimensions of possibilities.  Light touches the waves I create as it reflects off of me and multiples.  The flow of my movement is endless, contained only by solid boundaries that are worn down by my subtle liquid force.

I find space where it is available to me and never know where my mass might end up touching.  I have no beginning and no end, and all who immerse in any part of me, experience all of me.  I am absorbed and released.  I have continuous purpose.  When I am still, all matter that penetrates my surface creates a vibration through me.  I am clear and transparent.  I am a mirror for my observer.  I am peaceful.

When I am stagnant, my clarity becomes clouded and murky.   I am the dark shadow of my observer.  With no outlet for my reservoir, foreign organisms begin to occupy my being and dwell deep beneath my surface.  I become toxic to those who absorb me.  I am trapped by my boundaries, disconnected from the flow that is myself.  Disease strengthens within my weakness.  Life evaporates from my isolated mass.  

Thank You and Sorry

You are driving home on a Thursday from work, frantically weaving through traffic to make it to your best friend's birthday celebration on time.  Your mind is racing with thoughts of the school project you need to turn in tomorrow, weekend vacation plans, your commitment to exercising that you have failed to keep for two weeks, and the breakthrough you made with your therapist a couple of days ago regarding a childhood trauma.  You become distracted by the sweet GT-R on the lane to the right of you, and suddenly look up to find that traffic has halted to a sudden stop.  Your heart stops along with the car in front of you, your brakes hit the floor, wheels skidding out of control, witnessing your scattered thoughts slowing down narrowing in on the moment that is now.

As bumpers collide, airbags deploy, and your insurance premium skyrockets, you remain breathing, conscious, and alive.  Reaching to unlatch your seat belt, you notice the cuts on your hands from the shattered glass.  You manage to unlock the driver's side door and exit your car, breathing, conscious, and alive.  You look around and notice the damage done to the four surrounding vehicles, the scent of freshly burned rubber in the air.  The sound of a crying baby is coming from the car in front of you as you approach to check the condition of its passengers.  The passengers of the other cars involved are all conscious, breathing and alive, gathered around as you check the pulse of the driver.  She is unconscious, not breathing, and barely alive.

In a state of shock, you dial 911 and report the accident.  As the police and ambulance arrive at the scene, you realize you will be missing your best friend's birthday shindig.  The wave of events replay in your mind's eye repeatedly as you recollect information for the accident report.  The mother of a two year old boy is reported alive, in critical condition, as you watch the medical team perform tests and carry her away.  You have a moment of pause.  Everything around you keeps moving and you become still, removed, detached.  It is as if you have activated invisible mode and disappeared from reality while your body remains present.  A cloud hangs over your head.  You feel the weight of your actions.  Wishing your mind was a time machine, you escape into timelessness, a space devoid of time.

The next morning, you call your friend and tell them you are sorry for missing their birthday.  You explain why you didn't make it.  They forgive you upon finding out.  Later that day, you visit the young mother in the hospital and express how deeply sorry you are.  You speak to your manager at work and explain that you will need some time off to attend to legal matters, and express how thankful you are for his understanding.  The next few weeks and months will be challenging at best.

As time passes, the lady from the accident recovers with minor brain damage, you return to work, and you have mild nightmares about the accident on some nights.  Life is different, slower.  Everyone involved in the accident has granted you forgiveness, except for you.  You wake up every morning remembering the moment that changed your life, and you feel as though nothing can change the guilt and remorse you experience.

Then, one day, as you are sitting down eating lunch at a local deli, a little girl walks down the aisle and trips with a cup of fruit juice that splashes all over your white dress shirt.  She appears to be around seven or eight years old.  She looks up at you and says, "Sorry, Mister."  You help her up and tell her "that's OK.  I know it was an accident."  You are both still conscious, breathing, and alive.

As you lay in bed later that night, your time machine returns you to the present.  Staring at the ceiling, you notice a faint voice that sounds like a child saying "I'm sorry".  You listen closely, and the voice becomes more clear.  It is the voice of a little boy you recognize vaguely.  You feel as though you knew him once.  His voice sounds more and more familiar.  You respond, "It's OK.  I forgive you."  You can see him now.  He looks right at you and says "thank you."  You reflect on the joys and sorrows in your life and say thank you and sorry for them all.  You are still conscious, breathing, and alive.

Quality

An authentic expression, innocence.
Flow and ease of movement.

A beautiful essence, nature.
Harmonious and free of loose ends.

A creative energy, ingenuity.
Indispensable and with purpose.

A conscious reception, meaningful.
Depth of value beneath the surface.

I Like Myself Better When I'm Sober

I smoked weed today.  There are certain friends that I just smoke weed with sometimes.  I don't hang out with them very often anymore, but when I do, it's weed when there's no partying, and beer added when there's partying.  I don't always love myself when I'm sober, but at least I know who I am.  I recognize my feelings.  My thoughts belong to me.  I have clarity and perception.  And when friendships are predicated on intoxication, they can either strengthen with sobriety, or fizzle out and fade away.

I am 27 years old.  When I broke up with my girlfriend last year and lost my job, I was accepted with apprehensively open arms into my parent's home.  I was depressed about many things at the time.  Politics depressed me.  Relationships confused me.  I was depressed that I spent the last four years prior working in residential property management and couldn't see a “way out” of that industry for work.  I was depressed because of the economy.  Learning about history depressed me.  I was depressed because I attended a college for holistic health care and I was too depressed to go to classes.  They were just so intense, and forced me to examine so many personal areas of my life that I couldn't stand the thought of doing that at the time.  When I mustered up the motivation to go, I came home feeling relaxed and peaceful every time.  I couldn't help but wonder if my introspection and healing helped influence my break up or caused my pain.  Awareness was like a drug I wished I never started using.  There was no turning back.  I knew I had to really look inside at something I wasn't confident in facing.  I knew I had to face myself or disappear.

The first three months, I battled with myself.  I knew I needed time to reflect and heal from whatever it was I needed to heal from.  At first, it was my ex-girlfriend and our relationship.  I thought that's what it was all about.  New relationships were out of the question, in my mind.  I was not ready to enter into the intense, emotionally and spiritually involving relationships that I have a proclivity for developing.  Yet, I had to get out of the house and interact with people.  I couldn't avoid human interaction just because I was healing.  So I went out.  I partied a bit.  I numbed my depression.  I inevitably developed new relationships and called them non-committal relationships.  I had plenty of sex and, of course, became really intimate with someone.  Incredibly, my social circle never missed a beat between college and their late 20's and early 30's.  In fact, now that they have more money, they party even more impressively at times than they did back in the day.  Did I want to return to my own misery of meaningless work, meaningless partying, meaningless relationships... apathy?  My heart was telling me no.  My spirit was begging me to wake up from the dead.

In February of 2010, after six months of unemployment, a really fun holiday season and New Years, savings gone, car repossessed, living with parents, staying over at my non-girlfriend girlfriend's house five nights a week and exchanging beers for massages (at least my college left me with one identifiable asset), I decided to start a journal.  I studied healing arts for a year and a half at this point, and with all the tools and experiences I gained, it was finally time to utilize one of the most basic of life enriching exercises: journaling.  I'll never forget my first night doing it.  I found an empty “Compositions” journal, the traditional kind, 9 ¾” x 7 ½”, and headed my first entry, *Healthy, Happy Life*.  I wrote a list:

1. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Consistent Sleep – Sleep @ same time each night. Prepare for bed at 10:00PM. Sleep: 11:00PM.
2. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   5x5 Meditation (meditate for 5 minutes, 5x per day) – Morning, Afternoon, Lunch, Dinner, Bedtime.
3. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Journal – each night before bed in this book.
4. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Place affirmations in car while driving and in familiar places - “I am confident in myself and love who I am.” “I believe in myself. I am successful and fulfilled.”
5. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Exercise Daily. Drink Water. Eat Plants.
6. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Look in the mirror every morning and write down something I like about myself.
7. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Smile. For no reason.
8. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Relax. Everything happens for a reason. Life is an experience, not a performance.
9. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Breathe. Keep Breathing.
10. 
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Empty mind works better than a busy mind.

And so it was.

The next morning I woke up and wrote another entry.  I finished the entry by saying:

“As I write this, I feel self conscious about wasting my time. I know this is not a waste of time!”

75 days later, I filled a 100 pages with my journey.  I made commitments to myself to remain sober and fulfill a “Healthy, Happy Life”.  I stopped seeing my lady friend and I slowly stopped partying, drinking, and smoking pot.  For the first time in a long time, I became completely honest with and accountable to...myself.  It actually helped that I was completely broke.  Every last ounce of food I ate was homemade or store bought at Sprouts (a farmer's market in Arizona), where my parents shop for groceries.  I became my family's personal chef.  I slowly got back into athletic shape, between running, hiking, basketball, and of course, p90x.  Drawing became a hobby.  Meditation became a habit.  The world became brighter.  I became connected to the beauty of Arizona's nature.  I began expressing gratitude for my life.  I felt awesome.

But, I had another dilemma.  My friends.  Over the last 8-10 years, the majority of my social network mostly consisted of people who I casually (and seriously) partied with.  If I wanted to go hiking in the mountains of Arizona with my buddies, they would want to do a tailgate in the parking lot.  They would want to turn it into a co-ed social function - a desert party.  If I wanted to talk about life and my fascinations and dreams and paradoxes, they would want to turn on the TV and watch Sportscenter.  I desperately wanted to develop the deep, meaningful bonds with my friends that I journaled about and dreamed of.  I wanted to have friends that lived out of the box in an authentic way, not in some unconscious, inebriated, meaningless one.  I found myself torn.  But the more I meditated and the more I journaled and the more I listened to my heart, I knew that I desired true meaning in my life.  I wanted to feel my pain.  I wanted to know myself.  I wanted to be myself.

And so... there has been a lot of ebb and flow in my life since then.  The Universe has blessed me with angels in the form of human beings.  Running into close middle school friends that I hadn't seen in 14 years at the grocery store; developing a father-son like bond with an older man that befriended me after watching one of my college presentations about hypnotherapy. I haven't abandoned my past friendships entirely, but I limit my time spent in that environment. I am still not completely happy all the time.  If you read my first blog about “The Revolving Doors of Duality”, you could understand why that's not a bad thing.  But one thing I am, is happy with myself.  When I have emotional pain and personal discomfort, I like to feel it.  I like to know it.  I like to work through it.  When I am around other people, I like to pay attention to myself.  I like to be aware of how I feel, what I think, and what/who I do.  I like my Healthy, Happy Life.  I might always have a soft spot for my “party friends”, but one thing I know right now is that I like myself better when I'm sober.

Expectation: The Ugly Side of Intimacy

I want to really get to know you.  I mean, I want to know who you are behind your own closed doors.  I want to know your dreams, your fantasies, your pain, your fear.  I want to know your soul.

It starts off with a subtle look, a powerful attraction.  Eyes meet, conversation starts, hearts connect, and hormones flood my senses.  If we trust our feelings, we flow with the experience and allow it to move us with its current.  Passionate, open, sensual, like the most powerful drug shooting through my bloodstream.  Lost in time and space, we release ourselves to our full potential, inhibitions transcended, our true selves revealed in the moment.

Climax.  Heart slows, self-consciousness returns, energies relax, lying flesh to flesh, reflecting on my soul's journey.  Or was it my soul?  Was it just chemicals, or some primitive drive?  Wait a second.  I don't even know this person!  What do these feelings mean?  Am I being too emotional?  Well, maybe this is the start of something bigger.  Trust.  Trust my intuition.  Trust in the process.


I love you.

I love it when you...

You should have...

I thought you were...

I am hurt.

Revolving Doors of Duality

My brain is like God's science project.  Like a painting of a mathematical equation.  Like a leap of faith with a hint of reason.  Like sweet and sour sauce.  Walking through life in this body is like walking through revolving doors.  Just when I think a new door has opened up, I realize I have been walking through the same door over and over again, only with a new perspective each time.

Humanity may have evolved into an advanced social being with complex technologies and sciences and economies and cultures, but it is the duality of nature that always keeps us seeking balance throughout our evolution.  Yin and Yang exist in all that is, and my own journey reflects this back to me wherever I am.

How is it then, that choice and fate can coexist harmoniously, or that war and peace are two parts of the same whole?  How can we be both objective and subjective, and where do we draw the line between right and wrong?   

In sex therapy, couples are often encouraged to practice role playing to change up the energy in the bedroom.  How can playing Tarzan and Jane be any different than playing Bob and Amy?  They are both the same people, right?  Aren't they?

But maybe that's the point.  Maybe we need to give ourselves permission to alternate between our own Yin and Yang.  Maybe we spend our whole lives learning right from wrong when wrong is just a different version of right.  Now, I know you might be thinking, "screw this rhetoric hippie bullshit," but when is the last time you have sat down and really examined what role your thoughts and beliefs play in your experience?

How awesome is it that a bad day can be transformed by a single event... a single shift in energy?  How powerful is that, when you can walk through the revolving doors of duality, and literally create light out of darkness?

Life is a gift... and a curse.  Life is Life.  Honor its wholeness.