Every morning when I journal I pray some version of “I am willing to will the will of the One.” I rarely use words in prayer, and, I have a strong and abiding sense of that prayer at the felt-sense level. It is where I begin my day and where I live from.
Lately I have been feeling very vulnerable, exposed, and shaky. That description might send some into dread. I have learned to lean into those feelings. I have some uncertainty in my solar plexus, some fluttering in my heart center. In the past I would do everything possible to deaden and to suppress those feelings. I had an entire repertoire of ways to do that. I could not tolerate the feeling of vulnerability. I was terrified of uncertainty and of being exposed. I was sure shakiness meant the other shoe was soon to drop.
Today I know better. Comfort is no longer my top priority. Awakening is. Peacefulness is. Emergence is. So, I now recognize that when I am feeling vulnerable, exposed, shaky, and uncertain something new is beginning to emerge. Those feelings let me know I am open, and I am not moving to close or suppress. The sense of void in my energy system is an opening that I know the Universe will fill if I do not stuff it with one my habitual suppressing reactions.
I am strong enough now to not avoid the void.
For years I used people, places, things, substances to avoid myself. I did not know that was what I was doing. I thought I was comforting myself, when in fact I was numbing myself. I was so afraid of falling into a void and disappearing into an imagined abyss. That fear, while not totally gone, no longer governs my choices. I am no longer afraid of falling. I now know that when I allow it I am always caught. I am always held when I do not choose to wiggle away.
I have experienced enough good coming out of the void that I no longer go to avoidance to protect myself. I now know vulnerability as an opening to intimacy and to deeper levels of prayer. My armor weighed me down. It kept others out, but it also kept me locked in.
I now deeply know that the will of the One is always for Good. It may not be for comfort. I may not get my way. The Will is sometimes scary as it leads me beyond my comfort zone. And beyond my comfort zone is where true possibility is waiting.
I have experienced a lot of death in the past couple years. The death not only of precious people, but also of ways of being and doing. A big void has opened. I trust that void. I am moving toward and into that void. I choose not to avoid the void.
I am growing stronger and surer as I face uncertainty and exposure head on. When I do not rush to fill the void the One fills it for me. It fills that seeming void with Itself. My certainty is in Source. That is what fills me up and lets me shine. Vulnerability taught me that. What was most scary turned out to be my greatest love.
Are you avoiding the void?
Lean in and let love.
