Thursday, October 29, 2020

JUST BELOW THE SURFACE

How could I have not seen it coming?

I guess I did not look closely enough below the surface.

From my earliest recollections I have always sensed things that were going to happen long before they happened. I do not see this ability as unique to me. I believe we all have it. It is just that we all do not choose to directly access it and allow ourselves to be guided by it. A big piece of this occurs when we perceive prophetically something that is going to happen that we do not want to happen. Rather than using our intuition to directly deal with the potential impact we fall into denial and suppression and self-doubt.

I know from whence I speak.

Countless times and in countless ways my internal guidance would begin to nudge me. I would feel deep within my gut an unmistakable “uh-oh.” This has involved people, circumstances, relationships, and mistruths. I would feel an inner chaos begin to churn. I would get an unmistakable signal to beware. Warning flags would wave, and alarm sirens would sound.

And I would ignore it all.

I did not want to believe that what was about to happen could actually happen. I did not want to believe that warnings against this person, direction, or potential threat would be accurate. More often than not I would doubt my guidance in the name of spiritual correctness. It took an awfully long time and mountains of pain to realize that spiritual correctness was also spiritual bypass.

To actualize the quote by the late great Maya Angelou, people would show me what and who they were, at least unconsciously, and I would not believe them. I would ignore the inner and unmistakable “run, fast” and sometimes stay for decades. To augment further my suffering, I would then make the untenable behaviors or circumstances about me. I beat myself up over what amounted to others lack of boundaries. This, of course, pointed me only to my own inability to apply autonomy and discernment where it was very clearly needed.

How could I have not seen that coming?

I did. I just did not want to see it.

When we ignore the warning signs in life the evidence of the underlying becomes more and more obvious. This is not punitive. It is reflective. It is the self-correcting nature of consciousness. The warnings are messages from our own inner wisdom telling us of what we need to beware of. We are each and every one of us perfectly and incessantly guided. It is not a lack of guidance that gives way to suffering. It is a lack of paying attention to it. If we listen and heed the toothpick it does not need to become a two-by-four.

It took a lot of two-by-fours to teach me that.

I have repeatedly chosen to share things with people who I suspected were not safe to open more deeply to.

Repeatedly.

Toothpick. Ruler. Bat. Two-by-four.

There have been people who I suspected were steeped in dishonesty and prone to gaslighting and betrayal.

Toothpick. Ruler. Bat. Two-by-four.

How could I have not seen it coming?

I did. I did see it coming. They showed me who they were, and I chose to not believe it. I chose to ignore it. I chose to take it on and to make it about me. I chose to bypass.

And then I paid the price.

It took a lot of two-by-fours to learn my lesson and fully listen to my gut and follow its leadings. I appreciate the part of me that always wants to believe the best in people. The part of me that believes that good will always win out. The part of me that first and foremost always seeks to understand and own my part in things. I consistently and relentlessly work with my resentments and projections. That is where I go first.

And sometimes when you smell a rat it is because a rat is right in front of you.

I remain committed to seeing and to invoking the absolute best in people. That is an important part of my prayer work. I also know that I need to wakefully relate to the relative. To how people show up in their personally self. To watch the warning flags and listen to the alarms. In that way I can heed the guidance, own my part in things, and choose a conscious way of relating that honors the absolute and also maintains boundaries. I am responsible for my own safety. It took a lot of two-by-fours to finally get that.

The beauty of listening and working consciously with my inner promptings is that my freedom has expanded to remain in proximity to some people who I suspect would hurt me in the name of their own advancement. By working and feeling through the initial uh-oh I find a place of safety and stability internally that knows I can sustain any potential pain that may indeed become inflicted. I make a conscious decision that I will risk potential betrayal in service of a greater becoming for me and for them. This is not martyrdom or even altruism. It is a conscious choice to remain in relationship though I know there is direct evidence of potential pain.

That potential is always true in any relationship. But there are some relationships that contain truly clear warnings to beware and to stay awake. Though these chosen risks have been few I have learned an enormous amount from them. About me, and about the human dilemma. About how we are hurt and how we are healed in relationship. About how some warnings say stay clear and others say alert and even open. These are the times I can then say that I saw it coming, and I met it accordingly.

These are turbulent and disturbing times. It is bringing out the best and the worst of people for sure. I must become more aware and spacious to meet people where they are. The potential for bad behavior is heightened. Those for whom I have already felt an oh-oh possibility I hold with particular care and sometimes with added distance. My augmented presence feels prudent. It keeps the two-by-fours from becoming necessary. I listen closely and respond accordingly.

This allows me to see it coming when it actually is, and to know I am up to the task of maintaining my sense of self regardless of what others do. I listen and heed my internal guidance, and I trust it more than ever. There are fewer surprises when I remain attentive to the below the surface energetics.

There will still be surprises for sure. But the more I pay attention to my internal wisdom the more I see it coming in advance. This gives me one of the most precious commodities of all: choice. Living below the surface helps me deal wakefully with what is happening on it. I can choose how, when, and if to show up to those I sense a warning about. Sometimes I will choose to take the risk. And sometimes I will not. But I will do so from a place of conscious choice.

Then I can say “I saw it coming, and I chose my response.”

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

STAY

There are few things harder for human beings than limbo.

And this period of extended limbo is trying our collective patience.

Call me crazy (and you would be far from the first) but the more mindfully and inclusively I dance with this experience of limbo the more hopeful I become.

It is uncomfortable. There is vast unknowing and complex uncertainty. There is sickness, death, division, and despair. Old structures are crumbling all around us. Religious structures. Political structures. Ideological structures. Ecological structures. The old order was no longer sustainable and so it is dying. Chaos and disruption are painful yet fruitful evidence that something new is rising. It is just below the surface. As it rises it unearths all that had been before. It is new possibility that is pushing over the old paradigms. The new is quaking and the effects are unmistakable.

Can you feel it?

And so countless people are beseeching: “how long will this last?”

The answer to that is above my pay grade.

I do suspect, however, that it will last as long as it takes for a critical mass of individuals to simply stay and to be absolutely present to this cosmic birthing of a new order. To stay with the sickness, death, division, and despair. To stay and to wait while the old structures crumble and the old order dies. To watch with open hearts and soft eyes while the unsustainable paradigms dematerialize in front of us.

This era of destabilizing will remain until we learn to stay.

Stay.

Is there anything more difficult for our mind-identified sense of self than to simply stay?

Stay put. Stay still. Stay quiet. Stay attentive. Stay hopeful.

Stay. Stay. Stay.

Can and will you stay with what I am saying?

I point to what I have often referred to as puppy on the paper spirituality.

Stay with me.

If you have ever or have witnessed someone else paper training a puppy you might catch my drift.

You want the puppy to do its business on the paper and not on the rug. And so, you place the puppy on the paper and firmly say “stay.”

You begin to move away, and of course so does the puppy.

The pattern repeats. “Stay.” Puppy scurries off. “Stay.” Scurry. Louder, firmer “stay.” Puppy then runs and piddles on the carpet. Then there is the seeming magic sacrament of rubbing the puppy’s nose in the piddle and back to the paper we go.

“Stay!”

While the effects are far more devastating, we have been collectively told to stay and we keep scampering off the paper. Even those who do choose to stay home or at a safe distance find it incredibly difficult to simply sit and stay. To stay and look deeply within. To pray for the guidance to see what we need to see. To change what needs to be changed inside of us. To listen for the new order that is seeking to emerge individually and collectively. To go below the surface while still attending to the crumbling effects of our old reality. To stay. To stay with the limbo. The liminal. The unknowing. The uncertainty.

For as long as it takes.

To practice building the limbo-staying muscle set a timer and simply sit while doing absolutely nothing. No goal. No endgame in mind. Ten, fifteen minutes of pure, paper-staying presence.

Watch the urge to pick up the smartphone: and don’t.

Watch the endless parade of thoughts, plans, goals, distractions. Observe the internal agonizing over how much longer you must stay: and stay. Think of all the things you would rather be doing out there: and stay in here. Obsess over dinner. Crave the cocktail. Argue over the pointlessness of this exercise.

And stay.

There are few things harder for humans than limbo.

One of them is staying.

For as long as this period of limbo lasts the one thing that I know I can do is to stay. Uncomfortable at times. Frequently distracted and yet ever- returning. I am giving attention to this limbo, this liminal space in purposeful and thus hopeful ways. I am giving lots of time to staying on the paper of my mind. As my thoughts and plans for the future seek to scamper away with me, I return, and I say firmly to myself: stay.

For the duration and for the sake of all, I am staying.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

GOING QUIET

While it may be difficult for many of you to believe, I feel a deep calling to just go quiet for a while.

For someone who has spoken professionally for over twenty-five years I want more than almost anything to simply not talk. At all. To anyone.

And…

I scanned what I have blogged about since going into this time of distancing. I followed and felt the patterns. A lot of words, much of it in response to world events. It is part of how I process life. How I move energy through my system. I go into the feelings, curiously. I explore. I surf the energy. I claim and I allow the experience of it. And then I take that energy and I put it into words. I let the energy speak. I feel less like I am using words and more like I am allowing the words to flow as me. To use me. To use this platform in order to become heard, known, recognized.

And the process has been slowing. The words have more and more space between them. That space feels much more precious than the words that do come forth. The call to quiet is stronger than the need to speak. Or write. Or outwardly express.

I recognize that those of you who listen to me on Sunday will find this incredibly hard to believe.

Beyond anyone else’s belief there is a quiet in me that is calling to be attended to.

I need to feel deeply into all that this year has presented. I need to lean into it, preverbally. Non-descriptively. Energetically. Without forming that energy into words. I need to face head on all of the loss that has occurred and continues to occur. I need to have enough quietude to determine my own individual response to all of this. I need the space to say goodbye to what I thought life was and how it was going to be. What I thought was true and real in my country, in many of my relationships, in how I imagined this year would unfold. In what I perceived were my highest priorities. In what I perceived were your highest priorities. I need to settle into the tension between my values and the opposing values in people I care about. I need to breathe more deeply with that. Relax with it. Intentionally yawn and stretch with it.

I need the time and space to let the hope that I know is still there simmer up to the surface again. The constant chaos and noise make it feel at times far away. Remote. The commentary submerges it. My own commentary. My own narrative. Even if that narrative is affirmative. It remains noise.

I need to go quiet.

So, my current responsibilities include using words as tools to inspire and empower. I am currently and even contractually called to do that. I honor my commitments. And I equally honor this inner calling for more quiet. More spaciousness. More wordlessness. More presence. More intentional relatability. More times of rest. Of sabbath. Of true non-doing.

I exhale more fully as I type and feel these words. I am clear that they are invitations and not indictments. I say yes to the prompting. I know down deep in my body that this intuition is right and true. I need to give myself enough space to catch up with all that has occurred. The losses have been many. It has frequently taken my breath away. I need to sit, be still, feel it all, be with it all. In quiet. Breathe into the quiet.

I need to go quiet.

I will speak when I need to speak. I will say no to additional engagements which require more directed speech and energy. And I will trust the quiet that is calling to me. I know that calling is purposeful. I know it will be fruitful. I know it is intensely personal.

So, why share it publicly, using so many words?

Well, on the somewhat off chance that someone would notice that there is less chatter coming from Taylor. That my potential absence is in service of more presence.

And more than that, to encourage you to stop just long enough to see if perhaps quiet may be calling you as well. Distancing without distraction can be highly revelatory. Quiet just for the sake of quiet makes us privy to what is always simmering just below the surface. Overdoing is under-becoming. With all that we have collectively and individually been through this year we all need to stop when we can. Be still when we choose. Be quiet enough to come to a deeper knowing.

So, I have said enough. Perhaps I have said too much. I am okay with that. Because I have been authentic and real and intentional. And now I will be quiet. Until I need to use words and let words use me. They will come from a deep and quieter place. A place that has been intimately inhabited. A place that has been faced and embraced.

And now I will go quiet. Gratefully quiet

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

SORRY

I do not recall ever hearing told what my first word was. I suspect that I know.

Sorry.

If it indeed was not the first it has certainly been the most repeated.

Sorry.

It has taken me an awfully long time to recognize that I have lived most of my life as an apology. There have been countless things that I have been sorry for. That is not the ground of my suffering. What grieved me the most was being sorry for simply being. For not being good enough. For not doing enough. For not being what others wanted me to be. On and on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. There was a time I contemplated renting a billboard with my picture and the word: SORRY.

I did not rent that billboard. And slowly I have recognized that my constant state of apology had little to do with anyone else but me. I am not responsible for the initial imprinting of that “sorry state of being.” I am, however, responsible to it. I am the only one who can change it. I am the only one who can stop habitually saying I am sorry for who I am and for how I express. I am the only one who can stop taking on and apologizing for other people’s programs and interpretations. Why do I say I am sorry for stories that others are initiating and perpetuating? Why do I apologize when others hurt me? Why do I feel the need to grovel when I show up honestly and authentically?

Someone once said to me “you sure say I am sorry a lot.”

To which I replied, “I am sorry.”

I am sorry I have been sorry so often.

I grew up in the “Love Story” generation. I heard repeatedly “love means never having to say I am sorry.” Nice sentiment. Great movie making. Never resonated for me. My catch phrase was more like “love means always having to say I am sorry.”

I am not an apology.

I am no longer sorry for being me.

I will continue this imperfect journey through time and space reality. I will mess up. I will miss the mark. I will say things I wish I had not said. I will act in ways I will regret. I will be sorry for those unconscious acts. I will sincerely apologize, and I will amend my behavior.

I will no longer, however, be sorry for being me. I will not take on others hurts when I was merely a character in their story. I will maintain responsibility for what happens in here, and I will offer others the same invitation. If I express my authentic perspective, in as kind a way as possible, I will not be sorry for your reaction. I will also not expect you to apologize to me when I am triggered by what I make your words and actions mean about me.

And I will not apologize unless I am really, truly sorry.

Knowing I am not an apology makes apologizing far less scary and ever more sincere.

I have reflected much upon this topic during these months of distancing. I concluded that I have never received a sincere, heart-felt apology that I did not accept. I have had cases where I needed to remove people from my direct sphere. Those individuals, however, did not offer any kind of real apology. They gave no indication that they were sorry, or that they would amend their behavior. Even in a few cases when I was deeply hurt, a sincere sorry became a bridge back to connection.

And so, I am offering that kind of sincere apology to me. I am sorry that I lived so sorry, for so long. I am sorry that I took on so much of others pain. I am sorry I made it about me. I am sorry for altering my authentic expression in an effort to be what others wanted me to be. I am sorry for not being sorry for being so sorry. That sincere apology reconnects me to me. It is my bridge. My bridge back to an unapologetic me.

Sorry.

Wafts of habitual energy arise as I contemplate what I have shared. How long I have gone on. How raw and unfiltered and exposed I have been. I start to feel a constriction in my throat as some far too familiar words begin to form.

No, I am not.

I may not recall what my first word was. I may suspect what it could have been. And it will not be how I close this missive. Not this time. Not now.

Not sorry.

Thursday, October 1, 2020

REUNION

I wonder what the reunion will be like.

I recently learned of the death of one of my childhood friends. I say childhood, though our direct connection lasted into our early twenties. We attended the same church, high school, and for one year, college. We were what I considered quite close. And then life moved on and we lost connection.

And now she is gone.

I felt waves of deep sadness that she had passed. I experienced a rush of memories of what we had shared. I could hear her unique laugh as if she were right here with me. It led me to move more closely into the sadness. I pondered the fact that in actuality my day to day experience will be no different now that she has left the planet. I had not seen her in forty years and would likely not see her again. Yet in the sadness I found that having that possibility removed created a fathomless void.

The slightest chance of a reunion had been taken away.

I have this unprovable theory that when we pass from this worldly experience, we have a reunion with everyone we have encountered during our lifetime.

Stay with me.

I do not mean only those who have preceded us in death. I mean everyone we have encountered. I sense some sort of a vast cosmic event hall where each and every person we have ever engaged with is there for a reunion. This reunion is a glorious celebration, regardless of what the qualitative engagement was when we were together on earth. The purpose of this reuniting is to thank each individual for what they contributed to our life experience. Some of these interactions were pleasurable. Some of them seemed downright miserable. Some were of decades long duration. Some of them were momentary. All of them were in some way significant. All of them added to our experience and our evolution. It is at that level that the reunion is of a celebratory nature.

Now, I am aware that for many of you this will be farfetched. And again, I certainly cannot prove it to be so. It does feel right to me, for me. I see it as a resolution for unfinished relationship business. It balances the scales somehow, the karma. We will be able to see the bigger picture that we could not perceive while in this time-space reality. We will discern the lessons we were to learn from each engagement of human interaction. We will feel a deep gratitude for each encounter, a thankfulness we well may have missed here on earth.

As I consciously sat with the sadness at the loss of my long-ago friend, I felt a preview of what our reunion will be like. I heard her laughter, and I felt her tears. I could sense a rightness to the end of our earthly enrollment, long before she left her body. At a level I could feel how without time the reunion was happening then and is always happening now. With each memory of her we were reuniting. It was slightly skewed by the fact that she still appeared at the age we last met, interacting with me at my current stage of aging. This brought a real giggle into the images and into the sadness.

These contemplations led me to what the reunion will be like on the other side of this pandemic. I have not physically seen most of the people in my direct sphere for months. Many of them are now viewable in two dimensions on a screen. They are a voice coming through an electronic device. They are photos on social media.

And some are no longer here at all.

I have changed significantly as a result of Covid-19. Things have been reordered within me. Some radically so. I have a vastly different take on relationships. A quite different feel for what is most important to me. I suspect in some ways the post-distancing reunion will be awkward. There will be those that I will not choose to reunite with, at least in this lifetime. I already have a sense of appreciation for that decision. I am already grateful for what people have brought into my life. For what they have taught me. There is no charge behind the ending of an engagement. There is only thankfulness. I well may not articulate that to them in this realm. I will await the reunion when it is my turn to step through the veil into the great cosmic mystery. Then we will celebrate the fullness of our beginning and of our ending.

That will not be the case for the vast majority of those peopling my life. There will be a reunion physically. There will be a time when we can hug fearlessly. When we can speak, sing, breathe unmasked and unrestrained. I believe it will be an astounding experience! We will perhaps never take for granted our direct connections again.We will hug as never before. We will relish touch, laughter, tears, every level of connection.

I pray it will be soon.

I wonder what the reunion will be like.

My heart is a great cosmic event hall. I am seeing you now. I am feeling, hearing you now. I am deeply appreciating you now. I do not care to wait. The reunion is now.

The reunion is now.