I’m in Spain, so I suppose that I have answered one part of my question fairly adequately. I have created quite the life for myself- one of travel and access to a wild and wonderful variety of experiences complete with a pretty vast and interesting cast of characters that enrich the journey at every turn. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter what it looks like on the outside if you feel scared, lost, or closed on the inside.
I recently heard Liz Gilbert say, “I have not met a single person who said they were bored that were not also boring.” That is to say that what matters most is the eyes that see, not what is seen. When we have our eyes calibrated to the mystery, the magic, the bullshit, and the deep humanity, there is a fullness, a power and a lesson in everything.
I don’t think there’s ever a time when you’re really ‘ready’ to jump in and do the wild, wonderful and outrageous things you want to do. You just show up. What looks pretty blissy and beautiful from the outside still has pain and uncertainty in it. It’s just that that doesn’t become the main focus. I think that the idea is to enjoy the process of doing the thing you love so much, that that is its own reward. You just focus on staying open- to actually getting to the heart of it, which is that this whole beautiful, painful, messy ride is ephemeral- we’re going to lose it sooner or later, so we might as well soak up every drop.
I’m reminded of when I was young and there seemed to be two kinds of kids: the ones who would be given a present and would keep that present -sometimes wrapped so that nothing would happen to their precious gift/toy or the ones (like me) who would rip the wrapping away to be able to use the shit out of that toy as soon as possible.
I want to use the shit out of this life. I want to play and enjoy at a maximum level. I am a little derailed by a sense of responsibility towards others, but then I think, my greatest responsibility is to live my truest life- which also involves being a care-giver, but is not excluded to that realm of service and self-sacrifice.
Women have spent millenia taking care of everybody else’s shit while being treated as property and we now live at a time when we have a lot more opportunity. Not only do we not need to buy into that (though there will always be critics), we have support systems – podcasts, communities, groups, programs that can help us to free ourselves and remember what lights us up. Now, our whole lives do not have to revolve around procreation. We can live on our own terms and be creators for our own pleasure. Paradoxically, being in our power is when we are of the greatest service to others, not when we’re playing small.
I know all this, yet I struggle, as most of us do, with old conditioning – a feedback loop inside that says, who do you think you are? The answer is child of God and if God is love, forgiveness, non-judgement, creativity, grace, transformation, then I am on quite the journey, indeed. Let us use all our brushes, let us use all the ways we can share and honour ourselves and others through art, which is the communication of the soul. This is the deepest nourishment and sacrament. Life’s too precious not to soak up every last drop.
When life gives you lemons... 