Phew. I'm back...but not without some serious battle wounds. The last blog I posted was on June 30th of last year and it consisted of just a picture of myself and four friends who took the plunge into starting our own collective. It's April 2nd of 2013 and even though our little community space/vege cafe is doing great, I have to be honest, I dream about writing again and creating something new, that's less stressful.
It's not that I don't love what we've done. I do. It's just that the whole process of starting a cafe and running a successful community-collective has eaten me up. I am tired in a way I have never been tired before, and amidst all the stress, I have completely lost my center. AKA, I have turned into kind of a decrepit person, with amplified old mental patterns leading me through my days. And the other four co-owners who started as friends probably wouldn't mind watching me jump off a cliff sometimes.
But what is it that's making me feel like a total crank, a deteriorating zombie, a negative Nancy, an arrogant poop, an aggressive/judgmental control-freak? When did this all start? Well, after some contemplation, I reluctantly allowed myself to realize that I've sort of always had these tendencies. It's just now, they are at an uncomfortable all-time high. Because of my freakishly overactive mind, it's often been hard for me to just be happy, without intellectualizing it, or trying to control or contemplate something to death. I have been better at just being in the past, but lately, I am totally lost in the ego, lost in the world of doing, lost in the world of form.
In most ways, I feel like this is the worst I have ever been, barely scraping bottom, trying frantically to reach the surface of the water, so I can take a gulp of air again. How did I get here? How could I be so young and so unhappy? How can there be so much suffering, when there is so much to be grateful for?
I know the answer. It's always popping up in my dreams, or haunting me at night, or nagging at me while I drive around in my car. But I am so good at ignoring it. The answer is this:
I have sold myself entirely to the world of form. And it just so happens that the world of form which we humans have successfully created together, is:
A.
Hot.
Mess.
I have chosen to live and operate only in this external world of doing, and now by default feel seriously disconnected from my heart, and from the world of being, which is the only world (or reality) that can save our sad-sack species.
I know I'm being a Debbie Downer but I already told you what kind of state I'm in and it doesn't take much thought to see how sad our external world really is, even if you aren't feeling particularly shitty. Everything has been so hard, such a push. Every external system we have created is pushing against our centers of love.
-Our food and water systems are poisoned and therefore poisoning us and the planet
-Our main healthcare systems are corrupt, keeping people drugged and hypnotized, never getting to the root of the problem
-Our educational systems are failing, making competitive drones out of our youth
-Our media systems keep our minds preoccupied with innumerable advertisements so we keep filling the void with things, and competing with each other to feel good about ourselves
-Our political systems reek of dishonesty and deep, deep corruption
And it's all about money, and therefore, separation or individuality. Not love. Not community or unity. Not feeling alive or living on purpose. Not compassion. And certainly Not Happiness.
So, where do I go from here? And where do we go from here? This constricted world of form?
Inside.
During a ten-day silent meditation course I took a couple years ago, I would eerily hear this line whispered to me on repeat in the disconcerting silence of the night,
"The only way out is in."
"The only way out is in."
If we want to keep trying to change this world exclusively on an external level (which is what I have been adamantly trying to do), we can. It is our own free-will. But as much as my mind wants to fight it, my being knows it is not the external that will change first, because that is the facade. It's the internal. We are of both the corrupt external forms and the divine internal formlessness and that formlessness is our collective consciousness, the very indescribable that unites us and leads us to our own salvation.
So I'll have to accept this intensely stressful time, full of constriction and exhaustion, and use this dreadful piece of my external life as the very leverage for me to go back inside, to unconditional love, to surrender, and to the only place where we are truly free.
It's not that I don't love what we've done. I do. It's just that the whole process of starting a cafe and running a successful community-collective has eaten me up. I am tired in a way I have never been tired before, and amidst all the stress, I have completely lost my center. AKA, I have turned into kind of a decrepit person, with amplified old mental patterns leading me through my days. And the other four co-owners who started as friends probably wouldn't mind watching me jump off a cliff sometimes.
But what is it that's making me feel like a total crank, a deteriorating zombie, a negative Nancy, an arrogant poop, an aggressive/judgmental control-freak? When did this all start? Well, after some contemplation, I reluctantly allowed myself to realize that I've sort of always had these tendencies. It's just now, they are at an uncomfortable all-time high. Because of my freakishly overactive mind, it's often been hard for me to just be happy, without intellectualizing it, or trying to control or contemplate something to death. I have been better at just being in the past, but lately, I am totally lost in the ego, lost in the world of doing, lost in the world of form.
In most ways, I feel like this is the worst I have ever been, barely scraping bottom, trying frantically to reach the surface of the water, so I can take a gulp of air again. How did I get here? How could I be so young and so unhappy? How can there be so much suffering, when there is so much to be grateful for?
I know the answer. It's always popping up in my dreams, or haunting me at night, or nagging at me while I drive around in my car. But I am so good at ignoring it. The answer is this:
I have sold myself entirely to the world of form. And it just so happens that the world of form which we humans have successfully created together, is:
A.
Hot.
Mess.
I have chosen to live and operate only in this external world of doing, and now by default feel seriously disconnected from my heart, and from the world of being, which is the only world (or reality) that can save our sad-sack species.
I know I'm being a Debbie Downer but I already told you what kind of state I'm in and it doesn't take much thought to see how sad our external world really is, even if you aren't feeling particularly shitty. Everything has been so hard, such a push. Every external system we have created is pushing against our centers of love.
-Our food and water systems are poisoned and therefore poisoning us and the planet
-Our main healthcare systems are corrupt, keeping people drugged and hypnotized, never getting to the root of the problem
-Our educational systems are failing, making competitive drones out of our youth
-Our media systems keep our minds preoccupied with innumerable advertisements so we keep filling the void with things, and competing with each other to feel good about ourselves
-Our political systems reek of dishonesty and deep, deep corruption
And it's all about money, and therefore, separation or individuality. Not love. Not community or unity. Not feeling alive or living on purpose. Not compassion. And certainly Not Happiness.
So, where do I go from here? And where do we go from here? This constricted world of form?
Inside.
During a ten-day silent meditation course I took a couple years ago, I would eerily hear this line whispered to me on repeat in the disconcerting silence of the night,
"The only way out is in."
"The only way out is in."
If we want to keep trying to change this world exclusively on an external level (which is what I have been adamantly trying to do), we can. It is our own free-will. But as much as my mind wants to fight it, my being knows it is not the external that will change first, because that is the facade. It's the internal. We are of both the corrupt external forms and the divine internal formlessness and that formlessness is our collective consciousness, the very indescribable that unites us and leads us to our own salvation.
So I'll have to accept this intensely stressful time, full of constriction and exhaustion, and use this dreadful piece of my external life as the very leverage for me to go back inside, to unconditional love, to surrender, and to the only place where we are truly free.
I give pardon to anyone who has hurt or harmed me.
I seek pardon from anyone I have hurt or harmed.
And how shall we live?
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