Reading from The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo every morning has been and continues to be a positive way to start my mornings. I'll admit that sometimes the daily reading doesn't resonate with me so I'll skim to another day and find something that does. This morning the July 20th reading spoke to me and I smiled as July 20th is my mom's birthday so that makes it even more special to me. I want to quote some of what today's reading says verbatim as he says it in such a prolific way that I wouldn't want to lose its essence.
I've come to understand that this is the struggle we all replay between
doubt and faith. When thrust into any situation over our head, our reflex is to
fight with all our might the terrible feeling that we are sinking.
Yet the more we resist, the more we feel our own weight and wear ourselves out.
At times like this, I remember learning to float. Mysteriously, it required
letting almost all of me rest below the surface before the deep would
hold me up. It seems to me, almost forty years later, that the
practice of finding our faith is very much like that - we need to rest
enough of ourselves below the surface of things until we find ourselves upheld.
This is very hard to do. But the essence of trust is believing you will be held up if you let go.
And though we can practice relaxing our fear and meeting the deep, there is no real way to prepare
for letting go other than to just let go.
Once immersed, once below the surface, it is not by chance that things slow down, go clear,
feel weightless. Perhaps faith is nothing more than taking the risk to rest below the surface.
That we can't stay there only affirms that we must choose the deep again and again in order to live fully. That we must move through the sense of sinking before being upheld is what trusting
the Universe is all about.
I'm feeling some words that describe what this reading brings to mind for me: lack of control, surrendering, letting go, trusting, releasing, allowing.....
It's almost like until we trust and let go in a situation, we'll never have the experience of floating or being held up and therefore stay stuck in the fear and anxiety of non-trust. It's sort of a catch 22. I must trust in the universe and let go of trying to control a situation in order to see that I'll float and develop trust yet how do I do this starting from a lack of trust. I guess it involves starting where I'm at even if that involves fear and doubt and anxiety. I guess it involves putting one toe in the water slowly but surely or does it involve diving in head first and throwing caution to the wind?
I like how he says, "we need to rest enough of ourselves below the surface of things until we find ourselves upheld" because it reminds me of putting one toe in, resting enough of ourselves....once I see I won't drown, I won't die from the experience even if it involves pain and suffering and disappointment. Then again I like the saying "you're either in or out" and this makes me think there is no such thing as putting a toe in the water, testing the waters, I'm either in or out.
I really like "we must choose the deep again and again in order to live fully" because it is a gentle reminder that I must continue to take risks, face my fears, find trust and faith in the universe that I will float.
May you walk to the edge of your water (or comfort zone) and see it as an opportunity to sink or swim or in this case FLOAT......and may you feel the universe support you in your ability to trust that you will be upheld....
