I am reading books about hiking and the latest was "Walking Home" by Sonia Choquette.
There were a few pages I earmarked....
"Is there something I am hiding from? Is that why I can't release myself from what I want to be released from? I know I've hidden my real needs for a long time. Not just from others, but from myself as well. Maybe I want and need a lot of support, and I been in complete denial of this truth all my life. Maybe I want to relax and stop proving to others that I am so spiritual by taking so much responsibility for everything, asking for so little, and then being angry because what I was asking for wasn't really true. Maybe I am tired of asking so much of myself, and maybe I am angry that others don't feel the need to do this like I do. Maybe I don't know how I feel and I am not as clear about how others feel. Maybe I am completely confused. Maybe if I accept all of this I can release the past more easily."
What I loved about her inner dialogue is that it was searching for answers....it didn't know and yet it knew.
How often do we give ourselves permission to ask and answer the hard questions and to walk the new truth? How well do we truly know ourselves?
What I had discovered at 46 was I didn't know me at all. Perhaps when your whole world falls apart it is the grandest opportunity to discover you.
Here is another earmarked page.
"The rhythm of my footsteps took me into a deep state of meditation and for hours my mind became silent as I slipped into a resting place with God."
Whether you call it God or Universe or Reality....it is a place where there is no contradiction. No stress or pull or worry. It is harmony with what is....in the moment where the mind rides along a silent content passenger.
I found this space and live there much of the time.
I also think, that the mind and its thought are often trying to get you to see reality by the incorrect picture it paints. Daring you to see beyond the images it tries to lay upon reality.
Once I fell onto the landscape of reality in its tragically brilliant display....I stayed.
The mind would try and remove me; to lure me away to a 'kinder' place. I refused to follow.
I learned from Byron Katie...to be a lover of reality.
And, in doing so...found a peaceful mind.
The space where reality breathes...some would call Grace.
I didn't walk the 500 miles of the Santiago...I walked into the harsh reality of my life that I had denied for so many years.
You can use what you see and make them teachers for you.
Here is another earmarked page.
"Stripped down to a more comfortable level, I resumed walking, and I did I began to notice huge black, slimy, gooey, slugs all over the path. I looked ahead. They were everywhere. The Camino was giving me a very important message by placing these in my path today."
"My mind started saying, Slugs and leeches. Slugs and leeches. The more I saw, the the more I began to reflect on people in my life who had been - and were still - slugs and leeches."
"These were people who didn't take responsibility for themselves. People who were deadbeats and didn't pay their bills or tell the truth. These were people who promised what they didn't deliver and didn't think they had to. People who were more interested in what they could get from others than what they could offer."
"I could see how I had entertained so many of these slugs and leeches because I didn't have strong enough personal boundaries to say, "Go away. I am not interested."
"I carried these people way too often and way too far. Who knows why really. I just did."
"As I walked, I knew it was time to stop hosting such people in my life. People who were not really interested in showing up with integrity, for example. Or people who were more committed to drama than creative solutions. Or people who felt sorry for themselves and expected others, like me to rescue them from their own emotional BS. I knew that I had allowed way too many of that kind of person to take my energy and drain my spirit. It was clearly time to let go of the slugs and leeches in my life."
Truly, life is teaching you every moment of every day. Look around and see its lessons.
I again, didn't travel anywhere and life presented me with exactly the right picture to correct my vision of reality.
Sonia also discovered this....
"I was also keenly aware of the difference between my ego and my spirit, and how painful and heavy my ego was to carry. It was dead weight and brought nothing good with it. Nothing. It only perpetuated stories that isolated me from life and love and everything I wanted or needed. It set up battles and power struggles with others that no one would or could ever win."
"It wasn't that I was done with my ego. I knew that wasn't possible. My ego was part of who I was. It was the lower part. The confused part. The never satisfied, never secure, never trusting part of me. It was also the vain part. The scared, manipulating, thin-skinned, hypersensitive, easily offended, easily threatened, and entitled part."
"It was the part of me that said, "I am right and they are wrong." It was the part looking for love and not finding it. When it took hold of me, I was no longer connected to my spirit, my true and beautiful self. I became lost."
"I had no illusions that I was done with my ego. I knew it would, again and again, trying run my life, as I was only human. I knew it would flare up when I was tired or feeling insecure, or felt afraid to be seen. Only now, I knew how to tame it. There was only one way. I had to love myself fully and unconditionally. I had to have compassion for myself and be sensitive and responsive to my authentic needs. I had to pray for guidance and give myself time and space to nurture my spirit and enjoy my life. I had to stay present in the moment and not leap into the future or fall back into the past. That was a tall order, but I knew it would bring me peace."
"I also needed to stop seeing my ego as "the enemy" and start seeing it as the "me" who needed more love. I didn't have to fight my ego when it flared up in pain. I needed to soothe and calm my ego, handing it over to the care of my spirit and to God to quiet and reassure."
"It was simple. When I loved me, I was filled with grace. When I didn't, the battles and pain began." Sonia
While I know the simplicity of loving yourself with full acceptance of your reality sounds simple....it is a very long road to hug your own heart.
But, this was my way forward.
I only made choices that were loving for me.
I took responsibility of my own heart.
If it didn't feel loving and kind to me...I turned away.
No matter who I had to leave.
Living a life that honors your heart and spirit is The Way...as the Camino Santiago is often called.
What I found is that when I looked at myself, to see where I had gone wrong - where I had not be completely truthful, I was searching for the path to being me.
The Camino is marked with clam shells and arrows.
Our life paths are not so clearly marked....but, they are deeply felt.
When I am at peace, I am on My Way...
