So much to write…
Traveling back to Peru always causes me to go deep into my mind and into my “story”.
This morning, a dear friend, whom I have been talking to more often lately thanks to this blog… introduced me to Tara Brach. If you haven’t heard of Tara Brach… I STRONGLY recommend that you go and download her iTunes Podcast… “Trusting Who We Are”.
Wow… what a gift!
As I have mentioned, several people have told me that this idea of HARMONY has many similarities with the Buddhist principles and philosophies.
Listening to Tara Brach so many thoughts came to mind.
She speaks to the fact that our brains are wired to actually define our “self” based on our past and based on our future. When we stop being very task oriented, our brains DEFAULT to defining ourselves and our lives based on the “self” that we have defined for ourselves, based on past and future.
That explains A LOT!
We are designed not to live in the moment, unless we choose to do so deliberately. It takes great intentionality to fight our brain’s desire to define us by our past and future, to exist simply in the now.
She speaks of “the story” that we all tell ourselves. The story about our past, about our limitations…
She says over and over…
Step out of the story and into the TRUTH of who you really are…
I speak so much about the absolute truth, and yet…
And yet…
I so limit my truth with artificial limitations from my past.
She asks over and over… What would your life be like if you didn’t have a limiting story?
I think about my parents… I love them… I do.
I love that they made me so crazy independent. I love that they did the very best with the fears they spoused. My dad grew up without a father from the time he was 4. He grew up in an artificial world without much discipline or role models.
My mother grew up in a loving home, but overly protected as the oldest daughter of a very traditional Italian family.
Their decision to come to the United States was extraordinary. While I have faulted them for not being able to make decisions in their lives, they made the one decision that mattered! They made the decision that changed all of our lives for the better, and as a result, they lost not only my sisters to Muscular Dystrophy anyway, they lost me to the country to which they chose to migrate.
I beat myself up constantly, and I don’t know why.
I don’t know what I am afraid of…
Or, maybe I do.
I am afraid I don’t deserve this life that I have been gifted.
I am afraid that if I fully enjoy it, if I fully live it, I will feel guilty beyond words.
I am afraid, at the same time, that if I don’t live it fully, I am not honoring my great fortune… and my sisters passing.
But, what if all of that is made up? What if all of that is the story that I choose to tell myself to make my life interesting and meaningful to myself?
What if all that I am, is what I am right now?
What if all that I need to know, is all that I know right now?
Why am I afraid to feel deep and complete joy?
I feel it with my boys… I think that I do, because they make me feel so very much enough. When I am with them, I long to be nowhere else. When I am with them, I long to be no one else.
But, with the rest of my peeps… I tend to live in the mindset of “I need to accomplish more so that I can then enjoy. I need to be more so that I can then deserve to enjoy. I need to learn more so that I can then know enough to belong.
Do you believe that you are enough?
How much do you define yourself by who you have been in the past? By what has happened to you in the past? Or, by who you dream of being in the future?
What would happen if you defined yourself only as who you are RIGHT NOW?
I have been shedding my story for years… decades…
I have come to understand the theory and the power of the moment, and of anchoring yourself in the absolute truth…
But, am I truly succeeding at living in the moment, and FULLY embracing my absolute truth.
Yes, I can see the truth from many sides… but do I fully see my own truth?
Do I see the truth of my “limiting story”?
Do you see the truth of yours?
Harmony requires me, requires us, to embrace the absolute truth of our own goodness… to embrace the absolute truth of our own unique gift… of our own unique soul…
Nothing that I know is new.
Nothing that I know is unique.
But what I am learning and understanding is powerful…
And, it is setting me free in a whole new way.
I will keep asking the questions… because the answers are getting clearer.
We are on the right path… We are in pursuit… Together!
Nestor