I find that in the last three and a half years I have taken a few steps (or stumbles) towards becoming more spiritual and accepting of a higher power - note: surrendering my need to control. I learned that the more I accept and embrace these notions, the more peace I am able to find within, even though the path on this truly never ending journey was a very difficult and stubborn battle for me.
My nature is a very proactive one. I am not the type of person who can just stand with their arms crossed and watch life as it passes by. A favorite quote of mine by Herbert Otto says: "Change and growth take place when a person has risked himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life." If I were to be forced to be an audience to life, the least I would do is express some sort of verbal opinion or draw some sociological conclusions about what it is I am witnessing (hence the creation of my blog). However, my true nature calls me to get involved, and simply do something whenever a situation arises, especially when that situation feels uncomfortable. Being raised in North America most of my life, I have been trained by this culture to follow the pursuit of comfort. So naturally, I liked to analyze and draw theories and conclusions, apply needed changes, and proceed in action by being proactive, not passive.
Of course, I now realise we are here to learn, and surprise surprise, I had to learn to embrace the great virtue: PATIENCE (they don't call it a virtue for nothing). Patience requires awarenes, which in turn I find, involves stillness. Being an actions focused person, stillness was a very strange notion for me. How can I be still? Whenever I saw myself in an uncomfortable situation, at the moment an opportunity of escape would arise, I jumped right on it - like say out of lack of financial comfort, pack my bags and change countries in two weeks time for a better job, or out of emotional uncomfort, get married to a stranger and get pregnant in three months time. I was under the impression that if I were to act myself out of uncomfortable situations, I would somehow magically fix those problems by immersing myself into other activities. What I didn't realize is that I was also immersing myself into other more uncomfortable problems. It is now crystal clear to me that I was a loose cannon and obviously had to learn that running away from an issue will not fix it. I ended up unintentionally placing myself into a very tight and very uncomfortable corner. The key here is that because I never sat still, never was patient enough to just be, reflect upon and listen, I eventually placed myself in self created situations that may not have necessarily tickled my fancy, and escapeism no longer being an option, forcefully pushed me to become aware of myself by being immobile, or as spiritual theory calls it: being still.
“making a decision was only
the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving
into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of
when he first made the decision.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
For a person like me, being still, at the beginning feels entrapping, exactly like a fish on a shore whipping tail on sand and all. I honestly felt like I was running out of air. I had to wait, patiently, until a wave would come and take me back to the ocean of movement.
Here I learned the power of surrender. Those moments of total loss of control brought me to complete desperation, which eventually broke down most of my inner ego structure, and I had to just lie still, listening to nothing, while going nowhere. This in itself, is the most difficult task ever. I went to business school, so "action items" are part of my dogged and systematic nature. And there I was: a fish washed up ashore, wagging my tail on the dry sand under the ardent sun, and ironically, impatiently waiting.
Here is where I learned of faith. There were many moments when I suffocated myself in self induced panic that the life saving wave might never come. Having had to surrender control and mobility due to the awkwardness of the situations I had placed myself in, within the depth of stillness, instead of nothingness, I discovered faith.
May 5, 2013
Faith...suuuch a short word, for such a long stretch.
The Seven Blind Men And The Elephant
