A simple yet insightful poem.

Yesterday a poem was shared with me … a poem simple yet insightful.  Its insights complement many other pieces tumbling together to form “me” and my walk … the “me” that changes, grows, and morphs moment by moment. 

 

Dear traveler, your footprints are the road, 

there is nothing else;

The road is made by walking.

It is by walking that the road is made,

and looking back we see the path

we will never set foot on again.

Dear traveler, there is no road

but the tracks on the sand, 

the wakes in the sea.

      –   Antonio Machado

 

As I walk, I now walk toward intentions … but indeed, my journey is told by my footprints.  As my foot begins to break through the soil I feel.  I open my heart, embrace those feelings, and examine those feelings.  I then make choices … choices that create those footprints I see behind me.  But as I look back at those footprints, patterns emerge.  They too offer stories and lessons.  The challenge … can I discover ways to open my heart so that those lessons enter me … enter me deeply and in a manner such that I will carry them into my future choices, creating future steps, and providing yet new lessons to take in once more for use.

I will create an intention … then look back to see the story told by my steps.

A gift …

To feel good … really good.  To embrace health once again, health that allows me to move in freedom, draw in the warmth of the sun, draw in deep breaths, see with unobstructed clarity, and stand without the burden of discomfort … is such a gift!!  I am deeply thankful for these new, fresh, current moments for they are a gift and I realize in this world many still stand in darker places, places that even with their best intentions may never allow them what I feel right now … in this way … to this depth.

Some complexity creates the light and darkness in which we stand in the moment … and who is to know how those standing in what I feel is darkness may feel blessed in their own manner.  It reduces to one influential quality … it comes down to me … to each of us … standing in whatever we stand in … feeling the moment … truly feeling it … deciding how we will frame it, embrace it, and use it as this moment’s step in our journey … and how we might learn from it as we begin to prepare for the next step.

When seen as such a pure process I see the simplicity of the cycle and the power we have through our choices … all driven by allowing ourselves to deeply feel, see the story told us, then make choices that move us towards the light that is us, in what we are given.  Some frame it as moving from love … some may do it without knowledge due to circumstances or afflictions … some may not have discovered it but will in time.  So many stories immersed in such a common process … all sharing a common intention of wanting the best life possible.  It is an amazingly simple complexity.  It is life.

A complex man needs a lifetime to understand …

I continue to discover that I’m a complex man … a guy that likes to share his feelings and his experience of self-discovery … a guy that feels rich and joyful when feeling deeply connected.  When I feel deep, there is nothing better … and now that my feelings are raw and openly available, sharper than ever before, life in complex in even newer ways.   

At times I feel like a painter with a picture just beginning to form, and a growing pallet of colors to use in my hand.  I’m beginning to choose colors … just “because” … just since it’s interesting or pretty … and then mix the colors that touch me and resonate the most … and begin to blend colors into shapes and patterns that speak my truth the most.  I desire to see the finished picture but I am understanding that the final picture may never be known, and that the picture must evolve and be given time to reveal itself from within me.  Such an interesting walk through life isn’t it?

I continue to seek clarity.  I continue to seek understanding of me.  I continue to open doors wider so that more and more brightness flows in … so that more of me is revealed and exposed for understanding.  This continuous unfolding, revealing, and challenging process does at times seem never ending and ever calling me … because it is.  I am a man on a journey that at times “feels” lonely, and at times’ “feels” crowded, and at times “feels” everything in-between.  But the more it “feels” the better it is because feeling is the pathway to greater discovery.  Such an interesting walk through life isn’t it?

“The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love. Born out of concern for all beings.”  – Buddha

Relearning old lessons while also learning anew …

I have been given a wonderful gift … a woman that is many rich and wonderful things including being my spiritual partner (http://seatofthesoul.com/free-tools/spiritual-partnership-guidelines/ ).  At its simplest, spiritual partners are mutually committed to the development of the other partner’s self-growth as well as to their own.  A Google or two, and reading the reference found in “Places along the way …” on this blog will offer more for those wanting deeper understanding.

Today my spiritual partner helped me.  I am still on the mend from being sick, getting stronger each day but still unable to return to work.  At work life goes on and tasks pile up, so I spent much of today with the intention of making my return to work next week as positive as possible.  I had spent much of the day connected to work responding to email, processing a quickly growing stack of tasks, and coordinating work.  By late afternoon I was deeply frustrated and angry … frustrated by things that I thought I had left behind when I discovered that focusing on what I could control gave me peace.  Frustrated by things I thought were faults in others.  I had slipped back, dropped into old patterns, and felt feelings coming from a place way before today.

I turned to my spiritual partner for help because it all felt wrong … not where I want to choose to be … and with the help of my spiritual partner I discovered.  I discovered that … I lost sight of how walking without expectations improves the journey … I lost sight of how better it is to focus on those things you can control … I lost sight that if one looks for those things that give good feelings in any situation, one can discover the personal enjoyment found within them.  And I lost sight of yet another tool so very useful when moving through life … the ability to view all people through compassionate eyes while recognizing they are doing the best they know how.

It was a powerful observation, brought on by my partner’s patient, guided tour through questions.   There’s much more than what I’ll post tonight but the most “Ah-Ha” aspect for me was that I was not viewing people through compassionate eyes.  I was seeing them as I wanted them to be, not as they were. Truthfully, it was all about me, not them.  It wasn’t about what they were doing but how I was failing to see the truth and allowing that to connect with and surface old feelings.  They are doing the best they can.  I am better served by letting go and not resisting, processing my feelings to validate what’s up, and focusing on what I can offer to move everyone to a better outcome.  That felt more like what I wanted to choose.  Remember … it’s all about choices.

Compassion … when I realized it and took it in I could feel myself settle … I could feel my peace again … I could feel frustration and anger replaced by love and kindness.  Yes, a powerful reaction … telling me how strong the Ah-Ha was for me … and that integrating compassion into my dealings at work and in life … making that word become deed and then become habit … will serve me well and move me further down my path.

It was a powerful moment … a powerful lesson … from a loving and powerful process.  And I spent the remainder of the day thankful for yet one more gift given me by my dear, wonderful spiritual partner.

Brief comments about letting go …

First, I want to thank Homer for filling in yesterday.  Homer … you are the best BE ever!!!  But Homer wasn’t available today so I’m only posting a short note tonight since I’m still challenged by the flu and some other issues.

Reflections … reflections during the hours sitting on the sofa feeling crummy is allowing me to see my holding on to expectations and the past, and blocking myself from settling into the present, regardless of the present circumstances.  In the past I would have been angry …. angry at not being well, angry at the inconveniences, angry at the discomforts.  Though I might have visited some of those feelings briefly, I quickly moved to a new place …letting go of what should be … letting go of how I should be … letting go of good health … letting go of being comfortable … and more.  I consciously saw, reflected, and then chose to frame things as accepting the present … until something better appeared.  It felt freeing and the anxieties and negative feelings that began to form dissipated.  I focused on what I could control, and did my best to move forward so that things might become better.  But without expectations … knowing that eventually things would return to a better place.

Though feeling crummy sucks, it is also a good teacher.

Guest speaker … “Another tool” …

My name is Homer.  Occasionally I’ll be filling in for the Man of this blog.  I’m a Blog Elf (aka BE).  As BE I’m on call for when the Man is unavailable, and today the Man is being one with the flu.  As he heals he has asked that I share a story … my discovering that joy comes from focusing on what one can and cannot control, and discovering what makes those things you can control feel good.

Though this BE assignment is new, I have some miles under my feet … a significant accomplishment since elves have short legs.  Like the Man, I was raised to take responsibility and make things happen. I took on everything … felt I had to make it all good.  However, there was a subtle secret behind the elfin curtains … that much of what I was owning was not controllable by me.  Somehow I missed that in the BE in-service training.  I failed to recognize that a joyful life comes from focusing on those things I both controlled and found joy in.

Dysfunctional organizations, hidden agendas, silos of internal competition, elves living in anger instead of love … all were outside my influence yet I felt I was responsible for them.  Living this script brought frustration, self-criticism, and a sense that I was failing.  I worked harder thinking more effort would overcome the problems, but I only depleted my emotional and physical resources.  Joy drained from my life, being replaced by a continuing stream of fear, frustration and feelings of failure.  As assignments changed I cycled back and sang the same song once again.  Time after time.  And the stress and sadness over took me … at times to dangerous levels.  And the joy left me.  And fears and bad feelings replaced the cavities created when joy left.  I began to live in fear instead of joyfully anticipating the creativity and excitement that comes from new challenges.  I felt something was terribly wrong … I was scared … I felt it had to change.

Then a recent new assignment (just before becoming a BE for the Man) created an Ah-Ha moment, one that clearly showed me a new choice to make.  A close friend of The Man took me aside and guided me through seeing this new assignment differently … see it more clearly as things I did control and things I did not.  Then they asked me to look at those I controlled and describe how they would bring me joy.  The next day I applied it … reframing my world in these new terms.  I suddenly began to discover the joy lost so long ago.  And to sweeten the joy, I was released of the burden of changing those things for which I have no control.  It was an AH-Ha moment that gave me a tool that I use frequently now in many ways.

It’s been almost a year now and the joy still remains, and the burden remains lifted, and my life is now more joyous.  So on behalf of the Man, this BE offers this tool to add to your box.  It was a game changer for me, and I hope it will be the same for you.  Until The Man calls again …

Ear buds …

On paper they look good, and in my ears they work well … but when they are set down to be used later they begin some earthworm-like ritual dance that results in knots, tangles, and Celtic-like designs.  I guess it’s just another hazard of this digital age, but I wonder if it’s evidence of a plot to sell headsets or speakers … 🙂

Music and tools ….

In walking my journey I am discovering many tools … tools that create moments of change, trigger feelings, or recall memories that need to be better understood and processed in order to move forward.  For me, music of a certain kind and richness is one such tool.  Finding such tools is important because I was rigidly encased in a wall of protection by years of living as the old me.   I found that breaking free of those old scripts was so very, very hard.  But once a break occurred, even small, the next was a bit easier … and the next after that a bit easier still … small chipping away at the marble to begin revealing the real me inside … and on and on it goes. 

So I walk into 2014 carrying my tool box and continuing my self-work, chipping away at the stone around me, seeking understanding and opening my heart.  I use my tools to create opportunities … chances to see something new and learn.  Each opportunity serves an important role in my life and journey … my journey to a place yet unknown but still eagerly and lovingly sought.  I am a traveler … seeking understanding of life’s secrets … singing a song of the path being walked with feelings deep, rich, and ever new … a traveler that is becoming the land he walks … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TANXVmO8Df4 (Preview)