Whole-Hearted Presence
“… May you risen from the place of darkness that you know very well … the world always asks us to come out of our hiding place, to come out and play …”
~ David Whyte
I have been finding it very difficult to write this week. Too many things on my mind, my brain is foggy, I’m completely lacking focus and concentration, getting confused and emotional easily, my body is tired, exhausted rather, and my poor soul seems to be without faith these days. I find a bit of solace when I take Mala outside for a walk among the trees, and other than that - it is sleeping and eating that give me either pleasure or simply a relief. I sleep longer than usual and, naturally, it is more difficult to get up and get ready for life. An upcoming wave of depression? Maybe.
The thing is, I was trying to find something uplifting and inspiring to write about, and all I could think about, all I have been consumed with, were these blue feelings … Even in the midst of the summer, when trees are green, and flowers are all colorful and the sun is out, it’s warm and everyone seems to be in some kind of celebratory mood, or going to retreats … I can’t help it. What’s inside is inside. And I can’t seem to be able to fake positivity in this moment either. Melancholy that I’m experiencing is the one where things in life can seem normal, and they are more-less ok - on the outside - but inside is a battlefield. Actually, now that I am thinking about it, things are not plain and simple. My job is under the question, my living situation too, I have been moving a lot for the past 12 months despite the need to stay still and rest, and a few other existential items are to be revisited. And since I find inspiration for these offerings mostly in my inner world, then my current state of mind, body and my soul makes an ideal topic to attend. Plus, I really can’t hide how I am feeling, it is so obvious on my face (if you could just see me now) and it’s been like this since I was a small child. Sometimes I wish I could put a different mask on, at least when it is needed, in important social situations, you know - when one is called upon to be an adult, but it’s sooo hard! And, it doesn’t feel honest. So, I’ll just keep on writing …
There is also something else …. when I do work that is not fulfilling or rewarding for me, and it does not nourish me and fills me up, but instead drains energy from me - mentally as well as physically - this is what happens. It’s like all my vitality and potential are wasted. And, without looking down on any work - as every work matters and is important - but there is just so much time left in this lifetime to spend it on things that do not elevate us, inspire us, and where we can’t bring in our full selves. I think, personally, I got lost. Somehow I have lost direction in my life and my livelihood, I got scared, and with all that, I shrank, and I have lost connection to what matters to me the most. I also feel like I have severed this sacred connection to myself, and as if I am waiting for someone else, someone or something “higher” and with more authority (of my own life) than me, to give me a permission to pause, to rest, to get some relief for fuck’s sake.
During my walks this week, I reflected on myself (as I most often do) and my surrounding many times - if these feelings and states that I am experiencing now are me or something that is happening to me at the moment, like circumstances and situations, maybe mental afflictions, or even my diagnosis. Is this Marina, is this what’s happening to her, or is it her depression, which is it … Was I always like this? Was this state dominating most of my life? I know it hasn’t been always with me and I know it is not the only one present in me, as I can recall moments when I would get a relief and experience genuine joy. Is this why I was drinking and using for years - to get some peace and quiet from this debilitating mental state? I don’t know. I don’t remember myself at that time well. I can’t recall many of those moments. But I do know that I would usually look outside of myself for answers and solutions. What would my therapist say? What about my doctor, or my Heart Teacher, or my mentors … What would my closest friends say? Can someone recommend an alternative method I haven’t tried yet? And what about the social media and those who are experiencing similar things … So many questions, and a deep conditioning habit in most of us - to look for the answers and solutions outside.
“In his lifelong solitude the Naskapi [Indian] hunter has to rely on his own inner voices and unconscious revelations; he has no religious teachers who tell him what he should believe, no rituals, festivals, or customs to help him along. In his basic view of life, the soul of man is simply an inner companion, whom he calls “my friend” or Mista’peo, meaning “Great Man.”
… Those Naskapi who pay attention to their dreams and who try to find their meaning and test their truth can enter into a deep connection with the Great Man. He favors such people and sends them more and better dreams. Thus, the major obligation of an individual Naskapi is to follow the instructions given by his dreams, and then to give permanent form to their contents in art.”
~ From the book Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung
Imagine that. Being isolated from this insane society and needing to rely on your higher self. Listening to our inner voice, having no teachers, mentors, priests, coaches, or psychiatrists to tell us what is wrong with us, to tell us what to do, to direct us, but rather tuning into our deep self to guide us, reaching to the unconscious through our dreams, and finding our own “Great Man”. The modern day humans would be lost if they needed to drop the technology for one second and rely on themselves these days. We have lost the connection with the higher existence, and the isolation that most of us are experiencing is due to detachment from the nature, the cosmos and the higher sense of life. We need to awake the sense of the self. Re-establishing that connections is the work. And this requires stepping into the dark woods.
When things on the outside are falling apart, according to Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, it is (or, it should be) our tendency, our instinct, to turn towards inside, and to find the answers we need there. When there are questions, confusions, doubts, we need to go inside ourselves and find the answers. Our soul is connected to the world and its deep pain and suffering. And, as the world gets more and more disrupted, violent, and insane, we get more vulnerable and shaken, and we need to feel connected to the deep self within, as this part is not affected by anything from the outside; it is one constant, one permanent entity. Like psychoanalyst Micheal Meade wonderfully puts it - “we are being called to learn how to be a human being stretched between the heaven and earth”.
The problem is that, through life and its challenges, we humans over-adapt to life and circumstances and move further and further away from our real selves, our deep inner selves. Adaptability is a great quality to an extend, but we practically abuse it and we’d adapt to just about anything, to the point where it’s no longer a strength. Just like Indian philosopher Krishnamurti puts it “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” The common belief is that what saves us early on in life is the same thing that destroys us later. However, there is an interesting idea that shows up in myths and stories that disagrees with this. As Michael Meade points out, the crises that we experience, both individually and collectively, are not here to destroy us but rather to “break the spell of the “little (or ego) self” and to break the spell of collective lives that are also imagined as small and not connected to the source and the origins of life … that the crisis are here to crack the shell and open the eyes to our soul - our deeper self - that knows why we are here”.
For safekeeping,
gold is hidden in a desolate place
where no one ever goes.
Not in a familiar or easy to get to spot.
The old proverb says “Joy is concealed inside grief”.
The mind puzzles with this,
but that strong beast - the soul,
can break such tethers.
Look for the answer inside your question.
Cornered there in the edgeless regions of love
you will see the opening that leads
not East or West, but rather, within.
For secretly within you,
you are a mountain searching for its echo.
When you get hurt, you say “Lord, God”.
The answers lives in that which bends you low
and makes you cry out.
Pain and the thread of death can do this.
They make you clear
and when they’re gone
you can lose purpose.
And this is because you are uneven
in your openings, too closed, and often
unreachable.
Too often, your intellect dominates
and then the universal, beyond time, intelligence,
comes again.
So, sell your questioning talents
and buy more bewildering surrender,
and learn to live
simply and meaningfully
in the place where your gold
has been hidden all along.
~ Rumi, The Thread of Death
I had a privilege to listen in a webinar with the poet David Whyte the other day and he said something (well, many things) that spoke to me. He said that “the antidote for exhaustion is a whole-hearted presence.” So beautiful … I couldn’t help but wonder if I am doing what I need to be doing, what my soul wants me to be doing (for my career and life in general) and if I am doing it whole-heartedly - am I following the right direction … Judging by the feelings these days, I am certainly not embodying a whole-hearted presence. I feel rather stuck in the grieving and sorrow at the moment, I feel numb and stuck .. and some letting go needs to happen, I know. Some deep listening and letting go needs to happen. Another little death of the ego …
It may seem that I am jumping onto a different topic here, but I am not. According to Jung, when childhood - as one of the developmental stages - ends, there is a cross over (that needs to happen) into the life that is waiting to unravel from within each one of us. Jung says that this unfolding is the result of “calling”, and the calling is for the qualities that are already in there, inside of us - the hidden gifts, talents - and at certain times we have to follow the calling. If we spend our life without following it, we don’t get to experience this unfolding. There is something in fairytales called “the faith worse than death” that describes this, and it means “to arrive at the door of death without having lived the calling of one’s life”.
I think this calling is similar to what Whyte calls the “whole-hearted presence”. How many people actually follow their calling, how many leap into the life that is waiting to unfold from within them? Probably not many. Hell, how many of us can hear the calling through all the noise coming from the outside distractions, and other voices who think they know what is good for us? And, once you hear it, do you believe it or doubt it? How many people actually take their chances, drop everything else, and go against the grain, because there is simply no other way to be, to live - because this is their life and not someone else’s? Not enough, I think. As Jung put it humorously, “we all walk in shoes too small for us”. As a recovering addict and someone who lived very small life too often in the past, and tried many other (less effective) alternatives, I can with certainty say that this, more conscious and awaken journey - which continuously insists on spiritual and psychological wholeness - is the only journey worth taking.
For today, I am gonna take it easy and observe. Each morning I seem to find a new body here … I wonder who she is, sometimes I don’t know her at all … wondering where she came from and where she is going … does she have a fixed idea of where she is headed or not … and if I could, even if just for today, relinquish all the power and effort and resistance, and just open up to what is here already, and what have been here all along …
May we all take some time in our lives to figure out and remember that time when we actually felt the presence of something deeper and more meaningful inside of us.
May something shows up and crack the shell of the little self so that we can come to realization of the deeper self.
May we become aware of all the wounds we came here with, but also all the capacities and talents.
May we keep on dying little deaths as this is the only way we grow.
In these crucial and difficult times in the world, when we all could use more community, may we first individually learn how to live from the deep sense of self - our soul - and then contribute the energy with the hope to alter the collective.
“In the end we will only be transformed when we can recognize and accept the fact that there is a will within each of us, quite outside the range of conscious control, a will which knows what is right for us, which is repeatedly reporting to us via our bodies, emotions, and dreams, and is incessantly encouraging our healing and wholeness.” ~ James Hollis
This writing feels filled with your whole-hearted presence and thank you for so many reminders to openings of exactly that. Blessings!