Break up with the idea that you are not free
Today, while driving, I set myself free. Here's how it happened.First, a thought drifted by: This morning, I set myself free... and I followed it with my attention. As it sat in the middle of my mind space, my first impulse was to scribble it into my notebook, which is what I do with clever thoughts. I capture them so that I can 'teach' them to you.But this morning I realized that this is just another way of putting things off. Another kind of separation. A thought comes. A good and useful thought, which might lead me somewhere that I've been wanting to go. And instead of going there, I write it down.Later, it happens again. And soon, the notes that I've scribbled down to help you have built up - and overwhelmed me.This morning, I saw that this overwhelm is a strategy. My mind is trying to keep me 'safe' from feeling big feelings or launching into anything risky.So it distracts me with the idea that I should scribble down these 'good and useful thoughts' before they get away. And then to use them to purchase your attention.In other words (cue my father's voice) (cue my husband's voice): You could make money with that. Because the more money - the safer I am. Or so says the mind and, in my life, the men.My mind believes that it has to protect me from my wildness, from my creativity - from my tendency to move 'too fast'. Because, the mind fears, moving as quickly as my soul is moving could cause trouble. Things could change. Which is why the mind separates me from any thought that might upset the security of my apple cart.Like this miraculous thought that came by this morning. The thought that I might set myself free... just like that... right now. The thought that I might set myself free by simply deciding that I am already free.This morning, I observed all of this in a totally new way.I saw that I translate inspiration into little notes because I am afraid to let inspiration flow directly into my life - through my body. I understood, personally, viscerally, what Caroline Myss means when she says:
“You have to become irrational. You have to become fully and totally mystically irrational. Not emotionally irrational, because that’s self-serving. You have to become mystically irrational. Mystically irrational means you have to become… mystically fearless. You have to be able to do what your mind would give you logical reasons to not do. You have to be everything your soul beckons you to be and everything your mind tells you to be cautious about. You have to become forgiving. You have to become bold in a way that your soul recognizes. The mystical experience is about your capacity to perceive fully in a hologram at the speed of light. To get the consequences of an action that your mind will say doesn’t matter, but every part of your soul knows–this matters. This matters. Everything matters. The soul measures everything and every piece of life matters to the soul. To the mind, in its arrogance, it says “only the people who matter to me matter.” To live through the soul is your highest calling. And to build a soul with stamina, you cannot do that on visualization. It requires prayer.”
She is talking about living without the habit of yielding inspiration to rational thought. She is talking about living at the velocity of the soul - drinking life in, letting it move you, letting it flow through you straight through you - without resistance. Well, that is a skill. That is faith.And seeing that, I knew: I am already free. I have always been free. And a new thought, a free thought, drifted in and sat in the wide-open space beside the first one: What if I break up with the idea that I have to be this caretaker - the caretaker of this work I do, the caretaker of my family, the caretaker of some idea of myself - what - and who - do I find?And instead of writing it down for later, I asked it. And I found clarity. I found direct, specific guidance about my work. I found myself speeding upward through the hologram of my own life, veils falling away as I rose.I found myself. Washed clean. Perfect already. Already free. And in the glimpse-space in which I allowed myself to witness that - it vibrated all the way back down to my core.I saw it. Seeing it changed me. And it changed my work.And that changed everything.And so now, as I puzzle this out - and I post it - without allowing my mind to censor it because it is imperfectly written (what a divinely irrational thing to do!!!), here is a question for you:What might you find if you broke up with the idea that you are not free? What is here, beneath the story about having to be 'the caretaker' of some story that is not yours?