The picture courtesy to Tomáš Vereš, a yoga teacher. It is not how yoga is often shown, as an intimate moment of immersion, tapping to the unknown. This one from an ashtanga yoga class. My friends.
In an attempt to exclude, we are including. Abraham Hicks.
We have come across each other in a corner grocery shop run by a gentleman whose origins are somewhere in Central Asia. I was choosing some fruit and a bunch of white gladiolas while the shop owner was packing a plastic bag with beer cans for another customer.
“We are going to drink these with my colleagues after the shift,” the woman pointed to the beers. “I work as a nurse in a psychiatric ward, on a night shift. There is a woman on the ward who is attached to bed and hauls all night. We will need this later.” The accent of the U.S. east coast transported me overseas instantly.
We exchanged names, both starting with a K, shook hands and said good-bye. A moment of co: connection, conviviality, compassion.
Will we see each other again? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Connected, anyway. Such as we all are, knowing or not knowing about it, it does not matter. Or, better, everything matters.
Pain is real. Suffering is clinging to a pain, hence unnecessary, a Buddhist would say. Pain seeks to be felt, recognized, and thus released. This is the way out of suffering, wise people say. The woman tied to her hospital bed screaming might be the sanest one of all; her body and mind protesting against being labelled, her soul sending signals that healing can happen from a different level. Allowing to feel, not numbing.
We have created a society where adjusting by rule and force are daily. Subsequently, numbing is a way to cope with suppressed energy/feelings. Now, of course we must adjust to live a society! Yes, it helps to fit and it brings results: almost all kids in these countries got the chance to learn count, read and write. Then, adults, we are able to co-exist.
Yes, yes, and now is the time to flourish, to expand, to evolve, not just to cope with. Now we see that the society is to a huge extend based on separating, judging, hierarchy and violence and we have developed enough to recognise we can do it differently. We are becoming aware of the freedom to feel, to create, to explore. Good news.
We all come from far, enough to look back to our twentieth century ancestors and we can trace the traumatic imprint in us all, and then there are thousands years of conditioning, shaming, blaming, hurting, etc. that linger as a memory, call it genetics if you prefer scientific definition.
Survival mechanism is there to make us survive, it is not enough to bring us into developing full potential and fulfilling heart´s desires. When we are tiny (and we are born tiny and fully dependent on caretakers) we learn coping mechanisms that enable our survival and those determine us since then. We confuse surviving mechanisms with ways of love, as we learn them from people who mostly claim to love us. Most parents would say and mean it: We are doing it with love, out of love, for love. Yes, and out of inherited limiting beliefs, out of force of repetition, following unconscious drives. Thousands of limits:
As long as you are under my roof, you do as I please. If you love me, you would comply with this.
This is a rich and fun material, when we consciously play with it and start asking questions. Only we often do not. Survival mechanisms have a strong grip and run in deep undercurrents. Good news, we are waking up and ready to dive deep.
Focus. Calm focus. Unagi, Ross would say.
Nourishing a wild trust that every little shift and change leads towards inclusion, clarity, unlocking potential. So many shifts happening.
Parenting is changing. Kids are not supposed to make mummies and daddies happy and fulfilled. Nor to save them and compensate for their lacks. Kids come as a gift and are to be accompanied to fully open to their potential, may it be an unknown one to their parents.
School system? Kids learn at different pace through different senses, with different tools. Intelligence is way more grander than cognitive capacities.
Job and work? We function much better on trust than on strict rules, hierarchies, power-games.
In romantic couples? We are not supposed to save, complement the other, neither to improve them or for them. We hold space for each other to recognize the non-addressed pain and unconscious patters of conditioned minds. Child wounds come into the open in romantic relationship surely, naturally, with a purpose. Embracing them.
Friendship is perhaps where we act the freest. Even though power games happen here too, with friends we are more tolerant. Perhaps bringing more amigo- aspects and attributes to all above: school, work, family, and romance. To steadily grow into light, open, joyful, trustful beings.
Good news? The tools are here, plenty. Rituals instead of dogmas. Living myths that embrace the dark together with the light. Duality and paradox are vital and needed, they point out directions. Granting space for oneself we grant space for the others. Simple, not easy. We are allowed to go and see. We can and we dare.
This civilization is vital if we sift and keep what is healthy and collaborative and inclusive and let go what is judgmental, suppressive, fragmenting. We all are both teachers and pupils. Both healers and healed. Loveable, courageous, full of potential. We all have peak and aha moments and can ride them as a wave.
It is a precious moment when we dare to check – in.
Thank you, nurses, for the loving attention and tolerance in the process of healing. Cheers and to your health after the nightshift.
