Let's get Funky

Yep. That's right, even my awesome ass goes through a funk from time to time. Seems like I'm not alone these days talking to a lot of the people I've met. Kind of like a communal down time where a lot of people appear to be in a place where you'd expect a Russian novel to be set. Just a bit gloomy, a bit dark, and seemingly unending. However, I have found that most of the people I interact with give me more hope than despair. Most of them tend to be of the mindset that they somewhat enjoy the funk for what it is knowing that they will come out the other side stronger and more aware of themselves. Faith. I see faith. That alone, even if it is in others, is enough for me.

I've just finished reading a wonderful book titled: A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. In it she has a lot of great information, some of it not for me (at this time at least) and some of it just plain revolutionary. That book as well as Channeling Grace by Caroline Myss (which I listened to on a recent road trip) both pointed out some things to me that I needed to look at that will help me with my own personal funk.

Williamson says, "The spiritual path then, is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don't know it... The ego uses everything to lead us further into anxiety. The Holy Spirit uses everything to lead us into inner peace."

Ah yes... there's the word anxiety. That low level ever creeping feeling that comes up when you are about to or in the middle of challenging something. Some of you may know I've come up against a lot of this in my job lately. To the point where I was challenging not only my coworkers by my bosses as well. I was being honest and I was challenging authority, or more correctly, my fear of authority. Now, in many ways I went about this "wrongly", however, my intent was there and my anxiety sure as hell was once I realized that I had pushed it as far as disciplinary matters came. Each night during a week long drama at the workplace I came home and asked to see everything differently asked for my own forgiveness and asked for blessings upon all of us.

All of us? Yes. You too dear reader. Myss helped me realize that all my prayers and consequently all my focus was on me. Me, my, mine _____. My ego liked to shift a lot of those thought process to me too. What am I doing wrong? What is my problem? What sins are mine? Hold on... this is getting disjointed....
My focus both good and bad has been on myself for a long time now. What about others? I am not alone in this place and I certainly have the capacity to love more than myself right? If my job here is to love others as I love myself then I certainly need to start here but that doesn't mean that I have to wait for some preordained time in the future to start working on my capacity and ability to love others. Why not pray and extend love for others instead of focusing all my energy on myself? To be honest it's quite a relief. I feel anxiety melting and being replaced with peace which tells me that something is being done right here.

However, that alone is not the full answer. Forgiveness of course has to be involved on both the self and on others. Self examination has to be done and errors given over for correction. It's fucking tough! There are times when I just want to take a day off and hide. Silly sounding I know, because it's really hard to get all this toothpaste back in the tube once you start squeezing out all your inner BS and you know now that there is nowhere to hide from it. 'Wherever you go, there you are.'

"This process can be so painful that we are tempted to go backwards. It takes courage - this is often called the path of the spiritual warrior - to endure the sharp pains of self-discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives." -Williamson.

This quote I read over and over after my recent trip. There are others out there who would choose the 'dull pain of unconsciousness' forever rather than stopping and looking around on the inside. One positive I took away from being around a lot of those people was, there is love inside each of them and these days I'm able to see it a lot more clearly than ever before.

My teacher recently challenged me to "Let go of the plan."
Now that'll stir up some anxiety! What? No plan? But what about my 401K, my trip to the grocery store? My 5 o'clock tea? Ugh... but... I need to be in control.
This makes me laugh because it's a lesson that I know but yet still fall victim to all the time. Let go of my "control" and let go of the plan and just let life happen. Remember, "The spiritual path then, is simply the journey of living our lives." I go on. I live my life and I try to be as observant of what's going on around me as I do what's going on inside. I try to look at it and then see what needs to be done. I'm also now trying to do... nothing. Get the fuck out of the way and just let shit be what it is and needs to be!

I have no fucking clue where I'll be in five years. Don't want to know. Don't want to plan for it either. However, this development of trust is all on me. I have to give over and trust in order to let go of "the plan." Which, the thought of that also makes me laugh since I have, by many people's standards, no plan whatsoever in life. I must though because good googly I love the false sense of control that I've developed in this lifetime. One day at a time and chipping away. I can hope for a giant leap one day but for this day I can only do what I can do. In full faith, honesty and with sound effort, today is what I'm working with. Today I have no plan for tomorrow. Let's see where it goes.

We all find ourselves funky from time to time. We all find that we're not happy 100% of the time. Its okay. We all know where to look and what to do. We just have to get out of our own ways and do it. Let go of what you're holding on to, forgive, love. Rinse, repeat, and we'll all come out cleaner for it.

Until next time dear reader... I love you.