Life presents continual challenges and we are facing more than ever before.
Costs are rising, housing prices for many out of reach, gas at an all-time high, retirement funds and stocks plummeting, and the recession debate heightens.
We’re still dealing with Covid, and the impact on our health and emotional well-being.
We hear varying stories about “false news” leaving many confused and distrustful.
We’re in the midst of political conflict, prompting questions about whether the government supports or deprives us of our rights.
Is it any wonder that our anxiety is multiplying exponentially?
As a result, we’re being called to find our internal still point amidst all this turmoil. Yet, how do we do so?
The still point is the state when we’ve dropped into our “Higher Self.” We are clear, calm, and compassionate which allows us to entrust our inner guidance system to direct our actions and, ultimately, our lives effectively.
But when we’re in fear or overwhelm, the emotionality of the human experience, we’re kicked off our center. And when we’re in emotionality, it wants our attention.
Let’s acknowledge that our emotional response has a desire or need for us, which we can discern. What is it afraid of? What does it want for us?
Once we know, we can then determine how to go about meeting its need, and then it can relax.
Yes, we can be present with the emotional parts within us and we also can embrace the dialectic that we are: both human and soul.
When we’re grounded in our Soul/Higher Self/True Essence, we’ve entered into the spiritual plane, where there is emotional neutrality and no pressure of time. All is well with the world…. at least in that moment!
How can we embody our Soul Self, which also serves to direct us?
By engaging in practices that foster our stepping over the threshold into the present, into the eternity; via meditation, mindfulness, creativity, exercise, connection with nature, and when in awe.
When we’re in presence, we’re engaged with our process; one action leads to the next, and we enter a flow state, present with each moment, present with each unfolding. We are not encumbered by regret of past action. We are not projecting the future of what has yet to come.
Awe is both engagement in the present and a direct connection with that which is larger than ourselves. We cannot practice awe, instead it enters into our Be-ing. We happen to see the beauty and intelligence of the design and fabric of the Universe and become entranced in an experience of magic and miracles.
Our relationship with nature can provide us with learning, expansion, connection to the All.
Examine, if you will, the construction of a simple leaf.
Behold the veins that provide nutrients to the leaf so that it may flourish. See the stem, which is connected to a limb, which is connected to the tree trunk, which then plunges underground, into roots that seize space and serve as a foundation for growth, expansion, and the reaching into the sky.
The tree is a beautiful metaphor for that which we are: creatures living on this Earthplane, grounded in the physical while gaining nourishment, which allows us to expand our potential and reach for the heavens, to be greater than that which we appear.
Just like the tree, we are complex organisms that interact with our environment. The tree draws nourishment from the sun and soil and sustains our atmosphere with carbon dioxide. We too, receive nourishment and can benefit our world.
Step into the experience of awe. Take in the glory of a sunrise. Ponder the miracles of life under the starlit sky. Take joy in the innocence and curiosity of a young child. Savor the cool, crisp sweetness of biting into a carrot and recognize each progression it took to find you. Delight in the song of different birds. Connect with each moment and you might just embody the enormity of that which you are relating to.
And from these moments, we can appreciate the beauty of our own life and bring that moment into the next, thus better equipping ourselves to manage pain and suffering, to see beyond it and come to creative solutions, to take action, not from anger, fear or hate, but to contribute from our own sense of divinity, the strongest power within the cosmos.
