"To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work. That knows how to live outside the law as well as within it. We do this not to create a veneer of protection through cynicism, but so that we can meet the powerful structures that inform our existence on equal terms, and in a real conversation of equals."
In Crossing the Unknown Sea, David Whyte advises how to thrive in our work.
"To live with courage in any work or in any organization, we must know intimately the part of us that does not give a damn about the organization or the work. That knows how to live outside the law as well as within it. We do this not to create a veneer of protection through cynicism, but so that we can meet the powerful structures that inform our existence on equal terms, and in a real conversation of equals."
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From a meditation lead by Matthew Brensilver at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center.
"The mind almost always feels as though something is missing. But this leaves us perpetually underestimating the nourishment that is here now, the peace that lies on the other side of longing." From David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea:
Our relationship to time has become corrupted exactly because we allow ourselves very little experience of the timeless. We speak continually of saving time, but time in its richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief. At speed, the world becomes a blur, and all those other lives we encounter that are not our own become another blur too. Our hours of work and our traveling to work are getting longer and longer, but at the same time our perception of those hours becomes shorter and shorter: short, abstract and ungraspable. We speak of stealing time as if it no longer belonged to us. We speak of needing time as if it wasn't around us already in every moment. We want to make time for ourselves as if it were in our power to do so. From David Whyte's Crossing the Unknown Sea
"A close friend said a marvelous and disturbing thing to me one rainy afternoon . . . that claiming our happiness life is one of the most difficult things a human being can do . . . 'because the moment we claim the happiness to which we have long aspired, large parts of us are immediately out of a job. All the parts of you that believed it wasn't possible are about to be let go. What is left is a simplified version of what you were before. If you do not recognized this simplified essence, you feel like a stranger to yourself.' " "I have often thought that spending a few moments a day practicing the art of happiness, of gratefulness, of celebration and arrival, of victory in tiny but important things would go a long way toward preparing us for those grander, more lifelong goals for which we are often unprepared." Today, give up your opinions and outlines for what you think the day should look like. Create a plan, sure, but be gentle with it, yielding to Love's deeper calls. While we think our goal is accomplishing items on our to do list to our standards of excellence, Love cares more that we forgive ourselves and others, have affection for ourselves and others, listen to ourselves and others, have the courage to have difficult conversations that weren't on the schedule, and give up opinion and broaden our perspective and compassion. Love loves accomplishment, but Love also loves humor, play, rest, and connections - with nature, ourselves, our community.
Today, recognize that Love has authority. Love is not just a gentle comfort, a sweet affirmation. Love, God, has power. Love has power to adjust our thinking, to dissolve illusions and misunderstandings. Love has power to awaken us to truth. Love bestows on us rights and freedoms, which are enforced by Love's authority.
David Whyte in his book Crossing the Unknown Sea teaches the way to love ourselves.
He says we believe "we will finally fall in love with ourselves only when we have become the totally efficient organism we have always wanted to be and left all our bumbling ineptness behind. Yet in exactly the way we come to find love and intimacy with others through vulnerability, we come to those same qualities in ourselves through living out the awkwardness of not knowing, of not being in charge. We try to construct a life in which we will be perfect, in which we will eliminate awkwardness, pass by vulnerability, ignore ineptness, only to pass through the gate of our lives and find, strangely, that the gateway is vulnerability itself, the very place we are open to the world whether we like it or not." Today, know that the way to loving yourself is not through perfecting yourself, but embracing yourself in all your awkward vulnerability, with the same tender acceptance with which you love those most dear to you. Many of us - especially those who had too much responsibility as children or felt an early sense of betrayal - have come to believe we can rely only on ourselves, carry more than is ours to carry, and sometimes fail to recognize all the ways in which we are supported.
Today, recognize and feel that spiritual forces and powers move with you, companioning you, giving you insight, courage, and rest. Hand over your sense of burden. Notice and savor moments of joy. Recognize the way love manifests itself in tangible support - whether kindness from a friend; wisdom from a book; a car, computer, or photocopy machine that works; or all the people doing their jobs so you can do yours. Today, know that your career, purpose, and happiness is not created through your own discernment and will. Great forces are moving through you and with you, greater than you can see, unfolding your purpose in a larger pattern that serves the activity of Love. Listen moment by moment. When you hear a voice or an intuition saying, "This is the way; walk ye in it," step in that direction, even if it seems peculiar or counter intuitive or impossible or difficult or too wonderful for you.
Much of our tension and compulsive thinking and behaviors arise from trying to avoid feelings of loss and sadness. Today, instead of arranging your life around avoiding those feelings, instead, feel yourself hugged by Love. Feel Love as an enormous, comforting present who can hold those feelings with you, without fear or judgment. Rest in that embrace. Feel yourself accepted just as you are. Don't try to do anything other than just be hugged.
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AuthorTarn Wilson is the author of the memoir The Slow Farm and numerous essays. You may read more of her work at tarnwilson.com. Archives
September 2020
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