Voices
Hey everyone!
I hope the leap into spring is finding you all rejuvenated and inspired!
I recognize I haven’t written in a while and I apologize for that. It seems like all too often life gets away from me and I become a professional at distracting myself from accomplishing the things I want to accomplish.
Recently the theme of my life that seems to be seeping into everything I am seeing and doing is: what does it mean to stand for something? What does it mean to have principles? What does it mean to understand the truth of something, come up against adversity, and continue to stand by what you believe in?
I have discovered a new respect for those who stand for what they know to be true and right. I find that it is only during the greatest adversity that you find your greatest truth. It’s easy to claim that you believe in something, but it isn’t until that belief is challenged that one is really forced to decide to what extent.
I saw the film “The Counterfeiters” recently, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the movie, it won Best Foreign film at the Academy Awards this year. It’s spectacular; I highly recommend it. Anyway, there is a character in the film that has a belief and stands for it. He knows a truth for himself and he’s willing to sacrifice his own life and comforts for this truth.
I was so moved by this character and his story and I began to think about all the great peaceful leaders of our time who stood for humanity, compassion, tolerance and understanding and I realized that although the beauty they inspired in the world was immense, it really didn’t take hold until after their death.
Then I began to wonder if, in fact, we truly don’t ever understand what we have or the value of what we are being presented until we are threatened with the loss of it… Until we face some form of adversity in order to attain or keep it.
I wonder if Gandhi’s voice would resonate so loudly had he not been killed? And Dr. King’s voice? And John Lennon’s voice?
It feels like their voices were amplified exponentially because of their willingness to die for their principles. This is so inspiring to me, and yet incredibly frightening and daunting. I want to believe I am a woman of character. I want to believe I am a woman of principle. I want to make an effect on the world and help people to see the beauty in life and relating. But I don’t know how far I am willing to take this. I don’t know how strong my character is. I feel like I am only now beginning to understand what it is I do believe in. Now the whole concept of actively going about taking steps to exemplify these beliefs is so scary.
I want to thank all of you. I want to thank you for your support and encouragement. I want to thank you for your joy and appreciation for my work and my wacky explorations. I feel that this site is a well that I often draw inspiration from when I am feeling low and frustrated. Thanks for tolerating the diatribe!
Have a beautiful day.
Yours appreciatively,
Allison
Welcome…
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Written by Rumi
This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
This poem is one of my new all-time favorites! I have recently been spending a lot of time looking at myself and finding solutions to problems I have created for myself, emotionally, and trying to better myself to walk the walk as a participant in this beautiful world. I just noticed recently, however, a result of starting this self-awareness process; I subconsciously developed this really ridiculous habit of trying to ignore all of my “nasty human feelings.” The very fact that I just called them “nasty” is evidence of the fact that I’m trying to give them less meaning in order to be able to ignore them.
I realized, however, that it all pertains to that need to beat myself up over insecurities rather than choosing to address them head on. It seems almost as though I do this because I feel like I can’t love or accept myself as being a flawed human. The really silly thing about suppressing those emotions, rather than facing them, is that when I do that, I am not increasing my opportunity to grow from the experience. Instead, what ends up happening is that I am increasing the issue by trying to suppress it, thus prolonging the response to learning from the experience.
To further explain, when I know this suppressed emotion (whatever it is at the time) is inside me and I refuse to have compassion for my own human struggle, I am only adding to the problem. After thinking about it, I feel it is so much more effort to hide than simply recognize and make the choice to put in the effort to move on.
When I was thinking about all of this, I realized that it’s like I get some sort of strange satisfaction out of the “punishment” of feeling bad about having an emotion and/or reaction to something which results to avoiding the issues. Almost seems as if, somehow, if I punish myself by suppressing the emotion, it will let me off the hook from feeling it.
The really amazing thing that Rumi said in this poem is that we should be “grateful for each feeling because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” I really believe that this is true! Interestingly, if I really look at all the anger and malice that I feel, it all stems from fear, and when I think about what fear originates from, it is a reaction to a prediction of what may happen.
The only way to squelch this fear is to find out what that unknown is. So, when I do get angry or envious or suppressive, I will now choose to look at them as a gift I am giving myself to see what I am afraid of so I can move through that fear.
After having learned that, I am so over living my life based on fear, which is based on a perceived future and not reality at all! I love this poem so much because essentially all the author is saying is that we should look for these human qualities within ourselves and rather than punish ourselves or try and ignore ourselves, we should hug ourselves and offer us a nice cup of tea.
If I don’t hold myself accountable for ending the war on me, how can I hold the world accountable for doing anything even remotely similar? What an amazing concept… I wonder if that’s what Gandhi meant?
Have a beautiful week, my fellow humans!
Ciao
Allison
