Stillness...

“I am not lost for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” –A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

When I arrived back to Colorado after being away three weeks I felt as though I was in shock. Everyone I talked with said it was “normal” to feel “off” coming back this way from Europe—“it would take a day and a half for each time zone traveled”—“it took them over a week”.

So, I let myself be gentle, nurturing, listening, caring, still. I quieted the chastising inner voice that was annoyed as I slept when I was tired, ate when I was hungry, didn’t go to my classes at the Recreation Center and generally cut off all activity with the outer world.

It would rear its ugly head and spew out angry, vicious accusations. This was challenging the first few times I did venture out—to make a phone call, get groceries, gas up my vehicle--because I couldn’t help but feel bombarded both internally and externally.

I was reminded of other times when “everything just seemed to be going wrong”. I have distinct memory of trying to move through those times of blocks and seeming mazes. Each time I was left exhausted and going nowhere.

“When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it”. – A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Since I have been forced to pause, I will take the opportunity to reflect. What I feel is as if there has been some sort of shift. I don’t know if I have energetically changed, my world has or a little of both. All I am certain of is that my energy in relation to other people and things in my life is different.

“Different” is quite vague, I realize. The subtlety of the change—while I feel it as huge and final—has an indistinct, nebulous and temporary quality about it. My experience of it is not unlike being on a train and having the breaks thrown on and slowly screeching to a loud and grinding halt. You are still intact, still on track, but stopped for no reason that you know.

How is this manifesting in my life? I don’t feel like I fit in my skin. I am tenuous about knowing who I am, who I have been and who I will become. The most noticeable manifestation comes from the recoiling dislike of me I feel from other people. Rejection would be a mild feeling-word to describe this phenomenon. I wonder what my vibration and energy are doing to attract this?

What am I doing with this disconcerting experience? Nothing. Everything. I am lying low, not taking anything personally, letting people and things fall away, holding steady through the disappointment and confusion I feel and spending a majority of my time alone.

The one thing I am certain of and grateful about this familiar experience is—it won’t last forever. I will patiently ride it out, appreciate my solitude, cherish my ability to love and take good care of myself through this slow-moving and dark time and have the wisdom and maturity to trust the transformation and conscious change that will become apparent when this is over.

“I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,” said Pooh. “There, there,” said Piglet, “I will bring you tea and honey until you do.” –A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Transformation Through Solitude

My life sometimes takes twists and turns that I don’t expect so that my soul can learn its lessons.

Four years ago I was catapulted out of my three-ring circus life and I lighted alone and isolated in the seclusion of the desert. The desert was so alien to my senses, I felt as if I had landed on the moon. I struggled to get my bearings. I found the desert to be a wilderness created simply to itself.

It took me a while to realize the desert was a dwelling place for seeking nothing but being myself. A place so barren and solitary, the desert called for self-inquiry, deep thinking, and solitude. I was alone with nothing standing between my Creator and myself.

I struggled to getaway from the solitude that surrounded me. The vulnerability of being alone with myself was frightening. I felt miserable. I struggled with detaching from who I had been and everything with which I had identified myself. I needed to give up the perception of reality I had left behind. For a long time I was hopeless and felt really lost.

The desert landscape that I had not yet learned to love reflected my depressed inner landscape that felt so bleak, numb, and useless. I started questioning my part in the events that had cast me here. I slogged through a lot of shame and self-doubt, anger, regret, and remorse. With intense resistance I started sorting out what was mine and what was not. It took a lot of effort to find balance anywhere in my life during this tumultuous period.

I felt as though I was caught between something and nothing. Being alone gave me a lot of time to think. One day I began to consider nothingness. I wondered if that was what I was experiencing. Was that what I was battling? What did it mean to know nothingness? The more I allowed the experience, the less of a grip nothingness seemed to have on me and the more I began to live peacefully with it. I began to appreciate nothingness as an act of humility to love and accept my state of moral and metaphysical helplessness.

In order to be with my nothingness I had to cast out all the old ideas I had held and been told about myself. I had to accept everything as mine, coming from something Greater than myself. If I was going to love my nothingness, first I had to love myself.

About this point in my journey something shifted and I began to relax into and realize I was choosing solitude. I started appreciating my situation as a precious gift. It was a time unencumbered by outside influences. It was providing an incredible opportunity for self-review. I wanted to use my time wisely so I could devote total attention to myself, seeking love for myself and connecting to Spirit that I had lost.

Solitude was providing me a space of sublime reverence for Self. My life, as I had been living it, had separated me from my true self. I had disconnected from my spirit. My soul felt a strong yearning to heal and rise from the pit of despair into my Higher Self. Looking inward was helping me find my divinity.

When I allowed myself solitude, I felt connected to All That Is. I recognized how some people live for All That Is, some live with it and some live in it. Those who live for All That Is fill their life with activities outside of themselves in the world. Those who live with All That Is also live for it, but they seldom allow the vulnerability necessary to let it in. Those who live in All That Is do not live for others or what they do. They live for what All That Is does through them. I felt a growing need to live in All That Is.

With this awareness, I began to puzzle whether solitude or partnership brought greater advancement to my soul. Reviewing my relationships that had ended, as well as those that had blossomed, reminded me of some of my life's greatest lessons. I had grown a lot being in committed loving relationships.

I thought about how relationships had been a method of reflecting my belief systems by giving me feedback about myself. Solitude was demanding detachment. It was helping me become reacquainted with myself. Knowing myself was facilitating and bringing me sovereignty. I could see the importance of having balance in a committed relationship. Haveing solitude within a partnership for self-contemplation provided the balance.

My journey of chosen solitude was bringing my life to a new level, I was living more consciously and being present in the moment. My soul had needed to clearly define Self in order for me to grow. Self-discovery was, without a doubt, embodied in this period of chosen detachment. I was being shown how to release dependency and all that was not serving my divinity.

Knowing myself was helping me discover who I am and what I believe in. I started to feel that this chosen time of solitude was a sign of my soul’s intention toward grace. I sensed that the final graduation of the soul is not accomplished through living outside All That Is. Life’s journey is manafest with the divine self in Universal harmony with All That Is.

Having the courage to let solitude be my teacher helped me understand that a spiritual life is not merely something to know about and study. It has to be lived. With me, everything that seemed to be a problem was not imposed by fear from the outside but pressure I was imposing on my self. Solitude taught me that sanctity means to be without anxiety in the midst of anxiety.

I have learned many inspiring and valuable lessons in this time of chosen solitude. I have been shown there are many contradictions in life. I know now I don’t have to resolve them all, but live with and rise above them. I want to be totally alive in body, soul, mind, heart, and spirit. The way to the Divine for me is through connection with the sacred sovereignty of Self. The way to my Higher Self is through self-definition, accepting what resonates as true, and loving myself. I am here to make the unknown known. The path isn’t always easy. Before I can surrender myself, I must be myself. I can’t give up what I don’t possess. This is the essence of solitude.