When I
accepted the position as Executive Assistant to the President of the most
powerful health organization in the World, the National Health Federation (NHF)
(www.thenhf.com) and then became the Membership Director it demanded a completely
new focus of my already full life. It was a call to lighten the ballast to increase
my speed and efficiency and sail fast and unencumbered toward a far horizon,
one that embraced the whole World.
NHF, which
focuses on protecting and maintaining health freedom (think: the RIGHT to take
your supplements and not be forced to drink fluoridated water….) is a natural
fit with Adytum Sanctuary’s health promoting, anti-chemical/contaminant philosophy.
However, adding ‘one more straw’ to an already packed day threatened to break
the proverbial camel’s back; I’ve admittedly struggled for balance for a few
months even dreaming of heavily laden camels in the process! It’s time to
recreate my life.
The high
season is past at Adytum. I am retreating into the nurturing atmosphere of this
sacred space to restructure and redefine my burgeoning life. We are called to
reinvent ourselves over and over. Birthing the transformation of a life
requires release. In order to expand, we must first empty ourselves: our minds
of limitations and our environment of impediments to growth.
This destiny race is navigated by shedding
continually, dumping the ballast so that the things we need to help us expand can
easily find us. Letting go is an act of faith and expectancy of heart. It is the life of a child who shape-shifts
and discards the trappings of prior forms year after year evolving into full
potential, destiny and purpose.
Picasso
wisely notes “The first half of life I spent learning to be a man. I will spend
the last half learning to be a child.” Children travel light, live in
expectancy and welcome each successive incarnation. We are all perpetual
children, ever becoming.
Each one of
us has a full life, feels a lack of time and has ever changing interests. We
buy the DVDs to learn Spanish and then find we really would rather take cello
lessons. We take cello and find that we ultimately need to use that time
instead to stay fit. Finding our highest priority inside competing desires and
demands on our time is vital.
We can’t do
it all…It seems at times everywhere we look there are piles of unfinished work
and projects. Fragments of our interests and passions mount up around us. Time to
stabilize. Activities can be declined. Priorities are determined and things can
go undone. Possessions can be thrown away or given away. One passion can morph into a more compelling
one…
Creating order by traveling lighter
through this life…releasing so what we need can come…this is key to our
evolution - to doing and having more in life.
We all know
too what happens when we begin to give things away…what we really need comes
rushing back in to take its place as nature abhors a vacuum – things begin to
refill very quickly - and the evolutionary “growth by shedding” cycle starts
all over again at some point in the near future.
The law of
entropy is hard to wrap my head around. One explanation says, “The energy form of a system that
relates to its internal state of disorder; high entropy levels are disordered states, low entropy levels are characteristic
of ordered states”. Entropy in general is based on the second law of
thermodynamics. It’s about cutting through chaos and getting somewhere fast.
The way my
brain sees it: things trend toward disorder like my closet. We can jump in…create
a little more chaos and disorder for a time…and magically out of it comes
greater order- lower entropy levels.
The dancing
star is you and I; it’s our dreams, our destiny, and our ever evolving
potential. Ultimately it is our fulfillment, joy and gift to the World- why we
are here. We just have to keep persistently dumping ballast, steering through
the chaos to find the meaning and order…or less disorder at least. .” We
provide the push and usher in each new form life presents us with… or we don’t
and we live in increasing chaos that births no stars…we’ve been witness to
those sad lives.
There is
one area on any given day that I can sort through and bring into order that
will release my sails and set me skipping over the waves again. Today it’s my
closet- which houses a large part of my identity. It seems a highly significant
place to start as I embrace the next shape shifting evolution with childlike
enthusiasm.
One of my
first natural healing mentors, Dr. Richard Shulze, calls this ordering “trashing”.
My sailing friends think “ballast”. Either way, traveling lighter is going to
present our next evolution to us faster than anything else.
Possessions
that are not relevant to whom we are today, activities that don’t directly
relate to our newly expanded life, negative words coming from certain people…out
they go. We don’t have the time, interest or energy to be caretakers for things
from our youth, things that don’t fit our bodies or our minds, and certainly
not things – or people - that have a negative association about them.
Everything carries an energetic signature. Make sure the forces that confront
you are going to propel you forward and not mire you down in the past or make you
doubt yourself and the path you’re on. If they can’t all be tossed out, they
can be relegated to their proper place, time and energy allocations.
A few hours
later and a few bags full of some truly good stuff that I will release, I feel
better. The air feels lighter as if a psychic breeze blew out years of
stagnancy. I am more focused, have greater clarity and determination to welcome
all the great new things that are coming my way, even if they do come with a
steep learning curve.
Trashing is a
ritualistic, symbolic step of faith initiating the invitation for more
appropriate things to rush in to fill this space and the spaces within us. This
is nothing new to any of us. Sometimes we just need the invitation or the
reminder. Trashing works. We pare down and work again on primary goals- what we
want now.
It is the
last quarter of the year. Like you, I have accomplished much and even added some
things I didn’t even think would ever appear in my life or on my goal list.
What I was interested in February and never pursued is now in the bag for
charity. We don’t have to remain emotionally committed to passing interests. If
we just stay open and look for God’s leading in our lives because we have
actively asked Him to lead us, then we can trust that exactly what we need will
come to us, exactly when we need it.
I like to
keep some visuals in my closet area that keep me focused, grounded and aware of
what is important to me. It’s an old Feng Shui principle; we attract more of what
is in our line of sight; we combine with it. We become what we behold. Some of
my visuals: a few books with titles that speak to me like Florence Scoville
Shinn’s, “The Power of the Spoken Word” reminds
me I create my life with my word.
I use art
that captures my philosophy in this intimate space: a Heron which somewhere
along the way became my personal symbol for becoming all I can be; “writing the
novel of my life” and actively co-creating my life with God. Since faith has so
much to do with creating out of nothingness, Ex Nihilo, I also have a framed
quote from Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain
of what we do not see.” And, to balance
my serious bent, Mickey Mouse sits there reminding me every day to lighten up,
smile, laugh and become increasingly more childlike. So as I dress, I subconsciously
absorb my chosen focus: use my word carefully, believe and be a child at heart.
Since my
path is a path of service, my life is not my own. When it enlarges suddenly,
God is asking if I’m ready to use more faith and believe that together, we can
create a life that can touch even more people. I’m on high seas, out of my
comfort zone for sure with increasing responsibilities. That’s where faith
comes in. Fear-filled thoughts and limited thinking, like wondering if we will
have enough time and energy, must be tossed out as so much ballast. God will
channel the next evolution of our life through us, a clear and open vessel.
Just embrace what is on the horizon and steer a steady course for it knowing we
will have enough time, energy and wisdom to reach it. Have faith and like
Mickey reminds us, enjoy the journey!
When I choose
to leave a few empty shelves in my closet, it symbolizes faith to me: faith
that the things I need for life, for happiness, for fulfillment and for my
unfolding destiny for the glory of God will come to occupy the unseen space I
create for them out of nothingness. Maybe they are people that come to fill my
life and my heart. Maybe they are tasks. Maybe they are possessions to enjoy or
caretake for a time. Our lives are a thin veil, silken strands through which
flow all these things. Nothing is ours to hold, but only to be grateful for
while we enjoy it for a time. Each is a transformative gift that births us into
our next form, the child that never stops ‘becoming’…
