My weekly ritual for looking at the week that was.

Skipped-a-week Log. But trust me, there were some seriously good reasons, such as Extreme Sorrow and Extreme Busy-ness. If there was a week to skip a log, this was the week.
Onwards and inwards!

• I moved house. I actually moved house. I don’t even know how it happened, but all my stuff is in this new place, and not in the old one. There was so much rushing, so much work, so much tiredness I don’t even know how it got done. I got help from people, so gratitude for that. And now I live with my friends, and more gratitude for that. But man, the “inner world” shaking that took place in these 2 weeks, it was horrific. I have no words for it, safe to say I suffered a lot. A breath for this.

• A month and two weeks since [Experience] and I still have feelings. I did a meditation today to ask for help from someone I can trust, so I channeled a “Helper” who was actually wonderful and helpful, and I am now more at peace. I have been needing to talk about this with someone who “gets it”, and unfortunately I cannot find any actual humans who can bear the weight of this story. Grateful for the ability to access wisdom, compassion and kindness in other forms.

• Work on [Projects], with less than thrilling results. That’s on top of a full time job and moving house. A breath for what is, for daring to go after something I thought I might like doing, but has proved very challenging.

• Wanting to be done with this incarnation. There, that’s it. I am not “suicidal”, I am not actively thinking thoughts, I just have this persistent feeling of being “done” with this life, this body, this… everything. It’s been a horrific week of feeling ready to just… leave this form, feeling like there is simply no point in carrying on with the life of “Mary”. A breath and another breath for the most challenging of feelings.

• Pre-birthday blues. They are there, even though I am not “in the story” of “I am about to turn 33”. They are still there! It’s astonishing. I am going to Paris, and I have booked a place to stay, but this has not made the past 2 weeks any less hard. A breath for being where I am.

• Feeling completely and utterly disconnected and alone. Wise spiritual people would say that I am “choosing” to feel disconnected and alone, because “love is everywhere” and “love is all around me”, BUT that is how I feel. Hopelessly, heartbreakingly alone. A breath for heartache.

• So many tears, so much suffering. These past 2 weeks have contained an awful lot of sorrow, a lot of “cannot do anything, cannot move, cannot get out of bed” sorrow. Totally wiped out, totally fed up. A breath for this state of “Extreme Sorrow” I don’t yet understand and have trouble navigating and accepting.

• So much to do and so little energy due to Extreme Sorrow. I could use all my energy to do the things that needed doing, and keep the momentum going, and then I would crash completely, and could not even sort out the many boxes of stuff from the move. A breath for this, and for living out of boxes.

• I voted! I voted for the first time in the UK!!! I can now say I have voted in 3 different countries. Go me :D

• Body stuff. My digestive system being unhappy, and me knowing exactly why and not being able to do anything about it because this was the week of “My life is terrible and I can’t do anything to change it, so, stomach, you’re on your own, you and I can’t do a thing about this life”. A breath for all the body challenges.

Moments of Insight

I have had many Insights in the past 2 weeks, but my favourite is probably today’s.
It wasn’t very “big”, but it was… interesting.

As I’ve said before, I get a lot of my core philosophy from musicals. Yes, I do.
Today I remembered something from “The Sound of Music”.

When Maria goes back to the Abbey, she becomes the poster child of “good spiritual behaviour”. In her conversation with the Reverend Mother, she says it would have been wrong to ask for love, because she was on “God’s errand”. She is now ready to take her vows.

Going by what most of us understand of “spirituality”, we would instantly assume that “yes, now she gets it, now she’s chosen God, now she acts like a Nun”. And yet, what does the Reverend Mother do? She sends her back.
She tells her “you must find out, you must live the life you were meant to live”.
She says “if you love this man, it doesn’t mean you love God less”.

The Reverend Mother understands that Maria is using spirituality to hide from her life.
And that would not do.

This is something I’ve heard Charles Eisenstein talk about many, many times. And yet here I find myself doing the very same thing: thinking that my very human desires are “un-spiritual”, something to be transcended and purged from my consciousness.

Here I am thinking that it’s “wrong” to want a relationship with a loving man, because I should be accessing Love from the Universe, and be self-reliant in that ability to access Love.
That it’s “wrong” to want to spend the hot Summer days with said man, enjoying the sunlight, going to coffee shops, wearing lovely summer dresses and nice shoes, because all these things are “shallow” and I should be happy and content on my own, whatever I’m wearing and whatever I’m doing.

You know the problem with those statements? They start with “It is “wrong””.
And if I have learned anything from spiritual practice is that nothing is “wrong”. Unpleasant, yes. Sad, absolutely. Heartbreaking and gut wrenching? You bet.
But not “wrong”. Never “wrong”.

I am tired of torturing myself for wanting wonderful things.

Here’s my approach: I have to let go of my attachments, sure. And I also have to honour my desires and wishes.
I have to do both, and learn that this is not a contradiction, but a paradox, and the Universe runs on paradox.

Things of Considerable Worth (Un-missables!)

• “A Social Movement for Broken People”. It’s not often that a writer links our spiritual brokenness and the worlds’, but this guy does, and it’s spot on. All political activists need to learn the tough lesson that the world changes we all seek need to be carried out by healed people, or at the very least “healing” people.

• “The Pain You Feel is Capitalism Dying”. Mandatory reading for everyone who, like me, keeps wondering why our lives don’t seem to “work”.

• “Ask Polly: What Am I Doing Wrong With Men?”. This is funny. And true. What are you doing wrong? Absolutely nothing. Refreshingly honest words.

God, these past two weeks have been gut wrenchingly challenging.
I am not going to pray for things to change, because I am growing tired of praying to something I don’t actually believe in, or at the very least, cannot access on a regular basis.
Instead, I am going to invoke Light and Love, things I know I can access, albeit on occasion.

May there be Light and Love. For all of us.