Sea changes

There is a work going on in me.

I don't know how to capture this well in words, but there's been a convergence of a number of things lately - a book I've read, some things I stumbled onto on the web, a conversation here and there with other people, some encounters with a spirit guide - that is changing the sense I have of myself. Struggling to articulate it here... Though these are concepts I've known about for 25 years and have the education and the training and the practice in making them work, it seems like only recently it's started to reach me inside in a way that is gently and very easily filling. I know this isn't easy to understand when I'm not coming right out and saying it, but all of these things have been pointing at the same core concepts and issues, all at once - I couldn't not pay attention.

More and more I realize I've underestimated how debilitated I've become over the last year, physically, mentally, emotionally. (This is not going to turn into a waah-waah story.) That I have been so...unlike myself in many ways. Not all the time, certainly. But under tremendous pressure that just didn't let up, I was becoming someone I didn't recognize. After my mom left, it was nearly a month until I finally let myself really breathe, and one night as I was going to sleep I realized it was without the sense of constant vigilance that wouldn't let me sleep deeply, ever. Not because she was so difficult, but because I felt so responsible for everything, always. The stress of working 60+ hours a week, trying to provide. The setbacks in so many areas. The demands that didn't give way.

But in the last few weeks, though many pressures still exist, I find my mood is lighter. I've always been able to take joy and strength from small moments in the day, but I find now that when there's a setback it's just harder to keep me down generally. I am not at the mercy of the prevailing wind. And I find my apprehensions at potential conflict with other people are beginning to lessen. I find I am more ably reaching my calm center and the part of me that loves those people even when they are difficult, and if I love them, then that's how I need to treat them. I find I am living more in the moment, and more authentically. I am finding contentment.

No, it isn't finding contentment. It's realizing I don't have to search for it, nor for peace, nor for anything else that matters. I don't even have to make the conscious decision to choose these things. I only have to acknowledge that they are already here.

I want to postscript this by saying something like I know this state of grace won't persist on all days and blah blah blah. But... who says it couldn't?