Just Peachy

I get really suspicious when I don't want to do something I want to do for no apparent reason. It's very contradictory, I know. When this happens, I sit with it. I allow myself to get uncomfortable with it. If I'm lucky, the reason is graciously uncovered on its own. Sometimes it takes another conscious being shaking me awake. Regardless of how it surfaces, the common theme is this: the compulsion (or non-compulsion, in this case) is sheer fear.

There are a few things I will take credit for, but I will take credit for this: I do a lot of work on myself because it is an inevitability for me. I hate to think that it is just me, but I think that there will come a time in everyone's lives where the material, consumable, and impermanent sh*t stop making us happy (or maybe they never really did in the first place, we were just good at deluding ourselves into thinking that they did). The perfect opportunity for an awakening is when we are helplessly reduced to tears and the question "NOW WHAT?" keeps reverberating. We can do two things - we can hit snooze and fall back into the illusory reality that everything is kosher, or we can get the f*ck up and start doing the work.

One of the best decisions I have ever made in my life was to wake up. Not to say that I am constantly lucid, either. It is a lot of work to stay awake, but it's no bullsh*t when I say that it is also one of the most fun, lasting, and rewarding things in my life. One of the most profound things that I have uncovered beneath the rubble of the shattered who-I-thought-I-was was fear - A WHOLE LOT OF IT. No surprise there really, since I'm a textbook anal retentive, control freak, Type A. Because of these fears, I tend to be very cerebral and I use logic and reason to make life choices. I have a robust ego and I can and will manipulate people and situations to my advantage (I think they coin this "mind f*ck" nowadays).

One of my most favorite people in my lifetime (maybe in past ones, too!) is JoAnn. She would often say that Einstein defines insanity as doing the same things over and over yet expecting different results. There were obviously things in my life that weren't working; I must change something. It's time to put an end to that ego crap and live from a more honest, selfless place.

And I start with letting go of control, being comfortable in the unknown, and being honest about what I am terrified of. It is so liberating to do practically everything you were fearful of - love, running, making that phone call, asking someone out on a date, it doesn't matter how trivial and silly it is - and come out of it alive. My honesty, panache, intensity, vulnerability, and balls unnerve people a lot. But the reality is I don't care. Because I let go of these limitations and boundaries, I live a less constricted existence and that is what matters.

I planted a lavender in the ground again today. After I dug up a hole, I was mixing dirt with the nutrient-rich organic soil with gloved hands (I'm a germophobe and the idea of accidentally touching worms in the soil makes me queasy). After a while, I took the gloves off. Ooohhh. The soft, cold, moist feel of earth on bare hands was beautiful. Plus it made it a lot easier to pick out the rocks.

What if we lived our lives this way? What if we took off our body armors and realize that on a really deep sense, there is nothing to fear? Everything is completely okay the way it is. Supple. Velvety. Succulent. Moist. Like a peach. As it should be.

Namaste!!!!