I am fascinated with the constant pull of life. I am recognizing and experiencing that life is always pulling me forward and that change is a fact. I can also embrace this fact and choose to accept change in a way that promotes peace and harmony in my soul. What I find fascinating though, is my resistance to this change. I am slowly (and I do mean slowly) learning to overcome my resistance and accept change, thus allowing the breathe of life to flow through me and to others. This surely hasn’t been easy as I have tried to avoid change and resist it my whole life. As a matter of fact, the past week or so has been one of constant avoidance as I am coming face to face with just how much my life has changed and continues to change. This frustrates me and even angers me. Sometimes, I just want life to be like it was with all the familiarity and seeming solidarity. I am reaching for the old life in my mind where I thought I knew myself and what life held for me and it is taking me out of “NOW”. Today, this moment is all I know for sure and I am struggling with accepting that. I love the phrase “Life is in the moment”, but damn if I can grasp that fully!
As I look back though, I can see that once change is accepted, a calm does come, at least until the next change is knocking at my door and I am up again boarding the door shut! Learning to embrace change is an astonishing way to live as it promotes growth, healing, wholeness and creates true peace and harmony in my world. I want this! i seek this! I want all to know this! I choose not to remain in a state of grief for the remainder of my time here on this earth or at 55, just pull up a rocking chair and retire from life. I choose to live! I have been happy more often than not recently and I have felt joy again in my life for the first time in a long, long time. I must remember this when I am in the dark place!
The past 4 years or so have brought much grief with brain cancer coming on the scene, disrupting what I thought to be a perfect life. The treatments, the seizures, the trips to the Cleveland Clinic, the funeral, the celebration service, the constant face to face with grief, the spreading of ashes, the loss of family have all added a significant influence to change. But, so have new friends, running marathons across the country, raising money for brain cancer awareness, writing and sharing my heart publicly, expanding my spiritual consciousness and my heart, working a recovery program. All, both seemingly good and seemingly bad have promoted and/or supported change. Again, I am learning to accept change and have chosen to run at life fast and hard even when it hurts.
Just as I have learned in running marathons, I have to have the right equipment, the right mindset and be willing to put in the work to have peace in this life. I am learning to surround myself with loving people who desire to back my wellness, wholeness and look to help me discover and fully cultivate my true authentic self. In the dark places, they gently guide me back to the light! This is bringing me life! I am feeling like life does have a purpose and meaning and that I can indeed enjoy my time here and make a positive difference in this world. When I remember who I am, I feel like I am a world changer, a giver of life and a freedom fighter! I do not have to conform or be like anyone else. I can be me, just the way God spoke me into existence.
I still put Jesus up at the top of my hero list, but today I see him much more the hero than I ever have. He was all about change, he was a rebel and one who did not conform, but chose to follow his heart and be the Godman he was created to be while on this earth. He dwelt among the outcasts of life and spit at the religious leaders calling them out on their self promoting, spirit/life killing ways. Jesus spoke and breathed life everywhere he went and with everyone he encountered. He loved, he cried, he was angered. He healed the sick, calmed the storms, walked on water and raised the dead, including himself! And he said we could and would do the same and more! I believe him as I believe we all have the fullness of God indwelling our hearts, that is who we are! I choose to live today to my fullest, even if I can’t quite find the belief just yet to do what he did, but who knows what the next moment may bring! At least in writing this, I remember in this moment who I am and I find peace in that!
Blessings,
Doug