A post from October that was deleted….just adding it back.  🙂

Wooo eee, no hands!

Last week was full of drama, two little theatrical grenades in the peaceful waters of my life that I could neither predict nor control. Some people feed on drama, they get all giddy and alive in the face of conflict.  I do not. Drama exhausts and distracts me. However, if a fight finds me, I’m not one to back down, and I can usually hold my own. So there I was, in the tumultuous waters of duplicity and breakdowns in integrity on multiple fronts, including justice for Kalvin and Grace– big issues to which I was forced to react. And so I did.  Nothing enlightened there.

The interesting part was the parallel dialogue.  The interesting part was underneath the fight and anger, underneath the hurt, disenchantment, and disappointment, there was also a calm witness to it all.  The insights from that place were remarkable. On the one hand, I have to deal with life, I have to write letters, file lawsuits, tie up loose ends or do whatever needs to be done in the world. On the other hand, some very big part of me was just watching my mind and emotions do their thing with absolute still awareness and pure consciousness, and dare I say, even amusement.

Because in the watching, I realized something: the tumult and the upset — I was doing it to myself. My mind and my emotions, they are all mine. I’m never going to control crappy people or situations. But I have the absolute right and responsibility to choose how I interact with life. Life is going to do it’s thing. But I get to choose the rules of engagement.  And by that I don’t just mean how I react to a certain situation. I mean, what is the spiritual playbook I bring to my life?  Am I just trying to survive? Do I see life as a burden? Or do I see it, even in the hard times, as an absolute privilege and gift.  Because I alone am responsible for that playbook. I get to choose. So what are you going to choose, Sarah? 

These particular people really suck. Ok. So what? Pain is inevitable, suffering is not. The pain they caused, but the suffering, that’s all mine. I caused it myself. So trust and friendship were misplaced. Ouch, but ok, I can live with that. So some people do not act with integrity, they lie cheat and steal to protect their self-interest. Ok. Bad people exist, I know that, believe me, I know that. So what?

And the answer to that question, was the strangest of experiences. I was hiking with Timber, ruminating a bit, when the question cut right through the dialogue –  so what? So what are you going to do, Sarah? It’s just life, so what? It wasn’t asking what I was going to do about these particular situations.  It was asking me a much much bigger question.  It was asking, what kind of relationship I want to have with life?  Is life something you’re trying to survive, or would you like to thrive, because regardless of what happens on the outside, you, and only you are responsible for the inside.  Is life something you’re going to experience or run from? Is the flow, the shakti something you’re willing to commit to, for better or for worse, or are you going to allow people and situations you don’t like to close you and cut you off from that flow?  What’s it going to be, Sarah?  I stopped and laughed out loud.  Then Timber stopped and looked at me, as if waiting to see what I was reacting to, or perhaps wondering if this time I had really lost my marbles. I stopped in the middle of the trail and looked up through the trees and laughed.  You’re one funny dude, I wanted to say to whoever listens to these things. So what? I get it, I do. I fail and stumble a lot, but every once in a blue moon, I’m blessed with the kind of grace and insight that leaves me laughing in the middle of the trail, in the midst of aspens that have lost their leaves before winter; under a clear blue sky on a crisp mountain morning.

I laughed. No doubt, this life is a crazy wild ride. I can either fight it or enjoy the ride. It is that simple. No matter the situation, fight or enjoy?

Obviously, I’d rather enjoy the ride. So how do I enjoy the ride when people and their bullshit poke their way into my bliss? How? I thank it, not them, but life.  Thank you for the ride. I can’t stop the ride in the middle, and I wouldn’t want to. I’m on it baby. So resisting does no good. Instead, I bring gratitude. Thank you for allowing me feel my heart, in all it’s crazy array of colors and sounds and textures. Wa hoo, isn’t that fun? Thank you for showing me my boundaries, spiritual and physical. Wow, would you look at that! Thank you for the craziness because it highlights my deep, profound desire to love all of life. I do so love this life.  

Last week was a ride, absolutely.  And while I will always hate the wasted energy that is drama, I’m grateful for the ride.  There is a difference, one is manufactured unnecessary and wasteful, the other, the ride itself, is an inevitable aspect of existing as a human being getting to live, getting to be alive.

So thank you for the ride life. I commit, I will always show up. Because isn’t that the mantra I’ve been working towards? Just enjoy life, enjoy the ride. Ups and downs and loop-dee-loops and all. Because what’s the alternative? A flat ride? No ride? A ride that ends in the middle? Nope, I’ll take the full price ticket.

So thank you life, for just doing your thing. Thank you for allowing me once again to feel the deep enchantment that comes with getting to choose how I interact, how I respond, how I engage with you.  Thank you for reminding me to wake up and ask, what wonderful crazy nutty experience is there in store for me today?  Thank you to Grace, Source, Oneness, God whatever the word may be, for allowing me another day (I get to do it again?!) because I love this ride, I do. I truly, deeply, profoundly love this ride.  Thank you.

Woo eeeeee, no hands!!