Self Contained

It helps to think in terms of metaphor when arriving at a place of new perception. Moving as we are through a logical, linear culture it's tempting at times to take ourselves and the world around us literally, and seriously. The literal is helpful for grounding, but in order to reach a point of new perception we will have to let go, fly, jump off what seems solid and secure to us into the mysterious unknown.

The only way to do that, make that wonderful metaphorical leap into truth is to let go of self judgment, the internal critique of ourselves and others and expect nothing. It's useful to identify hurtful internal voices, rising out of patterns of conditioning, that derogatory self talk that serves no valid purpose in our self understanding and keeps us spinning, hamster-like on a wheel that goes no where. We know we are falling prey to harmful, hurtful mind chatter when we feel tightening - for me it's my jaw that freezes, another friend of mine complains of "brain freeze" when he gets nervous, others have mentioned a habitual tightening in the lower back.

Seeing those around us as who they really are, the self contained truth of all that is beneath their chosen masks, is also helpful. It's easy to become frightened by the intensity of the love we find buried there when we strip away those fake, scary judgments. Different people become gifts to us in providing the comfort and support required to wipe away the stage makeup; a dear friend of mine, a poet in his own right, always models the unconditional love, acceptance and understanding that jogs me out of my own conditioned habits. He doesn't even live in the same town as I; he conveys his healing strength and acceptance via e-mails - electronic and telepathic.

It's the not knowing what we will find beneath all that mental grime that makes us hold back. Part of the realization is that we are all self contained - not in the sense of being independent, but in the sense of being all inclusive, of containing within ourselves all the parts necessary for completion.

Today I remember that I am self contained, that in the silence of being, of sitting still, I contain the entirety of the universe. I rest, cradled in the knowledge of myself as I truly am. I let go of fears and past traumas and allow myself the being, the permission of being, the vulnerability that comes from that being - now, always.

There is a sense of wonder, an authentic self that comes when we make that leap. We can embody the synergy of all things from that place of expanded awareness. I guess that's good news.