Lately, everything has seemed upside down. As a child, I used to lie on the floor when I was bored and fantasize about what it would look like if the room were flip flopped. I would imagine my toes touching the ceiling, and what the room would look like if the furniture we hanging from above instead of propped upright from below. I wondered what it would look like to peak out the window and see the world upside down. Now I know what it feels like to live in an upside down world, and I’m getting used to dangling from my toes, and I’m getting shit done even while all of the blood seems to be rushing to my head. Nothing is the way my mind tells me it should be. And that is why acceptance is the key, because even though it feels like things shouldn’t be this way, they are what they are whether I like it or not. So I’ve gotten used to the feeling that my life has become a kind of circus act.
It’s hard to feel joyful when you wake up every morning to crimes against humanity being committed in the name of God and country, the never ending pandemic, the flailing economy, police brutality, global warming, dying polar bears, melting icecaps, propaganda wars, and a panicking populace pitted against itself at every imaginable angle. I used to feel guilty and ashamed to even entertain the idea of happiness in the face of so much squalor, but now I realize that it is absolutely necessary to cultivate my own separate peace and joy if my soul is going to survive the year 2020 and beyond. Because peace isn’t going to come and find me, and joy is something I am learning that I have invite into troubled times. Over the years I have learned a very simple truth. As long as there is peace in my heart, there is peace on Earth. As long as there is love in my heart, there is potential for joy. It’s up to me.
That doesn’t mean I’m shutting down and going into denial about what is going on in the world around me. I’m not turning a blind eye to world suffering. As a matter of fact, I’m embracing it. Not celebrating it, but accepting life as it is right now, because it is dynamic and in motion and subject to change at any moment. And I’m doing my best to surrender to the hopelessness of the situation and lean into the sharp points, because if I don’t face reality, how can I truly show up and be present for life? And if I’m not present, how will I know how to respond to the situation at hand?
The way I am learning to find joy in chaos is through surrendering to the changes that are happening all around me and moving with those changes by remembering to follow my bliss. Following my bliss is not a matter of following my whim. But, rather, it is waking up to the tremendous gift that each day offers, whether I like what is happening in the world around me or not. It is remembering that life is profound, and that time is fleeting. Now is all we’ve got, and it’s a huge waste of time and the life I’ve been given to reject what is happening today even if I don’t like the situation I’m currently in. Following my bliss through times of chaos and sorrow means taking a leap of faith. Following my heart is like taking footsteps on the water. I may be afraid I am going to drown, but that is only because my heart is leading me deeper into the unknown. The heart knows the way. They say that every time God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window. Following my bliss to the heart of joy means moving away from the closing door to the open window.
What is scary right now is how everything is changing and there is no telling what shape the world will be in tomorrow. Everything is uncertain. The mind hates the liminal state and demands to be this or that, but the heart knows that creation is always in motion and knows how to move with the changes and how to move to more solid ground. Finding joy in chaos is following your heart to the opening for change and growth that your soul is leading you to. Finding joy in chaos is surrendering to the journey when everything appears to be in chaos, and discovering beauty and grace in blind faith when you learn to trust that the heart knows the way.
If I can let go of the things that no longer work, or are no longer reliable, or no longer even available, and move toward the direction my soul is leading me into, there is greater joy and deeper peace than I have known before. because life is always leading me into deeper experiences with love and every situation is an opportunity for spiritual growth if I embrace it.
Finding joy in chaos is an opportunity to surrender everything that I have ever known to the unknown potential that is within me that I have never realized or perhaps even imagined. As long as I can remain fluid, loose and natural, I can dance with the changes that life brings me. It’s when I cling to the past or my ideas of how things should be that I lose my capacity for joy. And once I surrender the known to the unknown, I become teachable again, and then there is an opportunity for something even more beautiful to enter my life again. And that is a sense of wonder. Life is an adventure again, and I am a traveler in an infinite universe. The path of bliss is surrendering to the potential for joy that of each step on the journey brings. Let your soul be your pilot.
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