easing into comfortable discomfort...

A good friend said to me once, "I have had no choice but to turn toward a path I cannot see and follow it regardless of how it feels. Strangely, it is the way I always wanted, just not at all what I imagined. Much love." To know there are others in the same boat is priceless. I am simply following footprints left in the sand and this is comforting to me.

Discomfort is a symptom, a warning shot over the bow of our lives and meant for us to take notice, not something to run from. Leaning into discomfort is not easy but necessary for progress. In touching the raw, messy places of our lives, we go deeper to feel or see what's driving the discomfort. If fear and trembling arise, we remember to breathe into it and it sometimes dissolves on the spot or morphs into tender shakiness. In most instances, it is bearable, and becomes less and less ferocious over time. With consistent visits it appears to disappear. 

"Discomfort is a symptom, a warning shot over the bow of our lives and meant for us to take notice, not something to run away from."

Putting a stethoscope to our interior, we finally give credence to our inner wisdom and begin to find out what's truly going on inside. Up to this point, our lives have been largely run on imaginings and stories. It is only when we pay close attention that we begin to notice the falsities that betray us and only then that we can dismantle the mindstuff that no longer serves us. The mind may be a dangerous place to hang out, but consulted and worked with tenderly in this way, there's a zoo full of conversations we need to discover and come to grips with. It is in the STILLness we find out what's actually driving our bus.

Deliberate and unceasing in our efforts, over and over, again and again, we return to the storyteller and challenge the authenticity of the yarns being spun. This type of inquiry led me to discover that all my life I looked up & out instead of in & down. Over time all of the outer trappings I'd placed my confidence in, disappeared. Familiar outer cues evaporated like morning dew at noon, not a trace to be found anywhere!

The breath is the compass we use to navigate the interior of our lives.The landscape is unique to each of us. But there are those who will gladly come alongside and shore us up. 

Onward we trudge the road to happy destiny, clearing the blockages to the ever-present flow of Power and Presence that calls us home. 

Love this little gem by Yaakov Astor.

"The breath is the compass we use to navigate 

the interior of our lives."

l8r, Susan Rees