walkingwitheyesopen

[walkingwitheyesopen]

The sky outside is an uninspiring palette of grey and white. I miss the bright blue cloudless ceiling that I sometimes wake up to. My body seems to want to jump right out of bed to greet the morning when the sky is blue. Inevitable warm rays of sun and aliveness await my skin.

But not today. Much like my mood too. A heaviness hangs over my eyes like a cloak made of stone. Mind engulfed by a stodgy, flat pattern of energy. As I lay this morning meditating, I’m curious about this. About this experience of body and mind as such an uncomfortable and lifeless, numb thing. 35 years this body has breathed. 35 years of building a personality and being in relation with earthly life and other personalities. This single experience of today is the most common I can recall. Drowning in emotions I can barely identify or separate and organise. Just a dull lull, deadness.

I wonder about it. And I wonder also about the idea that we don’t know what is missing or how things could be or are different, until they are. And until a different experience gives contrast. Imagine living a life mostly of pain and suffering, yet not knowing the extent of it or how it is to be in a different state. A forgetting so deep and convincing that we cease to question anything. Tragic in every sense of the word.

I felt days of joy recently, which was extremely unfamiliar. A pain lifted, through simply looking and seeing things as they are. My mind wanted to capture the reason and keep doing more of it to elicit the joyful state, but I surrendered to the unpredictable and unknowing nature of life.

Perspective change can create the most profound and unimaginable changes. But today there’s stuckness. Maybe I need a change of environment, space and something else to do.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

[walkingwitheyesopen]

End of week musings..

Thoughts become things. Instead of thinking ‘I am tired’, be with the body and the alive sensory experience. Questioning beliefs and thoughts and repetitive words, phrases and language I use.

Holding back from joining others in their shared repetitive affirming words. ‘I’m tired’ being a frequent phrase. What happens when I don’t affirm this? Does my experience of fatigue and tiredness change? Does it lessen or increase. Maybe it would cease to exist.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Iceberg of sadness sat right on my face. No melting or moving. Just here and heavy and blinding. Can’t see or feel beyond it. Stuck.

I’ve lay in bed this morning for longer and longer. Dog downstairs needing fresh air and wandering to alleviate her restless legs. But I can’t move. I feel pinned to this bed. Limp and awaiting some sort of tear or movement of emotion so I can rise.

I’m not sure why emotion seems to be such a difficult thing for me to grapple with and allow. Why can’t I just cry and get it out and over with. It lingers and lingers and lingers. Head feels so full.

Move towards it?

Face it head on?

What does it need or want?

But why so complex and all encompassing. Just go away, I think. Just express.

If I turn to it and ask… what do you need, why are you here. What comes?

A mask across my face. Eyes tight and pressured. Not wanting to see the truth, not wanting to be here at all. A pattern of energy protecting me. Afraid to see, to truly see. Afraid to honestly look and address this world authentically, honestly, truthfully. Helpless and hopeless at times. Waves of crisis merged with optimism and calm. Paradox and contradiction. If I move towards this it’ll consume me, no? I can’t move, can’t move today. Work soon. Smiling happy. Hello and goodbye. Giving of myself to the world. A world made up of nonsense. Boring nonsense. Draining, ugly, uninteresting nonsense. Repetitive conversations. Repetitive thoughts. Repetitive actions and duties, roles and responsibilities. Utterly drained from the meaninglessness. Monotony of being a person. Uninspired and not engaged. Bored bored bored.

How boring to be writing this. Writing about boredom is so devastatingly boring. This pattern of heavy negativity closing in on me. Suffocating, repetitive. Unable to see past it all to the Grace that is here, always. And it is, aliveness, Grace, beauty, space.. God is ever present with each breath. This energy distracting remembrance and unification. Oh my heart. These times of extremes and cycles. Exhausting. Insufferable.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Circling

Cycles and patterns of pain being a monthly ritual. Due to bleed in a few days. I feel a heaviness In body and mind taking over; lethargy and depression rooted deep, gripping tight. Hard to see it as separate from who I am. Curious and unsure if it’s here with a message and a meaning. If I’m bypassing the game of life too much with high and mighty spiritual truths.

Where is the delicate balance of identity and not identifying. I don’t like it, I don’t like feeling this way. It’s tight and slow and sad. Full of sad. Eyes, arms, womb - everything full of sad. And why? What specific story concedes it. Is it even relevant for me to know, or is awareness and light, care and concern needed. Am I disassociating or detaching - unhealthy or healthy.

Trying to make sense of the insensible. Pushing myself too hard.. not hard for some, just for me. Too much and I crumble. Too much and this body can’t hold presence and power.

So today I sit in the sun. Meditate upon metta, loving kindness. Towards myself and all of the noise inside and out. Heavy and tired, sad and lonely hearted. A familiar story. Does it require action? Is my power and choice being called forth here or do I stay silent and witness. Grow the ability to watch and wait. Breathe. Go slow. Move slow and feel every sensation. Don’t miss a breath whilst life rearranges circumstances in my favour. Hold myself dearly, tightly, in love. Dropping internal conflict and contradiction. Here and now. Always here and now.

Softly

Slowly

Surrendered

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Truth

I had a dream last night that stirred strong emotions in me. Sometimes the storyline of a dream is hard to recover from memory but there’s a feeling and a knowing.

In the dream I think someone had stole my phone and my whole identity went with it. I was frantic trying to find it, thinking I’d lost all the photos and history of me as a person. The grief and horror was of such an immensity I could barely contain or face it.

The grief and pain lingers now. Of being no one, all my history and personal life story destroyed or non existent. It feels timely to have a dream with such a narrative and corresponding emotions. I’m finding much interest in non duality and the teachings of Mooji recently. Daily I’ve been listening to a specific talk of his that takes me right into reflection of the deepest truth of who I am. It’s undeniable and I’m seeing things through eyes that have seen this before, but maybe at a time when I wasn’t ready to actualise and embody the truth.

I’m not sure what’s changed or if this seeing will sustain into a constant daily knowing, but for now, each day, I am called to inhabit a different world from the one I have been. A world unidentified with the story of suffering and a curated personal image.

There’s space and I understand the real meaning of space. Seeing things as they truly are without layers of illusion and assumption. Why speak anything but truth. Why contribute anything but honesty into our fabric of life. What are we all waiting for but to actualise the truth of who we are and live in perfect love and harmony. This IS possible, and it comes from within each of us. The POWER is ours. Change comes from within.

What is honesty? What is truth? And who are you?

Not a human honesty birthed from the personality. A deeper honesty. Look and see. What is really here. What is honestly and authentically true?

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Identity

Split second moments of relief. Of dropping everything, greeted by an experience of what remains. A blissful joy arises on realising nothing is personal and i have choice. I, as awareness itself. Unattached to outcomes or specificities.

It never leaves - who and what I am never leaves. I am before any image projected onto the screen of life. It’s all the gathered life that gets in the way of remembering and living awake and alive.

We forget. We remember.

All living in our own story worlds. Each with a narrative personal and unique, yet shared and made of the same stuff. Emotion, sensation, thought and feeling. In constant flux and motion. Arising and passing away, coming from nothing and disappearing back into nothing. Wounds and words, full of colour and intrigue. None of it exists other than as a film projected onto a screen, drawing us into a daily drama.

Who are you? Where are you? What is real and true?

Such relief in asking these questions.

Gifting myself and others with some momentary relief from the existential dread that runs through each psyche. That there is more and we can know it.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

‘Complain increases pain’

- Mooji

[walkingwitheyesopen]

‘Happy’ Friday

Complex unidentifiable string of emotions rattling through my brain this morning. Urghhh.. so little creative thought to share. Utmost boredom of emotional numbness and loneliness. There’s so little to say about it that wouldn’t extend the boredom to others. What is there to say about this human emotional state. Everyone knows it and feels it to some degree, and it’s not what I want to breathe more of into the world. It’s the most alive thing here though, so maybe I just have little to say.

PbduqbdyajnxcncmxmwpqpridyabebglaoauwgdkDhjabduqidnd … that feels more appropriate.

Thinking of friendship, closeness and care. My lonely heart and the wound that never seems to heal in relation to relating. What is a friendship? Why does it hurt when apparent rejection happens. Change and rejection. A one way friendship, meaning more to me than another. Forgotten or never wanted in the first place. Touching on wounding of exclusion. This feels insurmountable. Impossible to heal and overcome. Raw and all encompassing. My eyes are filling with tears. This wound I can usually barely access or go near. The pain too spikey.

I don’t know what to do with it. It’s not linear or obvious. Hidden behind layers of bitterness and resentment, anger and pride. Wanting to punish the other for leaving me, leaving me alone and confused. Unsure what I did or is it simply what I am that deserves the rejection. A young mind in me tries to reconcile. Tries to make sense of it all but hide my vulnerability at the same time. Self protection became my best effort at being with it all. I still don’t know what to do. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted.

But trying to remind myself these emotions aren’t personal. This experience isn’t personal - life happens and moves as life does. I want a hug ..

[walkingwitheyesopen]

To keep going

I wake today with a sadness covering my eyes. No obvious reason but some mornings are simply this way. I want the bed to draw me down into it’s soft embrace, never to wake again to this feeling.

Ears are ringing, maybe it’s something I ate yesterday. This does happen. Food can affect my mood dramatically. Not ideal when food is vital for my continued existence. A maze it is, more often than not.

Everything I see outside is the same. Nothing changed or altered. But in here it’s dark. Tears won’t flow and eyes don’t want to open. All hope drained from the well I’ve been tending to and filling with flowers. Maybe there’s a dent or hole where the light is pouring out. Maybe it happened whilst I was asleep and dreaming. Mind fumbling to patch the hole, stop the loss of life draining from me any further.

I turn to the feeling. Hello, I see you.

Remind myself this is a pattern of energy, a temporary moving part, even if it feels like eternity itself has taken up residence.

Much of life experienced this way. Daily internal conversations bargaining with life. How can I do something different today, what response to this internal agony can write a new story.

Life continues.. day by day, held in the unwavering, suffocating grip of time. Time that has no real place or purpose other than to control and tempt us.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Space

I was watching a football match last night. I like listening to the evaluations afterwards from other footballers and the technical aspect of how the game went. I play netball myself and have done for some years. One thing that is very apparent in these sort of sports is the importance of space.

Opening up space on the pitch or court makes room for opportunity. If each player is cramped together, we’re much less likely to get the ball or have choice regarding the direction of the game.

Watching the football match last night I could see the connection to how this relates to life. At the moment my focus is on creating more space mentally and emotionally inside. After months of feeling absolutely overwhelmed and scattered, I’ve gave myself pointers to try out. A better bedtime routine - phone off around 7pm, 45/1hr of Yin yoga and a relaxation meditation before I sleep. This routine is one I’ve tried before, with success. However life seems to speed up and pull the rug from under me in an instant sometimes. I’ve circled back around, realising this needs to be asserted again in my life - for my absolute sanity.

Back to football… what a revelation to make this connection. How a game of sport can translate into life and visually remind me of how space looks, in the form of small people running around on a field. Each player like thoughts that run around in my mind. When they’re relentless and cramped together, it’s hard to see clearly, problem solve or think creatively. Yet when there’s space between them, there’s an intentional rhythm with their movement and an even pace - things work better.

When I play a netball match as an attacker, to get free I’ll take the defender marking me out of the position I’m holding, which creates a space for me to run back into and receive the ball. A mixture of right timing, observing the way the ball is moving down the court towards me and a sense of where the rest of the team are moving towards - all play a vital role. Running back into that open space feels so good. Moving out of the circle to create space, feels so good. With that space comes choice and the ability to see the game through a much wider lens.

My words of wisdom this morning from a wonderful game of football last night!

Space is gold - space in mind, body and spirit is power.

Make space.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Tending to grief

My first thoughts this morning were of a dream I once had; to practice as a Naturopath and herbalist. It’s a dream that’s still alive actually. How strange we have unexpected things come to mind on waking. Sometimes there’s nothing (very rare for me!), other times there’s random topics and subjects. It all comes, then goes. Sometimes leaving behind some emotion or lingering mental state.

I can identify grief, as it connects to the reality of choosing one dream to uphold over another. In my life there’s been many things that have deeply interested me. It’s been very hard to bring my focus to a singular point, enough to allow one thing to grow. I continue this experience of moving from one thing to the next, because my passion lies in so many varied places. Which is a gift I’m sure - to be in touch with that realm of the heart and a feeling of aliveness that exists there. That exists here.

But to dedicate myself fully, wholly to one vision, and the delicate steps to get there, isn’t the easiest for me. Likely this is the case for everyone and anyone. We are intriguing characters in the story of humans. Gripped by emotion, opinion and sensation.

I was reminded this morning, as I meditated listening to Mooji, that none of this is personal. Any suffering of our experiencing, is our choice. We are the undying witness to it all - coming and going. Which feels and sounds to be true. Yet is hard to really absorb and apply to the most extreme of human experiencing - war, abuse, trauma and intensely dark circumstances. What is true with always be true though, no matter what I think or believe.

My beautiful dog just came for a cuddle. How sweet she greets me each morning with such love and care.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Being no one and doing nothing

When life gets so full with stuff - physical, mental and emotional - it’s hard to remember what is important through the noise. I’ve been creating my own website for what feels like years. Still it’s not finished. I go through periods of focus with it and get lots done. Then for months life goes on as if it doesn’t exist. My time and focus is elsewhere.

Today I feel a little sad about this. Knowing how much effort and time I have already gave to its creation, yet feeling unsure how I will ever finish it. Yesterday the website popped into my mind. Today again it did, I felt a pang of discomfort as my mind willed me to open it up on my laptop, just to see it and connect with it again. Oh it’s been so long. I feel a mixture of excitement, grief and disappointment. Is the content there still relevant, is it even what I’m able to offer anymore now that I work part time.

I’ve lost connection with that dream and vision. Exhaustion and other things have been at the forefront of my life. Does that mean it no longer exists - the vision and dream. Do I want to continue with the project I’ve been doing, which ultimately means putting my website on hold again as I simply don’t have the time or capacity for it all. I don’t know.

I do know I’m craving nothingness though. Yearning for solitude and

Simply

Doing

Nothing

No plans. No people. No expectations or stress.

Just nothing. Filling my own cup with no thing.

And allowing life to pour from this empty place - unforced and unplanned. Easy, simply, organic.

Maybe this is where I will find the answers.

If the vision and dreams are still alive and waiting to be watered and tended to. If so I will continue.

Cyclical periods of waiting, reflecting and acting. Listening and responding to life.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Thought - Imagine - Intend - Act

What control do we have amidst the weaving hands of fate?

How much choice do we really have?

Heart over head. Head manipulating heart.

The noise of expectation and a mature approach to life, drowning out spontaneous and playful dancing. Layers of serious gaze watching and interpreting each moment. In the spaces between i can breathe. They come less and less but sometimes more, then less again.

Holding back from life. From him, from her.

Withholding something precious. A heart or hand.

Frozen in the moment. Too much. Too fast. Too sensory to process it all.

Contraction inside. Life feels different now. Life behaves differently, as do I. I wonder if this is natural, as years pass by and age embeds itself into my skin. I feel different. This body feels different.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Asking creative questions - towards ourself and to others - opens up a deeper and more rich world for us to inhabit.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Choice on a Saturday morning

Overhearing conversations about the news. About topics the news stations have chosen to share with the world. Things they believe are important and relevant. They shape the way those stories are told and people watching them receive the stories in a specific curated way. Where is the truth in them.

I listen to the conversations that are birthed from these stories. Gossip and assumptions. Hours of life spent talking and talking and talking; but about what. Stories that have already been manipulated and diluted. We don’t know these individual people and their circumstances. I think of all that human potential. All the ways humans gossip and talk about each other and situations. How the things they say are often biased by their own perspectives. Perspectives which are influenced by so many other factors than the truth.

What if instead we used our voice and thoughts to think of God, of love, of truth and something higher. Because I am astounded at the tidal wave of energy that is leaked through misuse of our voice and power. We could create so much beauty and peace. Our potential is unthinkable, unimaginable, boundless.

Its so easy to gossip. I get it though, we need to express, talk about and integrate situations. There is such a fine line though, to me, of the effect of how we communicate what is needed to process something. So much of what we talk about is absolutely unnecessary, no? Why talk about someone on the other side of the world who we know nothing about. All we know is what the news is ‘choosing’ to tell the world.

We dabble and exist in imagined stories. Oh my, how scary, but also how magnificent - this means we can change our world and anything is possible when we become aware and realise we have choice.

[walkingwitheyesopen]

Friday July 5th

Resting. I wake to thoughts and feelings. A mushy landscape of a body with its unwavering sensory peaks and troughs.

I meditated this morning, lying down. I seem to better be able to make the transition from sleep to awake when I meet myself half way in a reclined posture. I don’t want to move now. This body is buzzing from the inside. Ringing ears, pressure and dizziness. It will pass as morning grows.

———————-

Morning has its seasons. There’s ‘early early morning’, a solitude and spacious peace abides there, not many see this part of a day. Then ‘waking morning’ comes, when bodies start to shuffle and dislodge from sleep. Tired eyes are rubbed by heavy hands, a body once still begins its transition into movement. Waking morning is followed by ‘conscious morning’. Thoughts and feelings weave their way to the front of the line, sometimes bright and alive, sometimes dreary and dull. Morning was once itself; open, pure and present. But once a body awoke, the drama of a man made self takes over.

Clattering plates, knives and forks sound through the air. Smells of sweetness and earthy breads make their way up the stairs, ushering in the next morning season; ‘active morning’. Life in a body has needs and desires, feeding and forging forward fuel each cell. Acceptance, sometimes reluctantly, comes of the inevitability that I exist in this world. I must actively participate, there is no other way. No exit, no going backwards or forwards. I’m here, but there’s a mind that tells me I’m there, that takes me ‘there’, so I forgot I’m here.

Morning has fully bloomed now, cars are passing by outside the window. Children wander to school with parents stood ahead, frustrated by the pace of their small legs and their slow curious observing gaze. A door shuts behind me, key fits perfectly into lock. I’m driving now, probably a little too fast.

Morning merges with the peak of daytime, yet still a weary left over sleep lingers in the background. Transition comes, without notice. No more ‘good mornings’, the day has swelled to a point of midday. Within a second of clock time, someone somewhere wishes the first ‘good afternoon’ to another. And morning gives itself fully to what follows.