Practicing Enlightenment

I want to close my eyes and see (or not see) a teddy bear but instead I see all the thoughts hanging over my head. This article makes me question my insecurites in that department for the first time. When this concept was first presented to me, it was more than satisfying to know that I wasn't crazy, I was just misinformed from my brain.

I accepted that it was a good answer to a bad problem. I always thought people were mad at me for one reason or another, even when I couldn't figure out what the reason was! But this week has been rough and we've been so distant. The article says that emotional distance is normal and that I should relax and let things happen as they do. I find this an incredibly trying practice. But I'm the one that wants to practice. So I need to keep on.

I read a blog on PsychologyToday.com and I believe it was about forming habits. I could be completely off on where I got this but since I'm on that site all day, it must've come from there.... This one man talked about his love/hate relationship with the road as he became a runner. It pulled him out of bed early and he was tired and it made his bones ache. But everyday he got up and he ran. It was warm, it was cold, it was raining or it was just plain early. But he ran.

Eventually it got to the point where he and the road had an intimate relationship. He found rhythm and stride. Suddenly he didn't notice his bones aching or the watch on his wrist. It was about watching the world wake up and experiencing personal growth and stability through practice. That is what I must do.

In these low points of confusion and wonder, I have no choice but to lay down my vulnerability to this exercise and pray that it is the right one and I will not loose people on the way. I love each of them differently and uniquely as they are all different and unique to me.

They call it the "path to enlightenment". Have I put a name to the airy feeling I'm becoming aware of? I wondered if this new 'thinking' was the way of Buddha. I looked it up here. I found that the simple principles of taking care of yourself and each other had already been such a big part of my life, it wasn't entirely foreign to me. I often thought I was the last person on earth who believed we should have faith that people can change and that we should take care of each other. So why weren't we? But, it was the way in which I let it sit backwards. I worked for others before I worked for myself and when you put all your eggs in one basket, well, there's nothing left for you and you're starved.

I've let other people's reactions control me for so long and now that I've finally seen that there's a way out of it... It's terrifying and depressing in one of the best ways possible. I think of all the anger I've carried and how I wasted so many people and events and emotions on things that only existed in my mind because I was scared to alone. When in actuality, I've been alone all along. The good part? There's an actual method to my madness and it's actually not madness at all!

This is the point where I turn to accept my solitude and work whole-heartedly towards a study that could easily change my entire life; just by having new eyes. Like that quote from the movie, Loving Anabelle.

The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in
having new eyes.
~Marcel Proust

That's really all it is and all it can ever be. My lanscape, (people), will never change. It is only in having new eyes to view them will I be able to truely appreciate and adore them, the way I long to do, from the safest point available. People as a whole are a messy, crazy, happy, sad mix. I love them so I need to learn to love all parts them... Even the messy, crazy, sad part.

Namaste