THE ART OF ENJOYING THE JOURNEY
This last week, a brother of mine reached out and said he wanted some help. He needed a bit of community, so I invited him to fly out and spend the week at the house, meet some of my friends, go out to dinner, and just share in the hustle and bustle of the house. This is something Jennie and I are good at: holding space inside the sanctuary of our home for peace, safety, healing, laughter, and life. Lots and lots of life.
At the end of the week, we decided to get to work. And so, on Saturday, we all sat in a circle, closed our eyes, and did a meditation. Deep, slow, sustained breaths. Awareness of Awareness. Listening to the music of the meditation and entering into a different brainwave state through the breath and attention on... nothing. Each person in their own meditation, each person in the solitude of that emptiness. What comes up when you pull away from the prefrontal cortex and embrace different brainwave states? (I'm sure Joe Dispenza could tell us what brainwaves we were experiencing!) What comes up when you let go?
THE ART OF ENJOYING MYSELF
What if I don't have to finish healing myself, resolve every relationship, or figure everything out before I can fully enjoy my life? What if I could just enjoy the doing? Enjoy taking care of myself, enjoy loving and taking care of others, enjoy creating art, making music, making money, and playing with all the possibilities of being alive? I can be grounded and embrace the new. I can be independent and interdependent. I can trust people to be who they are, love them through their imperfections, and actually believe them when they tell me they love me.
I don't have to erase every wound or fix every part of my past. I can take all of it—the beautiful, the painful, the ridiculous, the profound—and make art with it. Maybe life isn't about finally getting everything right. Maybe it's about refining the experience, finding the flow, and enjoying the journey. And maybe, just maybe, I can give myself permission to enjoy being me, exactly where I am, while continuing to become whatever comes next.
That was my summary of my meditation.
After we meditated, we sat around the house with the cats and with each other, talking and laughing the rest of the day away. We did practices. How would we take our revelations and turn them into manifestations? We walked on the earth. I had a talk with my Mom, who passed a long time ago. We ended the day with big, heaping bowls of homemade chicken soup, and lots of laughter and love. A full day of connection, sharing, love, and for me: rejuvenation.
One of my biggest roses from the day was seeing my wife Jennie happy. She's had a rough year, and taking the time to open our home to a friend in need, and just sit with him in circle for a day, put a big, big smile on her face that was not surface deep, but heart deep. Everyone was nourished, everyone given exactly what they needed.
At the end of the week, the man who had asked for help expressed a worry that he had soaked up too much of the attention and too much of our energy. And I reassured him, it wasn't like that. The gift of sanctuary, quiet, and calm was deeply nourishing to Jennie and me. There was a fair exchange of energy, from heart to heart, that lifted all boats.