a bit easier
"It’s here in all the pieces of my shame
That now I find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
In an all-embracing mind that sees me." (Rainer Maria Rilke)
To be myself, enough, all that's asked. To trust it as my best contribution. Really? "Iridescence," a friend once said.
What gets in the way, of course, is judgment. We judge ourselves, fear the opinions of others. We can't just be, don't like ourselves, have to prove our way out of shame, the never-good-enough emotion.
“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be?” asks the author Danielle LaPorte. We could find out. Maybe it starts with being able to sit quietly in a room, as Blaise Pascal has said. Sitting with this struggling self, still.
Instead, restlessness. Relentless worry. A desperation to fit in, measure up. Opinions and judgments.
The Stoics liked the word euthymia. A tranquillity that in centered aloneness becomes our greatest gift: I am happy, content with what's present. This energy naturally supports happiness in others. It's reassuring, encouraging. The opinions of others don't matter. Yet I bear alert witness.
A clear sense of our own path, staying on it without getting distracted, lightly. Being who we are, and being as good as possible at it, without surrendering to how others want us to be, nimbly.
This isn't indifference. It's a radiant way of being that flourishes in learning with the world around me. Happiness as a choice about me and life as unfolding. Happiness also as a choice to improve things. Not attached, fluid.
Holding this tension as beauty: And you know what: It's awesome we're capable of it. We have this freedom. Heart free to spill over with love, wild, spacious. Nothing can harm me anymore.
Everything in life is easier when I don’t worry about what everybody else is thinking. The Stoic Marcus Aurelius: “Remember how long you’ve been putting this off…At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to."
Let's sit quiet and begin to remember who we are: It really is our task. Not easy, but I think we rebels can do it!
And for the background:
The meditations that the Roman emperor (161-180 AD) Marcus Aurelius wrote are worth browsing and freely available at Project Gutenberg. Here is a great primer. Aurelius wrote these reflections as private journals, reminders for himself to stay on the path. We are fortunate they are still with us two millennia later!
A word related to euthymia: Equanimity: It's as if it builds even further upon euthymia's tranquility infused with love and wisdom, a deep, compassionate warmth of being, an immense capacity for empathic joy. Spaciousness, deep time.
And then there is Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” –
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