Some people see the world through the eyes of the screen. The doom screen that predicts the fall of our planet, the fall of rights, the fall of freedom. And others don’t look.
I’m one of those that doesn’t look. I post words, I post images, but I try not to look unless I really have to. I do need to know who won for president, if there is a war in Ukraine, if Bitcoin hit 98,000, but in reality, my world is pretty peaceful.
The palm trees I wake up to everyday are still there, prospering in abundant display of glory. The wide blue ocean still is a wide blue beautiful swath of peace in front of my mind.
I cried yesterday, after a breath work class. Wim Hoff, hyperventilation to breath holds. 1 min. Then 1.5, 2 and finally 2.5 minutes of holding your breath.
On the entry platform of the 2.5 minute breath hold, my body is buzzing, vibrating, there is stillness. No thought, no nothing, complete energetic being-ness. I allow the images of being at the bottom of the ocean to float in, I channel the dolphins to show me the breath hold.
My mind becomes more active as we approach the 1.5 minute mark. I tell my mind to calm and bring my attention to my feet. Presence, just presence, relax into it…. Melt into it… The thought, “I need to breathe” arises. I send it away and come back to presence, just as the CO2 alerts come up in my body, where every cell is yelling “breathe” I relax into it, I writhe, I let the sensation flow through me… it mounts like a volcano… ahhhhhhhh and finally beep beep beep, the audio says I can breathe now.
Deep inhale. Hold and release… the music plays soft angelic music. Done. You survived. My whole body surrenders to the mat, wide open. I’m alive. Here. Now.
Gratitude overwhelms me. I am connected to all of life, the confines of my body are intermingled with all that is possible. The bliss of heaven pours down on me offering the words, “you can have whatever you want, Carly” “it’s all possible.”
After a suspension in time I eventually come back into the awareness of my body on the mat. I open my eyes and the visions of palm trees, ocean view and tropical plants fill my sight. I feel the presence of the others near me, having their own connection to god in that moment.
I am bliss. I get it. No really. My heart fills with love and gratitude. How beautiful of a life do I live? How did I get to be so blessed to be bestowed with the beauty of this world, the connection of community, my incredible son, my amazing partner, my job that fulfills me to no end… how did I get to be so lucky?
I cry. It is a sort of grief. In Francis Weller’s book The wild edge of sorrow, one of the gates of grief is the “The places that have not known love.” As these spaces in me begin to fill with goodness, the grief of searching and feeling this unexplainable emptiness for so long overwhelms me.
What wouldn’t I do to find love in my life? How far did I go to search for meaning? How many classes did I do to attempt to find happiness?
I unveil, unpack, release, let go, discover and create space within me. And within that space, I look around and see the immense beauty of the world. It’s not just my immediate environment anymore…. As I fill with love, love attracts me, beauty reveals herself, colors pop, kindness ensues, strangers smile at me.
We really are that which we choose to put in our minds.
Today I am overwhelmingly grateful for the life I have lived, but even more so the ability now to let life permeate me with her deepest gifts, the ones that were there all along, but I didn’t notice.
The ones that were the flowers in the cracks, but I only focused on the cracks.
The ones that were the light at the end of the tunnel, but I only saw the grimy walls of a tunnel.
The ones that were the smiles, the extension of kindness, the generous gestures, the obvious not obvious of friends and family who care… for me.
I could be on my phone, filling my mind with the doom and destruction of the world or just filling my world with that which is around me. Noticing the gift of a starry sky, a sun that rises and sets in all her glory, my body that works, the safety of my home above my head, the closeness of those people I love… and you the reader for reading this far.
And I get the gift of having time… to write and you, to read me. Blessings on this day.