“While the mind sees only boundaries, love knows the secret way there.” ~ Rumi
Over the last few weeks I’ve been feeling a bit ‘out of sorts’. There were a few ‘external’ seeming reasons for this – I finished a course, and then went travelling around England, before returning to a heap of work, giving myself no real space to just ‘be’; to settle. It really felt like all of these things contributed to what felt as just ‘odd’, and all I wanted to do was find my way back to that feeling of peace that I have known so well at times!
Feeling Lost
Part of the challenge, it seemed, was that I had high expectations of what I ‘should’ be doing, and so I felt restless, like I wasn’t really achieving what I was meant to, and then I started to listen to other people’s ideas about what I should be doing, too. It seemed I was trying to fit myself into a box of boundaries (like Rumi says, above). I’ve finished learning, so I ‘should’ be working hard, right?! Not only that, but because there was so much change going on, and little grounding, it felt like I actually forgot who I was. I began to live in the illusion that I had ‘lost my power,’ I would say ‘yes’ to most things, and it really felt that I wasn’t ‘enough’ as I was. In that moment, I forgot who I truly was; I forgot to love myself.
Finding Myself In the Basement
So, I’ve bumbled along like this for the last month, riding up and down in an elevator of moods, and perhaps spending a lot more time in the basement than I’d have liked. It’s dark down there, and it feels messy, boring, uncomfortable, frustrating and, at times, depressing! But, this week, I found myself back up nearer the top, seeing the clarity! I know, now, that it will completely shift, and that there’s learning in the messiness.
How Did I Find My Way Back?
Well, I know it seems preferable to have a logical, step-by-step process as an answer, but life doesn’t really fit inside a little box. That was part of the problem: I almost wanted it to, and I think that’s also a message that is reinforced in our human society! It would be so easy if we could fit everything into a prescription of ‘control;‘ but it would also take away some of the fun of having absolutely no idea what is in store. At the time, I would have given anything for someone to tell me how to work my way out of it; but the reality is, it will pass all by itself.
What’s interesting is that I suddenly started to feel I had no boundaries. I was saying ‘yes’ to everything, crowing all of my space with projects and movement, and actually doing some things that I didn’t really love to do. I was beginning to look externally, to others, or to fix situations, for answers, feeling I needed support or agreement from other people. Someone told me I ‘needed boundaries’ and I began to worry that I needed to be stronger!
Thinking about Boundaries: Remembering My Own Voice
Then I remembered to listen to myself. Whilst we feel a certain temptation at times to love rules – there’s a certain comfort in stability – I am a bit of a maverick; I love freedom, I love expansiveness, I love creativity. In fact, I don’t believe there are any boundaries other than those created our own thoughts. So, actually, I remembered that my ‘lack of boundaries’ is actually not a bad thing at all – whilst I might seem overly laid back, or too open, to some, to me, it’s the beauty of my ability to be creative! For a second, all that happened was that I had dropped into ‘Boundary World’ – just until I realised that such a place didn’t even exist – and that I don’t really want to live in a ‘boundaried’ world at all.
I realised, it is not actually ‘bad’ to be ‘boundary-less’ (and that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ don’t really exist as they are also labels and boxes!) but, instead it is amazingly freeing! In a world with no boundaries (which is actually all there is outside of our minds), there is infinite possibility, and we don’t need any expectations, other than to live in the moment and create from there. In the moment I heard this wisdom kicking in, I also remembered that we just need to love ourselves enough to HEAR our own wisdom, and stop listening to the external and dive within, into our own beauty.
In remembering that, is how we return home – just with that little bit of insight. The only person you need to hear is yourself. In self-love, of who we really are, and remembering that we are enough, is where the answer is truly found. It is all within.
We Are Already Home
You see, actually, even when you don’t know where to look to find a way back to a ‘settled’ feeling space, life will take you back there, even if you don’t think it will! In fact, that space is all there ever is. The label of being unsettled is only the same as the label of needing boundaries. When it seems like something is permanent, it isn’t – it’s an illusion! There is infinite and unlimited abundance and space. Everything we feel comes directly from our thinking. If we are experiencing low mood thoughts, then we will experience low mood feelings. If we are experiencing lost thinking, then we will feel lost. If we experience thinking that there is a box, we will feel that there is a box. That’s all it is. There is no box, there is no lost. There is only perfect wholeness; and, when we are at the top of the elevator, this is what we see – the clarity and the truth. There is nothing to do, but wait until we reach the top again, to self-enquire into the nature of our thinking, and to allow ourselves to beautifully unfold.
Listen to yourself, love yourself, and the answers will arrive.
With love and gentle reminders,
Nicole
Originally published at www.wellbeingwriter.co.uk