2020 Epiphanies and Ancient Wisdom
When I stood on the precipice of the turning of the page from 2019 to 2020, I had no idea what was ahead. To be honest, I was in a pretty bad space emotionally and mentally feeling overwhelmed by the darkness and grief in the world--and this was BEFORE the pandemic. My 2020 started in January with two unexpected and tragic deaths in my close circle one right after the other. It felt like being punched in the face by all the negative, bad, wrong, not-supposed-to-be-this-way things. In a way, it was.
At the time, I really couldn’t find my “word of the year.” I found myself emotionally in a space of self-protection to the point of feeling that I couldn’t really care about the pain in the world around me because it felt like a tsunami. For the first time that I can really remember, I considered the idea that not being on this planet would be a relief. Whew.
While that might not have hit you in January, this year offered plenty of fodder for this experience for you and others, didn’t it?
I wasn’t sure how to move forward. Yet time marches on. Today, on the cusp of 2021 and at the time of the Solstice and Great Conjunction--the Bethlehem star, some say--I would like to share some musings from my meandering journey to a new place within and without.
It began with a little help from my coach Andrea, who simply pointed out to me that I was looking for those outside myself to fix my internal state--to make me feel loved, safe and happy. Hmm…
It continued with me exploring the idea that ALL of life--the good and bad--are part of life. Let me repeat. My big new idea was that BOTH good and bad are a part of the deal of being human and this human experience.
Maybe this is a no-brainer for you. But for me, I had over the years internalized messages that if I JUST did the right thing, If I was just good enough, all would go well. Or if I prayed and believed hard enough, God would make things rosy and wonderful and rescue me from all harm. That when bad things happened, it was because somebody did something wrong. There was blame to be found and dealt with and then we could find our way back to a Disneyland style life. AND along with this belief of the way the world should be was the belief that I should be only love and light, only good, only happy, only well. And that if I was good enough, all would be well.
Since the world and my inner and outer being didn’t cooperate with this belief, I had to consider the possibility that it might be a less-than-useful belief and their might be another way to view and experience things.
But when reality brings cancer and death to 7 and 13 year olds and yoga friends just like me, when it feels like friends desert you and your child is struggling and you can’t understand why or how to help, when a pandemic shuts things down and you become aware of a huge disparity in the way you are treated versus a black man in America, when these things happen, the carefully built version of the way things (the world and me) are supposed to work-- of try hard, do good, all will be well--it just stops working. It falls apart.
Through a lot of different little messages, what came through for me as the summer solstice approached was a new way to see and be in the world. I got my word of the year.
AND
It’s not a new idea. I really can’t take any credit for it. The Holy Sacred AND. The Yin/Yang symbolizes it. Jesus--fully human AND fully divine embodies it. The world around me reflects it back to me. Beauty and pain. Darkness and Life. Birth and Growth and Death and Decay. Weaving and unweaving. Gain and Loss. Certainty and Uncertainty. Knowing and Not Knowing. Giving and Receiving.
AND
To function in this world, to continue to be without becoming schizophrenic or denying reality all around me, I needed to embrace the AND.
Honestly, it kind of sucks lemons sometimes. At the same time, when I found practices and ways to embrace and embody this AND thing, I found so much peace. And release. And energy. And Hope. And comfort. And Joy. And made space for grief and mourning. For rest and for work. For engaging and for relaxing. For truth and for questions.
Instead of hitting a brick wall when life (or I) didn’t meet my expectations, I felt the flow of the river continuing on, soothing, shifting, allowing, washing away pain, revitalizing.
Lots happened in 2020 personally and in our larger world. But I don’t think there was anything larger for me than this shift. I think it was a key that unlocked a door to the mansion of my soul and the engine of my life which was stuck in first gear. Ha. Sounds profound-ish and like you’d expect me to become some amazing rockstar in the world of wisdom or whatever. I don’t think so.
I think each one of us can be like a cell in a body--DNA damaged and misfiring, shriveling and hardening membrane to protect from the world--yet keeping nutrients out as well and toxins within. Or a cell that can float healthy with a protective, sensitive membrane filtering the good and bad and DNA being recoded when necessary so that the cellular function is optimal for the good of the cell--AND the body.
So in this year of extremes, if you find yourself where I did in January, I hold out a little candle of hope light. I invite you to consider, if you haven’t already, that AND might be a healthy and helpful word to light our way and to help us navigate. A little lifeboat. Or maybe just a realization that we need brakes AND gas pedals in our cars. Freedom AND constraints to survive a pandemic. Police AND accountability. Or so many other things. As humans we want certainty. We can tend toward all or nothing thinking. We want to be right and good--which tends to translate that someone else is wrong and bad. Could it be the AND that saves us?
Can we disagree AND listen? Can we protect ourselves and experience freedom? Can we meet our needs AND help our brothers and sisters whose needs are not met? Can we be good AND hurt people we love? Can we be strong AND need help? Can we be wise AND not have a clue? I think so.
2020 was a heavy year. I hope that my words might be nourishing to you. I hope that they raise questions and shake you a bit perhaps---AND provides a feeling of peace and stability too.