Let it Be

The stillness that I’m seeking does not have to do with meditation twice a day (although that’s a goal).  I’m looking for the facility to wait, to listen and to follow my own road map.

My problem is that I’m a fixer.  A doer.  An I’m-only-happy-when-there’s-forward-motion kind of gal.  Sometimes I just can’t sit still.  I must do something.  Even when the solution is not mine to determine.

These are the times I can get myself into trouble.

The worst in me emerges when there is a real (or imagined) problem.  When something is broken, whether it is a relationship or a prized possession, it makes me uncomfortable.  I immediately want to eliminate this discomfort by changing something.  If it’s a chair…okay,  I can repair it or discard it.  If it’s a relationship my mind revs up like a hot rod in low gear as I travel the mental paths of possibility.

How can I fix it?  What can I say?  What can I do? I’m positive that it requires some action on my part even though my fast-forwarding thoughts clearly delineate disaster in the making.  And in my lucid moments I know that I cannot change the past and I cannot change anyone else.

My lucid moments are fleeting, however.  If it’s daytime I may stop functioning altogether and slide into a marathon of cooking shows.  Or at night my body lies tense with exhaustion, waiting for sleep while my mind searches for solutions.   I must figure out the problem; how to make it better…or to rationalize it away.

I’ve been talking to myself and Louise about this.  Both have the same instruction: be still.   What does that mean?

I’m not sure, but I think it means to wait.  I think it means to continue my life on my own path and see what obstacles are real and which are imagined.  It may even mean reading directions along the way to find the best route.  But I don’t think it means taking a detour away from my self in order to facilitate the perfect outcome.

Maybe it IS meditation that I am seeking.

But this requires more than a morning practice.  I need a sort of walking meditation that discards the mantra and looks for each  moment of the passing day and night as a focus.  I must train my mind to return to the taste of the tangerine that is so different than the taste of an orange.  The sound of a Christmas carol that fills my car when I start the motor.  My even breath as I lie in my warm bed with my head on my soft pillow.

Is this being still?

xxoo