FREEDOM MONTH: DAY 16: “We are motivated more by aversion to the unpleasant than by a will toward truth, freedom, or healing. We are constantly attempting to escape our life, to avoid rather than enter our pain, and we wonder why it is so difficult to be fully alive.” ― Stephen Levine
This is one of my all-time favorite Levine quotes. He was one of the revered teachers I got to learn from many, many moons ago. The world was richer for him.
Am watching so many of us now trying to avert life by distraction and avoidance. We are addicts, aren’t we? Freedom comes when I stop the judgment and just live my damned life…moment by moment. There is no good, no bad, just life and my stupid attempts to control it (hahaha) by tagging it, labeling it, discoursing about it on fb and constant activity and running to and fro like a wind-up toy. Moving mindfully through my life is the only way I get freedom from the insanity that lives in my brain.
I used to be able to shut it up with drugs and drinking, but no more.
The recovery from my addiction is a slow process. It took me over 20 years of consistent meditation before I could comfortably sit every day and not run off or miss it at the first excuse. No matter what…a great phrase for me! Applies to everything we do here.
I woke up this morning singing: “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose…”; guess I was subconsciously thinking about writing this piece today. But I SO disagree with that line! I have freedom today because I let go of a lot of shit…I have much to lose…my freedom, my serenity, my peace, all of the things I have gained in recovery!
All it takes is one moment of listening to the raging crazy that lives in my brain…thinking all the time…trying to figure shit out that I am not qualified to figure out! Trust me, any good inventory will testify to my lack of qualification to figure shit out…and I am really, really smart! But the absolute truth of life is this: I will find ways to need to apply all twelve steps to anything created solely by ME!
If I don’t move out of the driver’s seat and on to the cushion, I am doomed! All around me, I see others who think they are supposed to know what their lives should look like, and I know how much I have tried to do that in the past; and I am so happy to know that isn’t what I am going to do today…I am open and peaceful and most of all, FREE!
It only happens when I let go of “knowing” shit…because everything I know was learned before this moment, and this moment, and this moment…meaning what I need to know in an hour is going to be brand new for me! Wow! Learning new stuff today…love it!
Dolphin Hug 