I feel like every one of us is searching for certainty in life.
Often, when we sit in relation to uncertainty, to the flow of life, that we can gather and discern information.
The intellect loves certainty so we spend a lot of our life making up stories and therefore meaning from life. This is necessary. This is beautiful.
This can also push us into a space where we’re not seeing what’s truly happening. We get into a intellect based feedback loop. We start controlling the story.
We can switch this up, so our intellect is taking in influence from all around us.
Think of it like a river.
The spring is not the only source, the river gathers water from all around it, all throughout it’s journey, to the sea.
The hills run off, the clouds gather and rain, there are confluences from other rivers.
Then the river gives itself up to the sea.
That’s a death that serves the greater cycle of the water cycle.
You’ll never step in the same river twice.
It looks the same, but it is never the same.
Think of it like all water is hungry to return to the sea.
The hunger is to stream, to move, to pulse.
We are much like this also.
Stagnation is very rarely comfortable to us. Sometimes necessary, but not often comfortable.
So our output can be something we just give without expectation; as long as we’re not intentionally harming, or saying something we don’t fully believe in. Those two things will break our internal trust.
Lots of life includes things we don’t fully understand, being able to dance with that is the true path to mastery.
Every great explorer dances between unknown, and known, paths. They glean from their environment. They listen, and not just to the human signs.
Growing as a person, needs exploration.
Between the certainty of the intellect, the certainty of the intuition, the certainty of the sensory world; the gut, the heart, the mind, the crown, and the uncertainty of a life that can hit us with the biggest shock out of nowhere.
Suddenly they’re gone. They don’t like that thing anymore. The house will have to be sold.
We can think we are on the right path, and I would caution anyone who is fully in that space.
Unless, you are surrendered to your higher power, and are allowing life’s gifts to move through you, and are staying humble to the information.
I notice the irony of blogging this in this manner, but all I can do is point at the moon, as they say.
We forget that there are forces acting upon us from life, as well.
We forget that each of us is inside of their own ancestral patterns of behaviour.
We forget that we are all reacting to all of this complexity, and we forget that we are all trying to respond in the best possible way.
Each relationship has an energetic path.
Based on each person’s life path, how they interact, and the timing of their life. Based on the “we space” of the relational field, and how that all intermingles in the mycelial-like relational patterns.
We may have some judgements about the people around us:
“He should be more like this..”
“I need these things, they need to provide them..”
“She needs to be this way..”
“I need to be this way to fit in, to be loved..”
The paradox being that the more we force a story onto another, the less of an opportunity they’ll have to step into that story.
There needs to be a space for them to step into, after all.
Even if they want to change, or step into that story.
I love the plant metaphor for human growth, because, generally speaking, we are may more fragile than we give each other credit for.
The way to nurture someone is to water their inherent essence.
To nurture the shoots of new growth, gently, patiently, lovingly.
Also, the best way to parent. Hold safe containers for growth. Let them know they are seen, appreciated and loved; that they belong to life because of the very reason that they are here, on Earth, living.
Allow them to express themselves authentically; explore their environment and take those next developmental steps intentionally. Children will always show you what they want to develop next. My son pointed to this with his body language, way before he had words. I want to learn how to dig with the trowel in the garden. O.K., let’s do that. I’m there to think of safety and environment, and to celebrate his growth and being. He’s there to learn the world.
We are much like this in spirit as adults too, with the aside that it becomes our responsibility to own our own safety, within reason. To make choices of who we surround ourselves with and to be calm and kind with boundaries.
The rigours of life can be challenging, those boundaries are great.
A simple and quick: “Hey I’d love to be with you, but I can’t right now. How about later at [suggest a time within 24 hours]?”
To learn safe ways of relating.
To what feels good to your partner, as well as to you.
Flourishing happens when conditions are right.
What those conditions are depends on the criteria.
Conditions for a developmental shift in your life and being, are very different from the conditions of setting up a new business, are different to learning how to build a new environment where two people can connect at the weekend. Even doing up a house! A great and really honest container.
To be with another person, truly, and deeply, in their experience of life is connection, it is life. That is the gold.
When we can be in connection with each other, we can revel in the timings of life, the convergence of environmental factors, the wonder of how it all came together just right, or the despair of just missing out, or the disappointment of a failure.
It’s all a full body yes.
Self doubts are processed. Fear is processed. Not gone. Not disallowed.
Courage is found and support is given to step into something new, or even to continue with something hard, that is leading somewhere needed.
Each of us are on our own individual journey in life, the Western culture acknowledges and celebrates that, and we are all interconnected with each other, the wider humanity and the world, even the cosmos!
We can hold that lightly, because the weight of that can be too much, and it’s true,
People flourish when the time is right for them.
Don’t neglect them before that, be with them in their journey. Hold each other’s hand. Walk each other home.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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Photo credit: AARN GIRI on Unsplash