I am listening to yet another old David Whyte tape, once again its name rubbed away from years and years of listenings. In this one he is talking a lot about courage—the courage to even step out your front door. He refers to courage as the amount of heart you have in your life. He says creation is waiting breathlessly for each of us to take our place in it—that every one of us has something specific to give—that our destiny is to belong in only the way we can.
Whyte invites us to, “…step into the darkness, into the silence of your interior, into a place where you don’t quite know how the world is made anymore,” saying there’s a healing nature to not knowing where you are.
He suggests that we let the world come and find us and that it will always find someone much larger than the person who began the journey. He poses this question: “How do I grant life to my life?” And that is such a good question, isn’t it? How do I grant life to my life?
So many of us are held back from decades of conditioning. We live within systems we’ve constructed to give us a sense of safety. We instinctively protect ourselves from what we fear, often not even understanding what’s underlying those fears. And these very protections can deny life to our lives.
Whyte presents a possible antidote: to allow ourselves to live wholeheartedly, from an essential core of wholeheartedness; to come from courage, to come from heart. What would it mean to live this way? How many of us do, really, live full out, holding nothing back, springing from desire and hope and love and belief? How many of us dive into life completely, unabashedly? Most of us understand there is great risk in doing so. And we seem to instinctively know it can be quite lonely out there in that place of believing, because not many are willing to meet us there. And it is not something that can be forced. We most often must go there alone.
I wish it for us all.
Love to you all,
Jeane
I love to listen to him:) I recall this sentiment orated by him myself (on a mp3 from the library loaded to my phone) recently…he repeats the important phrases a couple of times so we will possibly let it sink in…again nothing like hearing an author read their own work.
I also read a book/watched a DVD, by Donna Eden (I forget if I have asked you – have you read her work/) in which she explains her theory (based on Chinese elements) of people having a underlying season that they live by…or a few bits and pieces from a number of seasons. Summer being shown by living full out on fire with expansion at every moment. This heat gets to be balanced by awareness of the fire being a possible burning out of life energies as well, and the need for mindfulness as a partner to the summer elements constant warm activity and expansion.
She has allot of very effective Chinese (they dove tail with my Qigong practice -based on meridians – as in acupuncture) influenced tapping of meridian points etc that aid in balancing by stimulating our own bodies. Tapping or thumping the Thymus in the middle of the chest to wake up the immune system and many many easy(and easy to recall once aware of them) practices to aid the balancing of our body in what ever phase of energy expansion or otherwise we are in.
I do a specific Yi Ren Heart/Small Intestine Qigong exercise daily to balance my digestion when it is out of said balance…and I enjoy the immediate influence of Donna’s set of tapping exercises for things such as enlivening the mind/body at when ever ones groggy mid afternoon time hits etc:) I have to say both work wonders. Especially the Qigong on a dailly basis for energy, balance and peace of mind. I have an acupuncturist that is working with me on what seems to be my Spring tendencies to have many ideas and less driving it home no matter what follow through lol…which means awakening the motion giving aspect of the liver to move me into and through those said ideas…I LOVE IT. Its all fun:)And of course its all perfect in its own time…with age I find a mix of peace with who I am being in the moment, and a rising up of creative energy willing itself into being SOMETHING. lol. I recall patterns still in my cells from the days of working excessively asking me for the balance over immediate proof of solid expressions of creativity. I am working with my body on this lol…excess energy rising has a tendency if unchecked to send me into old patterns that this 30 years beyond their conception body does not bounce back from quite the same lol. Back then it just wore down my body unbeknownst to me, now I hear its warnings.
I haven’t read Donna Eden, but I have done a lot of energy work with different practitioners. I have a list of tapping exercises designed to support all kinds of things–amazing stuff. So glad you are loving Qigong. You are a powerful, gentle, searching, spirit and I can see how this is perfect for sustaining, balancing, inspiring and supporting you.