Enough is Always Enough

For years I have been fueled by anger and a drive to achieve, two opposing forces born of hatred - hatred for the world and hatred for the self. I have hated the cruelty of the world since I was a child, carrying the ancestral memories and personal experiences of pain and humiliation, the murders, violations, and genocides experienced by my various communities and by so many others. Along with this hatred of the world, I had a parallel hatred of myself. My life-long drive to achieve is a byproduct of my attempts to flee self-judgment through external praise. Alongside this deep hatred, I also have a deep well of love. I feel compassion toward all living things, springing from the love I receive from others, from the source of life itself, and from some mysterious depths of my soul. This volatile mixture of deep hatred and deep love is a powerful force, yet largely chaotic, unfocused, and agitated. This hate-love fuel has simultaneously nourished and drained me, keeping the simple feelings of satisfaction, relaxation, presence, and comfort in my own skin forever out of reach. No matter what impact I have in the world, no matter what changes I make in myself, it is never enough when I am partially fueled by hatred. Even when mixed with Love, this fuel is never as powerful, meaningful, or transformative as it could be.

A series of recent experiences have reminded me that nothing will ever be enough, until "What Is" is already enough. As an over-achiever, each achievement falls into a black hole inside me, a hole that can never be filled through external rewards, as I have tried to do in so many ways. Only the infinite power of Unconditional Love can fill the black holes inside me. This means facing What Is, accepting What Is, embracing What Is, and loving What Is. This means accepting my largeness, my smallness, and my average-ness too! Love is the fuel I crave, the abundant, joyous, compassionate, accepting, patient, eternal energy of Love. Unconditional Love requires no achievement, no pursuit of perfection, no control or repression. Unconditional Love is always enough, always more than enough. Just as our society is (hopefully) going through a process of transformation to eventually run entirely off of "clean energy", my personal source of energy needs transforming as well, to the infinitely abundant the energy of love.

Divine Flow

Growth by FinchFight  

This week has presented many lessons in being open to the divine flow of each day, of each present moment. I am an incredibly structured, planned, logistics-centered person, while also being extremely intuitive, flexible, and adaptive. These opposing personality traits create a dynamic tension, which can be both energizing and exhausting. This year, the year of integration, is proving to be a lesson in combining, reimagining, assessing, and adjusting these tendencies as I evaluate what works for me, and what I am ready to shed. In some ways, my attention to planning and logistics is central to all of my activist projects, artistic pursuits, and lifestyle design. On the other hand, becoming too rigid and inflexible in adjusting these plans can hold me back from experiencing the incredibly powerful presence of intuitive knowledge, the knowledge of where to be now or what to do now. When I schedule nearly every minute of my life, there is little room for the flow of synchronicity, coincidence, and magic to occur.

As I strive to come back into a balance between structure and flow, I am committing to attention, to silence, to reverence for the infinite organic living system of which I am a small part. So I have decided to purposefully develop my intuition in order to strengthen my capabilities in this area. This involves becoming much more in tune with my body, in order to use the incredible processing capabilities of my enteric brain to gather and analyze data that my cranial brain is not able to see or assess. Whether scientific explanations suit you or not, I believe that anyone can develop their intuitive capabilities and become more aware of their energetic response to various situations. I aim to consciously respond to every present moment, rather than reacting automatically or from a place of fear. As I evaluate my experiences, I can see that when I am in a place of deep presence and full body awareness, I have made some of the most creative, exciting, impactful decisions of my life. The goal for me is to let go of the need to control situations, the need to control time, the need to control outcomes. Only by letting go of my small control can I be fully responsive to each present moment in order to gently steer myself through the flow of life.

The Beginning... of Rebirth

Frozen ruts on Hobb's Lane
© Copyright Evelyn Simak and licensed for reuse

It has been five weeks since my 30th birthday, which marked the end of Phase 1 of rewiring my brain. Since then I've been reflecting on the process of reconnecting my heart, body, mind, and soul, and the changes I have experienced thus far. Mostly I feel better able to communicate and connect with others, more committed to my dreams and goals, and more accepting of my experience of the world. The first 90 days of rewiring my brain was extremely intensive and focused. This allowed me to create new habits and learn to use new tools. It also created a noticeable impact, which helps motivate me to go further on this journey.

I am creating new neural pathways by consciously having thoughts I want to have, by creating new associations for old thoughts, by giving the attention necessary to heal old wounds properly, and by going toward my fears to face them directly. As I picture my brain and the neural pathways I have been consciously adjusting, I can see myself driving down a dirt road, with deep ruts where the cars drive. Normally, I drive in the neural ruts because it's easier, because the wheels are always drifting into them. I picture myself purposefully smoothing out the road by driving on the other parts of it to create new pathways. The three months of daily practice helped me develop new routines and strategies, and established a baseline of care, connection, and health. Now that I have this in place, I feel ready to go deeper into connecting to my heart and soul. Based on the most effective facets of Phase 1, I developed Phase 2, which will be a nine month period of deeper but less time-intensive rewiring. This includes weekly blog posts and conscious conversations, daily mindfulness practices, and exercise, among other things. I look forward to sharing this process with you as we continue along our journeys of life.