I don’t buy books the way I used to. These days I just pull a treasured one from the shelf and begin to read it again, opening here and there…. having permission to not start at the beginning.
Today I opened to the passage titled - Beyond The Urgency – perfect of course, because there is a part of me that is always feeling an urgency
to do,
to speak,
to correct,
to fix myself or someone else,
to worry,
to decide,
to know,
to do….did I type ‘to do’ twice…. such is this part of my human self.
We have so many parts to our human being self….
Of course –
and this is the magic and mystery of being human – so many shades and hues and experiences to have and explore.
This is what I'd like to share from his book with you.
Mark Nepo writes:
“I learned this over and over, during the many crisis of cancer.
Unless someone is bleeding or can’t breathe, unless there is some true physical requirement to act swiftly, a sense of urgency is a terrible illusion, a trick that happens again and again, because life inside our skin and life outside our skin are forever different.
It is as hard as it is humbling. When feeling like I can’t sit still, I need more than ever to sit still. When feeling like I will die if I don’t have your approval, I need more than ever to die to my need for your approval…..
Now more than ever when you fear that being who you are is a knife to those you love, you must be strong inside where no one has seen you, for loving from there can only make those you love grow…..
In this way pray to know your place in the human family like you’ve never known it.
In this way, pray to have your True Self inch through the turmoil….
Love yourself the way you love your children or your dog or your dearest friend without reservation.
In this way, today with all its hardships will spill into tomorrow, and decisions will become as clear as streams thawing.”
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I cherish my newly emerging ability to wait till I am clear, to pause until the clouds pass and I can feel with more certainty and see what is mine to do next. Sometimes I can do this pausing and waiting …. and sometimes I still react too quickly out of habit.
And BOTH of these ways of responding to life are me
the one who feels this sense of urgency and must act in some way
and the one who can pause and breathe, trust and allow life to reveal and
show me... in its time and way,
The Beloved AND The Beloved
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