Finding a Way Out

How much energy and effort is expended on finding a way out of a situation or set of conditions? A lot. I am guilty of this in my personal life. Only recently have I been brave and calm enough to look at this and to gain insight. It was reflected back at me at work last week. I found my colleagues over complicating situations by trying to negotiate their way out of following procedures. Sometimes I agreed with their logic and yet there is a procedure in place. Sometimes I disagreed with their short term thinking and there is a procedure in place to support and enforce the action. And yet, we were having these conversations. To be honest, most of them felt energetically draining and a waste of our precious time. I engaged in all of these conversations and set clear boundaries when I was not being heard and when the procedure genuinely mandated that the action be taken as defined. We moved forward, together.

There’s a podcast from Michael Stone’s Awake in the World in which he suggests that we need to parent our mind, we need to set boundaries. My mind is incredibly clever at finding ways out of being with what is uncomfortable. Oh, so clever! Planning, eating, drinking and sleeping, among other ways out. The planning seems to fall flat, because hardly anything goes according to plan and yet being prepared is still a valuable skill. I suppose it is a “both-and” with that one. When we catch the mind planning as a way to get out, we can set a boundary: stop. I think this is the path into not knowing and opening to creative action that can only arise in the moment and in no other moment. It’s the oops. It’s the surprise. It’s the “where did that come from” moment. It’s magic!

After being in these practices for nearly 16 years, I am beginning to more clearly see the moments when the negotiating of “if this, then maybe that” occur as ways to get out of the mess, the difficulty, the discomfort. An ex-boyfriend turned friend as of Saturday night, offered insight from a book he recently read - the messy moments allow for spirit to come through. Substitute spirit with your preferred “pronoun”. Whatever it is that gets you through, shows up in the mess. Finding a way out means you miss out on spirit. Stay open.