Divided, we fall. I’ve seen this firsthand. I’ve seen it in action from the
camp of the orcs after being captured and tied up as an easy meal. Complying momentarily while absorbing and gauging, planning silently, only to be let go amid chaos in the camp, escaping without the enemy’s notice. Because I remained confided in myself, and they were divided, I was surrendered unharmed, and they turned on one another.
Unified we stand. I have seen this in myself, again, firsthand. These concepts have reigned free without my notice until necessity offered me an opportunity to learn more and find sense in the way things play out internally and externally to me. When I see all of myself more clearly, without excuse or exception, I am more capable of comprehending others in the same unifying manner.
If I can manage to be compassionate with myself through the process that mentality bleeds into everything I do. Showing care toward the contents I hold that didn’t have an active say in the decisions I made with my reactive brain and not my thoughtful and imaginative mind, is, I would say a critical step to meeting deeper longlasting successes. Acting this way toward myself allows me to operate with the same compassion toward others.
[Before I go on it should be known, the enemy is inside me, it is in my shadow. I don’t see any one or anything as anything more than an extension of some characteristic I am meant to be aware of. Some facet that’s swinging to the far end of its pendulum, there is always a back swing. And just because it exists doesn’t mean life means for it to be a focus point in my life. Every experience is an opportunity to learn something new about myself and the nature of my surroundings. If I judge it’s because I’m judging myself. If I am judging myself, I will also be critical of my surroundings. This is not an advantage in most situations.]
Back to the orcs... Because I have been judged. I don’t want to be a judge. Because I don’t want to judge, I am open to expressions of life and death and everything between and surrounding teaching me more about myself and the vast spaces I can only toss tears of regret into, over my inability to comprehend the endlessness of in this single lifetime.
Because I want to learn, I appear harmless and open to being taught, my surroundings tend to adopt me with the same heartfelt interest I exude. Or, with the same contempt, I might secretly harbor for one reason or another. Always, I am the nucleus to how I perceive the world, and so am perceived. Which allows me to reflect on my part in the equation surrounding me.
“Be she dangerous? Or a harmless edible bunny?” *Orc scratches and tilts its head*
If you ask Monte Python, he might argue both and assure you, rabbits are, in some cases, deadly monstrosities in disguise as cute fluffy mammals known for their reproductive qualities.
In the end, I escaped the voices of my surroundings and their echoes internally, diving deep into the plea for sanctuary. Sinking inside myself for the quiet I desperately needed. It walked through the darkness I was floating through and extended a brilliant hand to ground me. It asked me to come down and see clearly. My feet touched the ground, my internal voice counseled me while I was breathing deeply, scrubbing a cabinet or something.
On the outside, I’ve found appearing harmless has served my greater purpose wonderfully. I am not lying because of my inner most intention, I am basically a roaming antidote. I hear a lot of things people wouldn’t tell anyone else and in the end we agree on the terrificness of the weight and how good it feels to release it to a benevolant stranger. We go our separate ways and I am allowed the opportunity to chew on it, and how I can relate and how I wish to move going forward.
Authentic social and internal exchanges allow me the ability to gauge my surroundings with more clarity. If I am guaranteed to get what I give, then I will give what I want to get, regardless of how it is received or disregarded. In the meantime, because I am open and receptive I tend toward listening, and in my mind, I can be of service to my surroundings without expecting any more or less than the exchange allows. Life brought me into union with this moment for a reason, to extend me a gift, which I receive and extend gratitude for while opporating under the impression I will soon or someday understand its greater meaning and offering.
If something takes me captive, I will maintain myself as best as I can, and observe as much as I am able. Like the orc camp, my strength is in patience and awareness. Awaiting the perfect opportunity with the intention of gaining my freedom and sovernty over the shadow reflecting from me. These traits can only be engaged while I am content and digesting, so to speak. So the trick is to convince myself that I am protected and taken care of regardless of the situation and it’s appearance.
This is where deep slow breaths and imagining myself on the outside of the situation staring back at it fondly over how I conducted myself through it and picturing myself walking away unscathed, only to return for sweet victory, with a deeper understanding of the current enemies tactics. Vanquishing the shadow to extend peacefully into a brand-new beginning.
Chinese philosophy captivates this concept beautifully when it offers its listeners and readers the opportunity not to learn this lesson the hard way in softly saying, when you are weak, appear to be strong. And when you are strong, appear weak.
It’s perfect! As a typical middle child, I’ve found underestimation can be an excellent tool for personal growth. It offers a unique opportunity to realize the true nature of the components in our shared environments.
Another great tool I’ve realized on my journey is listening and absorbing as if through a semipermeable membrane with the directive to drink in the light, nurturing, whatever is full or alive. On the other side, not to permit or allow what is dark, negative, unhelpful, unuseful to my personal growth as I pass through. This started as a defense mechanism, then a survival tactic, now it is a companion.
Learning to listen actively provides a cloak of invisibility when operated with care and well-tuned intentions until the art of being underestimated gracefully is stored away to muscle memory, allowing its utilizer to move to the next habit it desires to reflect and cultivate over a lifetime. It’s incredible how a little cultivation and attention can turn a mustard seed of intent into a massive bush full of branches and leaves and outlets to absorb life and nutrients through.
Sometimes thoughts like these swoop in when I go about my morning routine. It starts with cleaning, resetting, and soaking in my surroundings. While I go about my business, my mindset ebbs and flows in seasons, it seems. Sometimes I am excited to jump into writing and work toward the goal I set out to accomplish. Other times, it’s a mental battleground. Me against the clutter, a moment to put into order what is unorganized physically until I tune into the rhythm of cleaning my surroundings, mind, body, and spirit.
In seasons like these, cleaning, breaking, fixing, running, writing, exploring, researching are like therapy. It takes me back to a million sessions I’ve tapped into the same expression. Like a phone call between my higher self and me. My breathing deepens and becomes more rhythmic naturally. The negative energies that have manifested between sessions sluff away like the dirt and grim I am relieving the space around me of. It’s as if I’ve added dish soap and bubbles to the battle between oil and water. Shifted the tides to the side of godly, clean, and balanced.
The gunk clinging to my vessels’ insides starts to release. The matted junk disperses into the water until the debris sticking to the walls floats or sinks as it falls away. By making something outside myself appear at its best, I can imagine myself in a similar sense until I dump everything released through reflecting and scrubbing. I let it all out and rinse my vessel clean of everything, including the soap.
Other seasons still, these daily cleaning and restructuring sessions have felt like an outlet to blow off steam and get rid of what is messy or no longer serves me. Sifting it from my soil so I can better reach for the nutrients rushing through and toward me. While I am cleaning during these spurts, I feel like picking weeds all the time, not angrily, anymore, but as a matter of play, hide and seek and seeing the different usefulness in each.
I imagine standing above my garden and looking down at the state of it until I sense it with clarity. I do my best to anticipate the needs of each section and unique growing space. I learn to do my part and then follow my intuitions when they tell me to step back and allow the earth, the sun, and the storms to do what they do best.
I am learning to depend on the refined soil and elements and natural energies to lead, guide and nurture me into cultivating a sturdy, fruit-yielding garden. Even if that requires getting in close, with a magnifying glass in the early stages. Seeing what looks like imperfections can be painful, until it is seen through the lens of an outlet for improvement not a permanent void of some characteristic we crave deep enough to feel envy or jealousy over our perceived lack.
Now, I am poised and ready, on watch for infectious bacteria or parasitic insects that have plagued me in the past. Aware of the threat but enjoying the progression of this beautiful garden, until each seed becomes a plant, and each plant is capable of standing on its own without my constant guardianship.
The point of all of this is the best way to unify a divided camp is to clean it up. Improve the living conditions of each component showing up at our round table. We are full of systems that rely on our care and guidance. We rely on their silent cooperation to live a full life. Our minds are very comparable to a supercomputer. It takes directives and feeds them into commands. If we allow anxiousness, fear, anger, and other fight or flight mentalities to direct and guide our direction, the effect tends toward poor health on all levels.
When we feel stress, that feeling directly results from internal triggers firing outside of their standard usefulness. The catalyst, shallow breathing, racing heart, or intrusive thoughts, whatever the trigger, releases stress chemicals that tend to become chronically released in excess into our systems without their permission.
Since most of these systems can only perceive the chaotic cocktail they are being fed. Each goes into emergency modes that lead to various symptoms depending on the consumer it affects. Shortness of breath, tightness in the throat, jitteriness, social anxiety, internal turmoil, mental unrest, migraines, heart, and circulatory abnormalities…
I mean, those are just a few of the initial impacts. These are just, symptomatic and warnings that we need to take back the reigns and get back in sync. These primary symptoms don’t take into account the long-term consequences stress cultivates and eventual and inevitable breakdowns it paves the way into. In my mind, it’s equivalent to tossing a pail full of potato bugs into your potato patch while expecting the plants to grow to their fullest potential.
Find your cleaning, find that thing you can run into, and claim sanctuary inside of. Use this secret garden as a gauge for where you stand with yourself. Let this space be the thimble that pulls you back into reality, fully intact and with a proper and helpful perspective. Maybe for you, it will be a walk listening to something that feeds your heart and soul with components not currently in your environment.
Whatever you do, in these moments when you feel divided inside, or see division leaking into your life, take it back, room by room, mile by mile, song by song, cultivate your garden from the inside, be compassionate toward the areas that are lacking because they haven’t been fed properly. It isn’t any one thing or person or place or experience’s fault. It is an opportunity to be the physician and heal thyself.
It is our birthright to find unity and peace inside. Paint the pictures in your mind of what you want to see by listening to the success stories of others within your area of interest. Maybe it’s doodling or learning to turn the past time into a skill that can serve your life differently. Whatever you do in your time, do it because it speaks deeply with you, to you, and then through you.
My Affirmation of the DAY: I embrace life, unity, and peace inside myself. I radiate natural harmony and it is attracted to me from everywhere in my universe. I am one with my roots, I open my heart to the nutrients and life It desires to pour into me. I am fed by the source of everything. What a feast I have been invited to.
Your appreciation is appreciated.
Thank You! XOXO