Day Forty Seven

I rarely write my blog in the morning. It is usually at the end of the day. At the lake, though, there is time to think, something that I do not usually have at home. I had a restless sleep last night. From 4:30 until 7:30 it was off and on sleep.

Yesterday was both a good day and a frustrating day. It was good in the sense that we met with a new client. Also, Tyler and I had a chance to talk about what we wanted the men’s society to do and the structure we thought would be most effective. It was frustrating in three ways. First, Tyler and I had planned to get away early to the lake to write. Getting a new client was more important than writing in the AM, but it did throw the schedule for the weekend off. Second, Tyler is struggling with something which most likely has to do with his relationship with me. There was a tension in the air, but he was not interested in talking about it. It created a level of frustration in me. I realized in hindsight that I got hooked by his feelings in the same way that I have been hooked in the past. Third, Patty always hates to be by herself, which created some funkiness when we were leaving.

All of that I internalized last evening. I was tired in the first place from a busy week of work. That did not help. I found that it brought up anger in me. I was exhausted when I went to bed. In my fitful sleep this morning a couple of insights came to me.

First, I was allowing feelings and emotions in others to control me. It is one thing to recognize these feelings and emotions in others. It is another thing completely to let them control me. It is either tapping into my need to please others or something else, but the insight was a good one. I want to love and be able to empathize with others, but I do not want or need other people’s feelings and emotions controlling me. It was another layer of insight on the journey. This year of living intentionally has already reaped huge benefits. There will be many more to come.

When you are no longer afraid, you can look objectively at who you are and what is happening. You can choose to act rather than being hooked. That is a major point of fearless living – knowing that you can choose.

Second, a meditation discipline for the day emerged. I was laying in bed and three thoughts that came to me. The first was to bathe the day in love at the start of the day. It was less of a ritual act than it was an emotional start for the day. There will always be stuff during the day – problems, stresses, clutter. Bathing the day in love means centering and focusing myself on love and the power of love within me as the day gets started. When I thought of love the color blue came to my mind - a pale blue that then turned to white.

The second thought was a thought of action. If you have been reading these blogs you know that finishing things has been an issue with me for years. That has changed and the thought of action was important for positive movement. So, the thought was love that translates into action. Again, a color came to mind – green. I think maybe the green light symbolism was active. Whatever the reason, green was the color that popped into my mind.

The third thought was results - love that translates into action and accomplishes a positive result. Sometimes in the past I have focused on busyness rather than results. I have come to believe that busyness is action originating in fear rather than love. When the action originates in love is has sustainability. When action rooted in love sustains itself over time it will lead to positive results. I guess the idea of bathing was now active because the color gold immediately came to mind. Gold obviously is a multi-faceted symbolic color. Gold is a royal color, it is the symbol of financial wealth, and it is a highly valued substance. The mythology of the alchemist was that he could turn lead into gold. Bathing myself in gold is the result of love that translates into action consistently over time.

That is how the morning will begin in the days ahead - a physical bath and also an emotional, spiritual, and psychological bath to clean the soul and prepare it for the day with love, action, and results.