They say that hindsight is 2020. They also say that what we do not learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat. And as a yoga teacher I love recently said, “We need to wrap things up in order to unwrap their meaning.”

Here we are at the threshold of a New Year. One deeply imprinted by an arduous and demanding past year. How we navigate transitions is always important. But perhaps this year that truism is more relevant than ever? If that’s so, it bears spending some time “wrapping up” what has been, so that we can step forward wisely shaped by what we discover. Not an easy thing to do. Especially as we still find ourselves inside of the ripple effects of something so wide sweeping in its impact.

And yet, step forward we must.

Transitions can be many things. They can be smooth. And they can be perilous. They can be welcome or not. Known or unknown. Isolating or community building. Within our control and beyond our control. How then can we influence how it will go?

By remembering that Life comes and goes, ebbs and flows, and not by our design alone.

One of the things I have come to deeply appreciate and acknowledge in my own life are the ways in which the very worst of my life has built me into the woman I am today. Experiences that viewed now through the perspective of time, maturation, and a steady choice to accept more and more of what Life brings, has brought me to not just accept what I did not want, what I felt hurt me, what I felt should never have happened to me, but to the very powerful recognition of the absolute necessity of it All.

It has been nothing short of Grace to learn how to include it all. Taking me from a refusal, to a begrudging acceptance, to forgiveness, to a place where there is nothing to forgive. Because it was all, always, exactly as it was meant to be. That being, that “All things are equal under creation.” While it might seem utter madness to say that anything that happens is equal to anything else, it is for sure the way out of suffering. Of fighting. Of blaming. Of trying to control Life to show up on your terms.

With that said, if it were years from now, and you were in a place where you no longer felt overwhelmed, afraid, frustrated or anxious by what has been happening this past year, what would you know to be true? What learnings about yourself and how the world works have occurred that only could have happened through an experience this big? And this unwelcome.

And if it were true…If the painful was the same as the pleasurable. The difficult the same as the easy. The unwanted the same as the wanted. What gift could you unwrap for yourself by wrapping up any of the ways that you have refused what this past year has brought? What might you have received that you could not have gotten otherwise?

And what would it require of you to take that knowing into this next year?

We all know we are in a season identified in our culture as a time of giving. But what about receiving? For without this end of the equation, something that has been given cannot find a place to call home. It cannot land and be welcomed in. It cannot be expressed in any kind of a meaningful way.

It is interesting to note then how much emphasis gets placed on the one giving, along with what and how much is given. And then there is the built-in hierarchy where the giver gets the loftier position than that of the receiver. We focus on the generosity of the donor; the one who is doing for others. We even have award ceremonies where we single out, and celebrate the most generous among us. The message being; these are the truly gifted ones.

But there is no giving, no generosity possible without the receiving. Without the magnanimity of the one opening themselves up, often even submitting or surrendering, in order to receive. There is no generosity of the giver possible without the full and equal generosity of the receiver. So where are the award ceremonies for those of us who excel at receiving? No where to be found actually. Instead, those that are on the receiving side of the equation sometimes hold the undesirable position of being seen as “less than;” evoking pity, contempt, suspicion, superiority, and more.

To receive is to permit to enter. It is to take in. It is to welcome, to greet, to accept, and to serve as a receptacle for. When viewed from this perspective, receiving is a holy act. A sacred exchange that requires both sides. And this is true whether we are talking about our relationship with All That Is or what happens between us and other people in interactions large and small, visible and invisible, easy and difficult.

So how about it? What would it take for you to see the precious nature of receiving? More to the point, what could you start doing about that? Does it require a change of heart? Of identity? Of habit? Whatever it calls for, one thing is certain; for many of us, receiving can be far more difficult than giving will ever be.

Have you ever noticed the places where what we would say we are doing as a culture flies in the face of what is actually and truly happening? It often feels to me like the equivalent of The Emperor’s New Clothes. Do you know that story? The one where the Emperor, the “wise” ones, along with the masses are being misled into believing, or at least acting as though they believe, that the display they are bearing witness to is finery, when in fact it is an all out duping? More to the point, that what is being represented and sold as the finest imaginable is in fact, a lie? And how in the end, it takes the integrity and honesty, along with a lack of commitment to the status quo, of a child, to name the Truth? A kind of Truth, by the way, that every adult in that moment was capable of claiming?

An example of how this goes on regularly in our culture occurred recently while I was taking my husband to an eye appointment; the kind where you need someone else to drive you because your pupils have been dilated. This meant that I was the one driving him, which meant that I found myself moving through an area saturated with enormous building after enormous building of medical offices. Row after row of factories housing our “health”/disease care system. No more fully in evidence than when I passed what is named, “The Center for Cancer Care.”

The Center for Cancer Care?? Did I read that wrong? I must have because how could we possibly have created, gone on to fund, stand behind, and elevate to a position of being the gold standard, a center that cares for cancer?! Have we lost our minds?

Why is it not “The Center For Healing?” For Hope. For Human Care & Possibility. For Human Dignity. For Getting To The Root Cause of Disease. Why is it the cancer we are caring for? Does this focus leave us spending too many of our precious resources “caring” for cancer when in fact we should be caring for people? And is this why we have such a hard time eradicating it? Because we are pouring all of our resources into the wrong place, the wrong set of beliefs, the wrong set of approaches, and ultimately asking too many of the the wrong sets of questions because we are beginning with the wrong thing? Because we are beginning with what we are afraid of, instead of what we love? With what we want to eradicate instead of what we want to cultivate? Because we have not called it and defined it by its real name?

Here’s one for you. Does it strike you in any way odd that cancer has become such big business? And that for all of the billions and billions thrown at it, remains the disease that continues to thrive despite our best efforts? Is the war on cancer the best approach, or are we defining it in the wrong terms, ultimately taking us off course for a cure?

Maybe you find what I am saying naive, insulting or disrespectful. Maybe. “Of course we are not caring for cancer, we are caring for people,” many would say. Maybe. But the words being used tell another story. The words demonstrate an unavoidable truth; the focus is on cancer. The starting point is on cancer. On disease. On the problem. Not people. Not health. Not healing. Not the solution.

What we name things matters. The ability to call something by its true name matters. The real and true name serves as the starting point, after which everything else will follow. Therefore, if we do not get it right at the start, it will never be right. It follows then that it is essential that we recognize that the words we choose carry weight and tell a story; both obvious and hidden. Words reveal powerful meaning around how we really think about something; holding all of the intentions, beliefs, attitudes and motivations embedded within the words we use, along with the reasons we use them. But only if we are willing to pay attention.

While the West does not recognize the energetic and vibratory nature of language, traditions in the East do. Sanskrit for one, does. It recognizes that sound, words, are the most powerful medicine on the planet, and therefore are to be used with great care, respect, clarity and reverence. Even the Bible recognizes this; “In the beginning was the word…”

Look around. Where do you see things not being called by their true name? What would it take for you to be more intentional with the words you use? What would it take to bring more discernment around what you are accepting as truth? And where can you step beyond your comfort zone, the need to belong to the wrong thing, along with lifetimes of fears, to call out the culturally agreed upon falsehoods that we are calling our finest, all while elevating us to our very worst.

(Inspired by Vici. Thank you dear friend.)

I don’t know about you, but I often want to know exactly how things are going to turn out. I want some kind of a guarantee. I want a map. A good one. And I want assurances that I am on the right track. Something that says, “Here’s how to do it, and here’s how it will all turn out.” And P.S., you will be OK through it all.

This is all so very, very human. And so very, very short-sighted.

It is not a surprise that many of us would characterize the times we are living in as uncertain. Certainly, you can find lots and lots of support for this just by listening to the daily news. It might even feel as though we are living in perhaps the most uncertain times ever in the history of man. This leaves many of us terrified, stressed, angry, jaded and overwhelmed. And I think we might be hard-pressed to find too many people who would welcome, and even thrive on the uncertainty we are facing.

And yet, what if we could? What if what we need most right now is the ability, personally and collectively, to create through, and with, the uncertainty?

It puts me in mind of my daughter who called last June very upset because the house she was to be moving into in a matter of a few short weeks, had had an electrical fire. That meant that she would not be able to move in until September. At best. She was very distressed not knowing what was going to happen. Where she was going to live. What this meant for her summer plans. If the house would even be ready in the fall for when school started back.

At some point, however, she caught up to the situation, and began to embrace the reality that the certainty she had been counting on, was gone. The question then became, “what next?” Surprisingly enough, with uncertainty fully embraced, she set up an amazing experience for herself in the Northwest Territories of Canada where she lived in a yurt and met great people, all while interning for a farm whose mission it is to bring greater food awareness and security into a part of the world deficient in this. She learned a ton of new skills. She spent time in a magnificent landscape. And she grew.

Even better? Upon arriving home, not only was the house ready weeks before school started, but it had been rehabbed back into a far better condition than what she had signed up for. She described it as feeling like she had moved into a brand new place! Not only that, but she saved money as no rent was charged for several months.

Win. Win. Win.

But none of this would have happened if she had fallen into fear or despair over the uncertainty of her situation. And that’s the trick. Recognizing that when the unexpected strikes, if we can gather ourselves long enough to be open to an opportunity, something amazing might just be born out of the uncertainty. As crazy as it may seem when we find ourselves uncomfortable or afraid, this is what is available. Always. Believe it or not, it is available around political polarization, climate change, violence, job loss, illness, and any of the other personal and collective uncertainties we are facing.

This is not easy to see or to do. But the truth is, life is uncertain. Every second of every day. It’s just that we have gotten so used to a certain level of predictability and orderliness that we forget, that like any creature on the planet, we too are subject to the laws of chaos, change and uncertainty.

But what if we embraced this? What if instead of fear, despair, outrage and overwhelm, we chose to say “Yes” as quickly as we could, followed by, “What is possible here?” What if  seeing uncertainty not only as a hard and fast reality, but also as a highly creative partner, a kind of muse, became our new narrative? A force in Life not meant to tear us down, create defeat, pessimism and victimization, but instead an opening to possibility.

How then would you look at what is in front of you now? How then would you look at what is happening on the world stage?

Last weekend my husband and I ran a 5 mile road race. This is a distance that is right at the edge of my comfort zone. Add to that a grueling 1 mile uphill in the middle of the race that is steeper than anything I have ever run. So steep, as a matter of fact, that many, many runners walk it. And not just the slow ones!

I had come into the morning on the heels of a disastrous night’s sleep. You know the ones where you aren’t even sure whether or not you slept? Given this, I had no idea what to expect from myself. Therefore, I had to make some quick mental adjustments to give myself a chance to be with a day that I had been looking forward to in a way that would be supportive as opposed to degrading.

The first adjustment I made was to lower the bar; that meant finishing became my main goal. Right alongside that was the equally important goal of enjoying myself; of soaking up the support of the crowd; of leaning into the gratitude that I felt that I can still do this; of relishing the experience of being with one of my favorite people in the world, doing something we both enjoy.

All of this put me in the position of having a fabulous time. But more than that, it opened up something in me around the kind of person I want to be, and the kind of world I want to live in; including what it takes to do so.

I have to back up for a moment here and include that the night before the race, we had watched the Fred Roger’s documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor.” The loving world that Mr. Rogers created, championed and protected for children kept looping through my mind as I became the recipient of so many people, strangers, smiling at me, cheering me on, and wishing me well. Even though they had no idea who I was. I was gifted over and over again with incredible support. No strings attached. It felt as though I was deserving of it just because I was there. Just because I was me, doing what I was doing in the way I was doing it.

No need for me to be first. Or keep any pace. No need for me to look like anything other than I did. Or be doing anything other than what I was. It was incredible. And it was so easy to respond in kind.

At the end of the race, I started imagining what the world would be like if this was available for each and every one of us, every single day. What it would be like to make eye contact, smile at strangers, and wish them well. I realized that what made this possible was that there was a context. A structure. Something created that runners and spectators could step into that allowed for this level of open giving and receiving. We see this at other times. Maybe it is a wedding. Or a funeral. Maybe when a baby is born. Or someone is sick.

I realized that I am no longer willing for some external set of circumstances to dictate to me when and where this can happen. What if instead of me waiting for someone else, or for the events of Life to provide the context for a genuine and easy show of open-hearted-ness to others, I, myself, became the context? And what if that context traveled with me everywhere I went? No matter what the outer circumstances.

And if this seems silly or impossible, check it against this; “What really is the point of our lives here together?” Is it to compete? Be the best? Compare? Guard against? Get our share? Win? Alienate from? Keep others in their place?

Or is it something else?

I hear from my husband the latest news around the most recent mass killings. I am so very angry. So very tired of business as usual. So fed up with the ways that we as a people allow for, supply and even promote the most egregious and destructive of acts against our own kind. I am so done with the choices that we all continue to make that destroy and squander Life.

As hard as it is to bear witness to the atrocities that have grown far too common, what is even more difficult is getting our minds around the fact that none of the violence that occurs “out there” is separate from “in here.” Indeed, it is a startling enterprise to begin to even consider that what is outside of you, is inside of you. That this is not someone else’s problem or doing. That this is ours. All of ours.

It is easy, and oh so convenient, to think that “real” violence is something that you would never do. Something that only bad people, evil people, criminals, lunatics and the deranged perpetrate on the rest of us. Think again. There are many, many forms of violence that we all engage in daily. But because it does not result in immediate death, or look like an obvious and outward form of violence, we do not recognize it as such. But what if our definition was one that said that any thought, word, or action that devalued or harmed Life, any Life in any way, was indeed a form of violence?

How then might we view our daily habits of speech, thought and action? As in, the way our gossip tears other people down. As in, the self-criticism we engage in that harms and dismantles our own vitality. As in, the entitled and gratuitous spending choices that rip and strip the Earth of finite resources. As in, living a life of anesticization by numbing out our precious life force with whatever activity or substance we can get our hands on. As in, annihilating a stranger with our words, reducing them to nothing in our mind because they are not driving fast enough. Or behaving the way we think they should.

And just in case you believe I am only ranting at you, I am not. I include myself in this. I include all of us in this.

The “this” being, what it is that we are choosing. And I am not just talking about gun-laws. For as hard as this one has been to change, it is nothing compared to what it takes to live lives that are based on valuing Life. In all of its forms. On every level. Whether it is difficult or not. For the truth is, laws are ultimately a band-aid, and though desperately needed at this time and in certain circumstances, not nearly enough for addressing the root cause of what we are facing.

To understand this more deeply, let’s take this down into the personal. What needs to go in your life but that somehow you have refused, up to this point, to change? Where do you leap from one crisis to the next; engaging in just enough action to get back to the status quo ASAP? Reflecting and answering in such a way offers the possibility of understanding why it is that no traction ever occurs on a national level on the topic of gun violence.

For the hard truth is, the answers are personal in nature and found by looking at what is being slaughtered in your very own life, where nothing ever changes, despite the desperate cries for help. For truly, the only way to understand “out there,” is to understand “in here.” And if we could begin to do this, we would put ourselves in the powerful position of understanding something so thoroughly as to know exactly where the problem stemmed from, and then most importantly of all, know how to act with wisdom, clarity, purpose and compassion. Which by the way has nothing to do with “being soft on crime,” and everything to do with understanding a matter so deeply that the solution naturally presents itself to you, and therefore, to us.

Can you see what we are up against? Why it is so hard, impossible even, to do things collectively that we cannot do individually? How difficult what it is that I am suggesting? For if we cannot do this within ourselves, how will we change the collective experience? It would be so much easier to believe that gun control is the total answer, or that more surveillance would solve what we are up against. That more rules and more paranoia and suspicion are what is called for. That these approaches and emotional states will be what saves us. But none of this will ever be effective at the level we require. Why? Because it is not addressing the root cause. In other words, why settle for catching the shooter, after the damage has already been done, when we could work to develop a world where there was no need for anyone to become a shooter?

But to do this would require far more effort than choosing fear, blame and a kind of armoring up; calling instead for a high degree of personal responsibility and social accountability. Despite the arduous nature of this course of action, the reward would be great. Monumental and far-reaching. For our attempts and our solutions would be coming from a place of Truth; putting us in the exquisite and Life-affirming position of knowing what is truly called for as we step forward. In short, we quite literally become the solution. This as opposed to looking for one, or expecting others to find one for us.

I understand you may find me naive. Maybe even dangerous in proposing such far-out, “impossible” and idealistic ideas. And perhaps you would be right on certain levels, and from certain perspectives. Maybe. But I will tell you this: People who value their own life and the lives of those around them do not make these kinds of choices. Do not need to be legislated and protected against. That right there is the Truth. As for the rest of it, well…you decide.

For if we know anything about our nature, we know that it can be far easier to be distracted by the wrong things than to do the hard work that the right things require. That it can be so much easier to imagine things out there coming at us, and doing to us versus knowing that we are at cause in our own lives. This is risky for many of us to consider because there are no guarantees. And perhaps because most of all, what we are talking about is such an enormous evolutionary leap to find within ourselves that it would require putting down a whole bunch about who and what we believe ourselves to be, and how it is that we “must” live.

The bottom line is this: Our lives are far more valuable than we are making them out to be. All you need to do is to look around to see how we treat children, people different than us, the species of the Earth. All you need to do is to look at the dehumanizing medical, political  and educational systems that we claim to be the finest on Earth, and yet daily ignore the real needs of the people moving through those institutions, and who it is they are meant to serve.

Something like this cannot merely be spoken of, but must be lived; day in and day out. It is a process, and never about doing it right, and always about the intention that lives behind why you do, what you do. This is not easy to accomplish in the times we are living in where there are so many shows to be watched, so many people to follow, so many drinks to be had, edibles to be consumed, worries to foster, and grievances to be fed. Lest you believe I am demonizing these things, I am not. I am merely, and strongly, pointing out that they are not the source of sustenance with which to feed, value and source a Life.

My practical response to this? I for one will be waging an all out inner campaign against violence. It began on the day of hearing the news when I chose to take a walk to clean up trash that others had dumped instead of sitting at home stewing. It will continue with as many ways as I can imagine to gather people together in the service of what is uplifting and essential. Most of all, I am pledging an all out campaign on any and all life-negating and critical thoughts that I harbor against myself and other.

Too simplistic? Too unrelated to the topic at hand? Maybe. But what if it were true?? What if when enough of us make a choice to honor and value Life in all of its forms, we will weave together a world where honoring Life is the beginning, middle and end of literally every single thing we do, speak, think and pray for? Both individually and collectively.

I’m in. How about you?

I have hung laundry on a morning where the skies are split between a baby blue and a steely grey. Sun? Rain? Even though it looks like I only have a 50/50 chance of the clothes successfully drying, I keep going because this is the day I have decided to do laundry.

Right from the start, I can feel myself falling into a familiar inner struggle; a kind of attempt to muscle something through that I have absolutely no dominion over. I feel it in the way my jaw tightens. I notice it in the way my eyes keep searching the sky. I experience it through the repetitive thoughts I keep having. Somewhere inside, it feels as if my obsessive attention will turn the sun on, and the clouds off. Almost as if my personal efforts will turn the weather in favor of what I want. As if.

I find myself thinking, “It’s not too much to ask to get just a little more time before the rain.” A feeling that I really need this to turn out a particular way, maybe even deserve it to, based on the extra effort I will have to make to take it all down, and still need to dry it. Based, really, on because this is how I want the day to go. It is as if I am trying to force something to happen. That the tightening against what I don’t want will make it turn out the way I want it to. As if I can somehow bargain with something that is clearly beyond my sphere of authority.

I know this might sound like no big deal, silly even. And I might even agree with you were it not for the fact that this one seemingly no-big-deal moment serves as a reflection of the ways in which I attempt to control what is most assuredly beyond my control. Where, when and how I want to manage Life to go a certain way. All of the inner bargaining, justifying, and tension that mounts as I live the fantasy that I have power over what I do not.

And there you have it. How often it is that we spend our precious life force, our sense of ease and well-being, along with our ability to be aligned with reality, on exerting ourselves not only unnecessarily, but without a chance in hell of ever achieving what it is that we are trying to make happen. And even when we do have moments that leave us believing that all of our forcing has gotten us what we want and need, at what cost has this occurred? How much painful delusion do we continue to generate in the process?

Of course we all want life to go as we want it to go. That is only human. The real trick though is cultivating the discernment between that which you can effect, and that which you cannot. Between efforts well spent, and those that are ill-conceived. Between attempts that nourish, enliven and uplift from those that harm, deaden, and are based in unreality.

When contemplating something of this magnitude, it helps to start simple; as in with something that feels like a low stakes situation to you. A place where you can experiment with learning the difference between what you have control over, and what you don’t. Weather is a good one. So is traffic. More challenging are things like what other people do. And while the intellect may rise up and say “Of course I know I can’t control weather, traffic, or other people,” that is often not how we really feel, way down deep. Never mind act.

What this means is, we need to look beyond the rational mind. It means looking to where you find yourself exerting effort that is out of keeping with the reality of the situation; no matter what the mind might be saying. One way to do this is to notice when you find yourself working really hard to try and make something happen. And if you can catch yourself in any given moment, you might try asking, “Is there anything that I can actually do about this?” Or, “Is there anything required of me here?”

As hard as it can be to have the presence to even know to ask this question, the next piece is even more challenging. That being, the letting go. That being, that when you discover it is beyond you, can you stop the wrestling? Can you calm the endless what-if’s? Can you release the non-productive, fruitless and delusional efforting? And when you can’t, can you watch yourself with kindness as you struggle like a fish on a hook?

All of this takes practice. A commitment to see things as they are. Along with the patience that is required to allow for something new to take hold.

In case you are wondering, once I put the weather struggle down and went on with my day, it was effortless to respond when the rains finally came. In the meantime, I had a wonderful tension-free morning reading, doing chores, writing, and picking raspberries.

Traveling around in the world of yoga, it is not uncommon to hear regular talk of compassion. Most often it is spoken of as an orientation to self and other based on love, understanding, empathy, acceptance and forgiveness. Or maybe as the heartfelt desire to relieve suffering in the world. These are all good, noble and important aspirations. As a matter of fact, we might be hard pressed to find many who would disagree with such an exalted approach to Life.

And yet, there can be serious downsides to this. It might come in the form of believing that compassion is something you do to yourself or another. It might show up as the inadequacy that registers in your mind or the minds of others when your displays of compassion do not look or feel like they “are supposed to,“ because they do not line up with some external definition of such. It might come in the form of using compassion as a way to keep others close and beholden to you; a kind of indebtedness. Or it might show up as an insidious way of managing or controlling other’s views of you; as in, because you are “a compassionate person,” you are somehow above reproach. These downsides range from the incomplete to the manipulative to the dangerous.

When looked at from this perspective, compassion is actually a very, very edgy place. A place that requires a lot of personal integrity and responsibility. A place that demands an accounting of your actions and most importantly, your underlying motivations; a honed focus on “the why” of what you do, versus “the what” of what you do.

There are many who would argue that we are born innately and naturally compassionate, and that the ways of the world take this natural inclination and distort it. Squash it. Squander it. And that when given half a chance, along with the right circumstances, this is the state that not only do we long to return to, but would gladly get to of our own accord. If this makes any sense to you, then it only  stands to reason that a return to an inborn compassion that has been covered up or somehow misconstrued requires a kind of ferocity. A particular type of discernment that is keen enough, sharp enough, and edgy enough to cut through all of what has been overlaid and woven onto and into this native and life-giving inclination.

Compassion is not a coat to be donned. It is not a way to fit in, or ingratiate yourself. Nor is it a sugary sweet that you dispense. Instead, it is an inherited, powerful, magnetic and raw force to be reckoned with. One that requires accountability and a kind of ongoing nurturance. One that has nothing to do with how it looks from the outside. One that is only truly resonant when the intentions and the motivations of the one offering the compassion have been married up to a rigorous kind of personal integrity.

My yoga teacher once spoke on the compassion that arises organically as opposed to the one that we feel like we are supposed to be with ourselves or show to others. He taught that the organic type originates naturally from within when the body is free of tension, the heart safe and at ease, and the mind clear. Looked at in this way, compassion has absolutely everything to do with the state of the giver, and is the first and most important condition to be met. Ever.

Alive: Having life: Not dead or inanimate.

Many years ago I attended a yoga conference where the theme was living fully alive. Some part of me was intrigued. And some part of me just did not get it. As in, obviously I am alive. Otherwise I would not be here. Therefore, what’s all the fuss about? Why focus an entire conference of multi-day workshops and keynotes around this obvious and undeniable reality?

I’ll tell you why. Because it is one thing for the body to have a pulse, and quite another to live an experience of being fully alive. Fully expressed. It’s so strange, really. Everything that comes into existence on the planet, whether a dandelion, baby animals, insects or trees, all come in bursting with life. Fully programmed to live, without exception, as completely as they can, the full potential of whatever they are. Knowing nothing other than this, until they no longer exist.

We humans are the only ones, in all of existence, who can be alive on paper, while not being meaningfully alive in a truly vital and authentic way. We see this in how we don’t speak up when everything in us is screaming to. We see this in the way we stay when it is really time to go. We see this in the way we take on the feelings, dysfunctions and responsibilities of others. We see this in all of the big and small ways that we diminish ourselves each and every day by the thoughts we harbor about ourselves.And we see this in all of the ways that we lie to ourselves and to others about who we really are; accepting and imposing false and imprisoning expectations around who we get to be.

Lately, it occurs to me that being born, truly the first choice around me being alive, did not require a conscious, active agreement on my part. But that now, it does. A pact that I, in fact, need to make with awareness moment by moment around how it is that I will show up in my life. A compact between me and Life itself that must transcend the past, with its deadening load of conditioning, pain, constrictions and limitations on my aliveness. A contract that I make with myself that must bypass and ignore what other people think, feel and believe about how I should live; about how alive I get to be. An absolute and stalwart understanding from within me that must rise above the zombie apocalypse I witness each and every day as more and more of us choose screen life, busyness, stress, numbing out, checking out, over-scheduling, fear and more over true aliveness.

Think about it for a moment. Look at all of the ways there are to medicate ourselves against the experience of being alive through food, alcohol, drugs, devices and more that deaden us to the experience of being fully alive.

I so want this for myself. I so want this for all of us. And yet, I also see what we are up against. Where are our role models? Where are the societal structures that offer the support we need to live in bodies energized, minds illumined and spirits soaring? Unfortunately, what we are up against all too often are the false highs provided by external substances and things like shopping or watching something titillating on a screen. But where are the genuine, natural and healthful outlets for an organic experience of aliveness? One that arises purely out of you being here. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Check it out for yourself. If you really chose to be alive, what would that look like for you? Would you settle for food that dulled you out? Would you acquiesce to keeping company with those that brought you down? Would acquiring things serve as the highest use of your precious time? And while we all know how to overstimulate ourselves, do you even know the down deep feeling of being animated and full of life, just because?

If you have no clue about what I am talking about, or even where or how to begin, start with what feels like a restriction, a bind, a shackle, an imposition. And then, as Bob Marley did, give yourself the instruction; “Open your eyes and look within, are you satisfied with the life your living? And if not, could you be courageous enough and alive enough to choose for that which animates and enlivens? Could you throw off that which deadens? As easily as a tree letting go of a diseased limb.

If you asked most people, they might tell you that besides finances, time is what they lack. They might even go on to tell you that making time for what matters most to them is hard, and sometimes even, impossible work. Embedded in this belief is that time is something that you don’t deserve more of, comes to you by magic, by the good grace of another, or when all of the circumstances of your life finally line up to offer you a slot of what you most need more of.

But the truth is, creating time for what you most value will never just fall into your lap. It is something you intend, commit to, and perhaps most of all, protect. And it is an ongoing, day to day process where over and over again you intend, recommit, and continue to protect what is most precious to you.

Not long ago I ran a workshop on self-care where my co-facilitator marketed the offering on Facebook. In total, she got 45 hits saying people were interested. Do you know how many of those people carved out a day to take care of themselves? Zero.

It requires absolutely nothing of us to say that we want something. To say that we wish we had the time to do such and such. On the other hand, it takes everything in us to make the decision to carve out the time to do what needs to be done. To get to the something we absolutely need or find valuable.

This is not easy to do given how many things so many of us have committed to. We live in times where the very real challenge of choice, with its seemingly infinite array of options and obligations, leaves far too many of us frazzled, burdened, and out of time for what we really want and need. It gets even more complicated when we add in that we could likely justify much of what takes up our time as something that we see as “good” or “necessary.”

But is it actually true?* Is it actually true that we need to be filling our days as we do? Is it actually true that all of the things we do to fill our time are either good for us, or even necessary? To answer these questions with any kind of clarity requires that we get beneath why it is that we so often give away our precious time. And we all do it for any number of reasons. Fear. Guilt. Obligation. Insecurity. Stuck in a role. Wanting to be valued, seen and included. The list goes on.

What’s yours?

Try this. The next time you are about to commit to yet another occupation of your precious time, ask yourself two essential questions. One, “Why am I really, really choosing this right now? Two, Is this how I want to be spending my time? And then, listen deeply. Asking in this way will likely bring to the surface some hard and difficult feelings to be with. Like annoyance, or a sense of being put upon, or a worry about what would happen if you stop. Not to worry. Feelings will pass. As does time.

*Borrowed from Byron Katie and her Inquiry Work.